Miami Dade College
ENC 1102/ Professor M. Plata
Directions for Final Research Paper
Due Thursday, November 17, 2022
Directions: For your final research paper, you will submit an essay with a minimum of 3 typed pages but no more than 5 typed pages in MLA format based on a topic you choose. Additionally, you must have a minimum of two scholarly sources to support your thesis/point of your essay. The topic you choose must be literature based, or you may choose an issue that is currently impacting today’s society and/or world. For example, you may complete a research/response essay on a documentary or mini-series that you have watched that has a significant impact on important issues such as race, politics, family views, and events/ideas that are currently happening in the world. If you choose to write a literature-based research essay, a few broad themes you could choose from are:
Alienation/relationships (often involving race or gender)
Political or social commentary (often involving race or gender)
Appearance versus reality (judgement, expectations, truth)
Independence/Freedom/Power
Personal growth or transformation/spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation
For example:
If you chose the topic to address the idea of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind as a feminist character, then your thesis statement could look like this: In Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell’s protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, develops strength but never reaches what modern feminists would consider independence.
If you chose the topic to investigate how Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness expresses universal truths about human societies that could also apply to modern-day political conflicts, then your thesis could be: By showing that different societies define brutality differently, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is still relevant even to 21st century political conflicts.
If you chose the topic to examine the use of windows as symbols of social exclusion in Wuthering Heights, then your thesis statement could be: In Wuthering Heights, novelist Emily Bronte employs the contrasting symbols of the refined and confining indoors with the freeing, wild outdoors to express her romantic philosophy.
Your final research paper is worth a total of 300 points and is due by Thursday, November 17th. Please print out your typed essay and submit it at the beginning of class.
Steps to a Literary Research Paper
Select a topic
Use prewriting strategies
Check to see if sources are available
Develop a preliminary thesis/hypothesis/outline
Search for Sources
Read over sources
Narrow or broaden topic
Take Notes
Evaluate your sources
Paraphrase, summarize, quote sources clearly (avoid plagiarism)
Write personal notes on what you will pull from primary sources
Organize your Information
Refine your thesis
Choose organizational structure
Outline
Integrate Your Information into a Draft
Add research
Blend in research sources smoothly
Compose in-text citations and Works Cited page
Revise
Check content
Check structure
Prepare the Final Draft
Type your essay
Must be in MLA format
Proofread
Good Luck