Tips for Writing Papers for Humanities 2610
1) Brainstorm before you start writing the paper. Sit down and get all of your thoughts out on paper before you begin to organize them. For any of the topics I would start with a blank page for each of the texts and brainstorm all the ways I can think to talk about the topic. Some will be good; others will not. Get the bad ones out and over with before you write you paper. Far too often students turn in their brainstorming instead of a real paper. You and I know the difference. A paper is the final product that has been cleaned up. You have edited a paper, getting rid of ideas which were not well-formed and enhancing the good ideas with examples from the text that illustrate your point/s.
2) Now that you have brainstormed for each of the texts, see if there are any similarities or differences between all of them. Group them together accordingly. Sometimes it makes sense to lump together similar things. Other times you will want to show the contrast to make a point. For example, "While author X is an atheist, you can still see that his text A resembles the writing of author Y who was a Christian. Look at the following quotations from the text that illustrate my point."
3) Organize all these ideas into an outline where one idea flows neatly into the next or where they are introduced through transition sentences. You might need to move paragraphs around a few times before you find an organization that really works.
4) Oh, and I have read all the texts, I do not need a summary. Do not provide a summary unless there is simply no other way for me to get the point. But you can just remind me, "When Siddhartha was in the pleasure-garden he experienced Z." That's enough. DO NOT summarize the whole text for me to eat up space!!! I know that is what you are doing.
5) Don't be afraid to have an opinion. If I can't find your opinion in the paper, I really am not interested. I know what other people think, I have a pretty good idea what the authors were thinking, but I will have no clue what you are thinking unless you tell me in this paper. In fact, I like the use of "I" in papers (at least papers for this class). But remember, you still need to convince me that what you think is valid. How do you do this? Show me where you saw these ideas in the text by providing me with a few quotes here and there. Ideally no more than 20% of your paper should be quotations. That is a rule of thumb.
6) If there is one thing I hate passionately and that will cause me to carry a grudge, it is plagiarism. It undermines my profession and your fellow classmates. It is something to which lazy, unimaginative, and desperate people resort. I do not want to think that about any of my students. But so that we are all clear about this, let me spell it out for you. A. If you have cut and pasted anything into your paper that was written by anyone other than you and you did not include quotation marks around that, you have plagiarized! It is as simple as that. B. If you read something that was super cool and really made you understand the material in a new and different way that spoke to you so you decide to tell me about it in your own words and you don't give the person who originally thought such great thoughts credit, you have plagiarized. (Note, I said it is something that made you see it in a different way...You do not need to give me an encyclopedia reference for everything that you include in your paper. Common knowledge need not be cited. For example, "Buddhism is a religion that is practiced in India among other countries (citation)." I think we are all aware of that. You don't need to track a source down for me.) C. If you are talking about an idea that came out of the class discussion (for me because this is different from other teachers) you need not cite that. I consider it part of our collective knowledge. D. Remember, 3 or more meaningful words taken in sequence without quotation marks is plagiarism. Rewording those thoughts into different words without citing the author is also plagiarism.
7) Finally 4-6 pages are really nothing. I will read longer papers if you need the space to express yourself, but I will stop reading at 10 pages. Make sure you have made your points.
Paper One Topics:
1) TRIALS/JUDGMENT/GUILT
Disgrace and The Stranger both are set in colonialist states (South Africa and French Algeria, respectively) and both place a colonial protagonist (main character) on trial for their oppression/murder of a "native". Compare and contrast these two trials and the two characters who stand trial. What are their crimes, who are their juries, what are the judgments, what are the outcomes of the trials? Do the characters change and evolve because of these trials? How can we see these trials as actual trials of colonialism? How can we see these literary texts, set in different places, written at different times, in different languages addressing the same issues as having a universal meaning/understanding? What is that and how do you personally see this in a modern context?
2) HEROES
We have different kinds of "heroes" represented in the works that we have read/watched. How do authors construct characters in ways that we can relate to them? Do we need to relate to the characters that we read? Looking at the definition of Epic Hero: https://study.com/.../epic-hero-definition-characteristics-exa...
Byronic Hero: https://study.com/.../byronic-hero-definition-characteristics-...
Let's look at Siddhartha. How do we relate to a character we meet as perfect? Are you capable of relating to the character even though we are told that he is better than you and everyone else? How can you relate to an Indian man? Conversely, David Lurie is developed as a sleazebag. How can you relate to this character and one who lives in South Africa? What universals are used to get you to identify with and sympathize with these characters? In the end, are the authors successful in communicating universal themes through these characters? If so, what are they and why? If not, how did they fail? Do you relate to one character more strongly than the other, and why? In the essay please address cultural universals, places where culture and language might be a problem.
3)LOVE:
Is it a universal? And specifically is romantic love a universal?
My male friend once gave me some advice: "Men don't really love, Kari. The closest feeling we have to love is the desire to possess a woman". If a man wants to possess you, that's the closest you are going to get to a man loving you." I think that's true for a lot of men, but perhaps not all. But I'm not a man. Do you agree or disagree and do the texts that we have read prove his point?
- Did Siddhartha and Kamala love each other? Why or why not?
- Did Mersault love his girlfriend? Why or why not?
- Did David Lurie love Melanie?
This requires more than yes and no responses. Why set up these pairings in these novels? What do you learn about love from them even if you believe love was absent in all the relationships. Are there different ways of constructing "love" relationships cross culturally? Or do you believe that love is love is love? Are relationships in Saudi Arabia different from those in America? Are relationships in the early 1900s in Europe different from those in the 1980s in South Africa? Or is love timeless? Or is love unique?
Is familial love easier to establish and write? Is it still a form of possession and being possessed? How do these same characters demonstrate their love for family members? Is familial love more "natural" than "romantic" love? Why or why not? Does it differ in different cultures and times?