25 Apr 2007
Paper 2 Presubmission
(Presubmission 30pts; peer review 20pts)
Your presubmission report. This is not something to start at the last minute.
Please do not try to churn out three pages of random thoughts. The presubmission report is your opportunity to check whether you are proceeding in a manner that is likely to produce an acceptable academic research paper.
The more work you put into this, the more helpful I can be.
1) A full thesis paragraph. A thesis has a limited subject, precise opinion, and reasoning blueprint. The reasoning blueprint, most simply put, is your list of the subpoints that you want to address; but instead of just saying "I will talk about A, B, C, and D," try instead to link them logically: "The author's attempts to do A backfire because of B, but her attempts to do C and D are more successful." or "At first glance, there are so many instances of A in the story that at first the story seems to make claim B, but a closer look at C shows that A and C together make the claim D."
2A) Quotes from your literary source in favor of your thesis.
2B) Quotes from your literary source that work against your thesis.
3A) At least one quote from an academic source that support your thesis.
3B) At least one quote from an academic source that works against your thesis.
4) A preliminary conclusion.
5) MLA-style Works Cited list.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7909
Should the Works Cited list include only the sources that the quotes are from or also include the sources we plan to use in the paper later?
Posted by: Jenna at April 23, 2007 11:13 PMGood question, Jenna.
In the final version of your paper, your Works Cited list should only include the works that you actually cite, but for the presubmission report you are welcome to include sources that you think you might want to use. I'll be happy to give feedback on anything that I think look questionable.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at April 23, 2007 11:20 PMThere's no slot to turn this in at turnitin.com yet. I didn't know if you knew that or not.
Posted by: Margaret Jones at April 24, 2007 2:13 PMThanks for the note. The slot is there now.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at April 24, 2007 4:58 PMFor our paper, should we include arguments that work against our thesis as well or just stick with the main supporting argument to back up our thesis?
It's not really possible to argue convincingly FOR something unless you examine (and shoot down) the strongest arguments AGAINST your claims.
Any academic argument needs to examine the evidence that works against your claim, and alternate interpretations of the evidence that DOES support your claim.
So, yes, your paper will need to look at objections to your main claim.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at April 24, 2007 9:35 PM