Essay Instructions: Please note: you have the freedom to choose any one of the following texts to write this paper on (it MUST be one of following, so please don't pick a text you don't see here):
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market (Dover)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford)
T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Wilfred Owen, World War I British Poets (Dover)
- “Dulce et decorum est,” OR “Arms and the Boy”
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Harcourt, Brace)
Here is the paper criteria [PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!]:
(1)Topic.
The topic of this paper can be on anything that springs from, or helps illuminate, the text being explored. It must be very, very focused. Initially, you may just want to choose a short, off-beat passage from the text and make that passage’s subject your topic. Ask yourself: Is my topic very specifically focused? Is it original, unique? A sharp topic is the first & most basic requirement for this paper.
(2)Close-reading.
Ask yourself: Am I close-reading? How illuminating is my analysis? Does my close reading of the text simply repeat the basic meaning of the quotation or detail?
-A close reading analysis is NOT a summary, so please do NOT summarize the text or the passage you are close-reading at any point in this paper; assume that the reader of your paper has already read the text and knows what it is about.
-Your close reading should always push interestingly beyond the obvious. It should work toward anatomizing your text.
-A GREAT CLOSE-READING PAPER SHOULD provide illuminating, provocative , and careful analyses of textual specifics. This paper should be so good that you can imagine teaching your particular reading of the specific detail or quotation to others. It should shed light on how the text works.
(3) Argument.
Your paper should pull together its close readings into some kind of argued point? This point should provide a new way of reading the text or thinking about the paper’s topic.
(4) Writing skills.
Writing skills will deeply affect your ability to succeed at #2 & #3 but you should always pay self-conscious attention to the paper’s structure, language, and presentation.
THE FOLLOWING TIPS WILL HOPEFULLY GIVE YOU A CLEAR IDEA OF WHAT "CLOSE-READING" IS AND HOW TO MAKE A STRONG ARGUMEN IN YOUR PAPER:
***Close Reading***
A close reading is a specific literary critical term for analyzing and interpreting novels, movies, advertisements, newspapers, t.v. shows, book jackets, photographs, almost anything that represents really. One very basic way to do a close reading is described below:
(1) Choose a short passage from the text that you find particularly interesting (probably not one that is a turning point or leads you into a summary of the story--not one everyone has underlined, in other words).
(2) Introduce the quotation with a ment about what specific topic you see the passage raises for readers.
Duplicate the passage in your paper.
(3) Continue to write about the passage in detail. You should pay attention to its details and consider how it is constructed. You should note at least three 'facts' about the quotation, none of which repeat the meanings an ordinary reader grasps from the passage.
(4) Analyze! Speculate about what you notice in the quotation. Interpret! How do you make sense of it? Ask: so what matters about what I have noticed?
A close reading means that you linger over one aspect of the text that interests you, rather than trying to cover the entire story. You slow down and observe carefully. A good close-reading will reveal aspects of the text that you did not notice before and lead you to an informed opinion on the text. Please pay close attention to the specific language, imagery and other devices the author uses and try to figure out what the author's purpose and intended audience were.
***Argument***
As you begin to analyze the text closely you should also find yourself struggling to put together a thesis about it based on what you are noticing. Once you begin writing, you might try thinking of your paper as answering a question. You need to ensure that the answer your paper is giving isn't obvious or one that everyone would agree on immediately. Ask of your thesis: "so what?" Are you teaching something? Like a response to a real and not a rhetorical question, your paper should be a convincing argument.
Please remember that each of your paragraphs needs to make a "mini argument" that build upon the previous paragraph, in service of gradually building a plex overall argument about the text. Please AVOID the use of evaluative terms such as "best," or "excelent." The goal is not to evaluate the quality of literature, but to intellectually and and critically investigate te work of literature in terms of its intellectual content.
***PLEASE NOTE***
This paper should be your own close-reading and should portray your own analysis and critical thinking; outside references should not be included.
This paper MUST be at least 4 FULL pages (not including the passage you chose, title page, bibliography or anything extra).
When referring to specic quotes, please use the proper citation (include page number, and line numbers if it's a poem).
Please don't forget to transition smoothly from one paragraph to the next using transitional sentences; don't just jump from one thing to something totally different with a transition.
Also, please AVOID being repetative as this is a short paper and the important of every sentence counts. When you are done, please give the paper an appropriate title.
Also, please include an MLA style work cited page.
Last but not least, PLEASE DO NOT DELIVER MY ORDER LATE! It's due and should be in my in-box no later than Tuesday, 5/29/2007 at 2:00PM. I am not happy about the fact that my last two orders with EssayTown were both late and I had no use for one of them by the time it got to me. You guarantee on your website that you will deliver an "A+ paper of any length, any level on any date." Please keep your promise and thus your customers.
If the writer has any questions or ments for me, he or she may contact me directly at:
Thank you and good luck!
