Jump to content

Menu

Literary Research Papers


Recommended Posts

I'm sorry; I am not quite clear on the type of paper you are asking about. Usually, my high school students have written literary analysis papers where they argue and support an opinion with regards to a specific literary work or author. A literary "research" papers implies to me that the student is simply informing the intended audience about a specific literary movement or author. For example, the student is writing about transcendentalism by telling what it is, when it occurred, major authors, etc., instead of arguing that it is the most important literary movement. If that is the type of paper you are asking about, then I would treat it like any other research paper that one would do for history or science. If you are asking about literary analysis, that is a whole other beast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In college my son had to do literary analysis papers with research. He still wrote an arguable thesis but had to include some outside sources, rather than just using the text and his thoughts. Is this what you mean?

 

Oh duh! Thanks, Kendall. I tend to lump all literary analysis papers together, researched or not. That makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found this yesterday when I was poking around:

 

http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/index.htm

 

There's some pretty good content there. I didn't write that many college research papers as I was in a lab science, so the two research papers that I remember were my senior year in high school, with my teacher the Grammar N*zi, and my senior capstone project for my major.

 

One thing that I noticed yesterday was that on several sites, students were told to plan on using 15 effective resources, and to plan on 2-3 discards for every good source. That is exactly what I remember from my papers, and it is a lot of reading! I guess some things haven't changed.

 

Doesn't SWB have a four part series of articles somewhere on writing research papers?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In college my son had to do literary analysis papers with research. He still wrote an arguable thesis but had to include some outside sources, rather than just using the text and his thoughts. Is this what you mean?

 

Yes, this is what I am considering. My understanding is that besides the original book she also has to read other books by the author, critic reviews about the book, books about the author, etc. Of course, what she needs to read depends on thesis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found this yesterday when I was poking around:

 

http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/index.htm

 

There's some pretty good content there. I didn't write that many college research papers as I was in a lab science, so the two research papers that I remember were my senior year in high school, with my teacher the Grammar N*zi, and my senior capstone project for my major.

 

One thing that I noticed yesterday was that on several sites, students were told to plan on using 15 effective resources, and to plan on 2-3 discards for every good source. That is exactly what I remember from my papers, and it is a lot of reading! I guess some things haven't changed.

 

Doesn't SWB have a four part series of articles somewhere on writing research papers?

 

Thanks for the link and the info.

 

I would love to see what SWB has to say about research papers. Her writing audios have been so helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...