Researched Argument about Drama
Objectives.
This essays asks you to combine scholarly research with the close reading, analytic, and academic writing skills practiced in Essay 1 & 2 as you write an argument about one specific and intriguing aspect of Shakespeare’s Othello and present evidence to support your claim.
You will:
Demonstrate all the writing and composition skills studied this semester
Develop an argument that critically analyzes one focused element of a play.
Enter into and contribute to a scholarly debate about a text.
Present evidence that supports your claim from both primary and secondary sources.
Assignment.
Write an essay about one specific element of Othello and support your thesis with evidence from both primary and secondary sources.
While you will use secondary sources, the essay should still focus on your ideas and your argument about the primary text.
You may write about any focused topic in Othello that interests you, as long as your argument connects that topic to at least one of the play’s themes. Be sure to read the “Finding a Research Topic” handout that includes suggested topics!
Essay Requirements.
Open with an introduction paragraph that provides relevant context for your argument.
State your thesis at the end of the introduction, making a claim about the play’s theme.
Provide specific textual evidence from the play and evidence from secondary sources to support the topic.
When handling your evidence:
quote the primary source to show readers what you see and
paraphrase secondary sources to demonstrate you understood the articles (minimum 3 secondary
sources, with minimum 1 paraphrase from each).
Give clear, detailed analysis that explains how the evidence supports the topics sentences.
Organize the essay according to the conventions for academic writing and literary essays.
Conclude with a paragraph that summarizes and synthesizes the essay; explain “so what.”
Use correct MLA style for formatting citations internally and on the Works Cited page.
The essay must be 1500 to 2000 words, not including the Works Cited page, title and header.
Secondary Source Requirements. In addition to using quotations from the play to support your claims, you will paraphrase information from at least three scholarly sources. It must be clear to me that you have read and understood the sources, which must be carefully integrated into the essay.
Scholarly sources are articles from academic journals or chapters from academic books. No dissertations or reading guides are allowed.
Do not use “overviews” or “summaries,” even scholarly ones found though a library database. Reading guides like Cliffnotes, sparknotes, enotes, etc. are great for helping you read a play but they CANNOT be used to come up with an essay topic or write a research essay.
All secondary sources must be written/published after 1990.
Typically, secondary sources provide additional support for the writer’s claims; however, these sources may also provide context—historical, cultural, etc.—or present an opposing interpretation that the writer wants to refute with evidence from the primary source.
