Do anticipate and address counterarguments.

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Overview
For this essay, you will be required to provide a substantive interpretation of two texts that we have read in this class so far. A few possible ways to do this would include identifying two different stories that grapple with a similar theme and compare and use a comparison/contrast to help your reader better understand what each story has to say about the theme. Another possibility would be to compare and contrast narrators or narrative structures, or even to compare/contrast main characters. Remember, however, that compare and contrast is a tool, and your job is to use that tool to advance an argument that helps your reader better understand the story. Simply saying x is different from y is not a strong thesis statement. On the other hand, saying that “the differences between x and y help us better understand x’s attitude towards nature” is a thesis you can build a paper around.
Papers should be 4-5 double-spaced pages, should contain a clear thesis statement, and should provide evidence from the text itself to support your claim.
A note on readers: you should assume your reader is a Stevens student, but not one in this class. You therefore will need to provide brief enough detail from the stories you are writing about to make your argument clear to them. You cannot assume they have read the material or that they have had the same exposure to the literary history that we have discussed in class.
Common themes that we have encountered thus far this semester include man’s relationship to nature, man’s relationship to technology, the influence of things like industrialism, science, and technology on literary form, our understanding of the relationship between mind and body, and so on. Any one of these might provide a fruitful topic for your analysis, but you are certainly not limited to these topics.
Considerations
The primary means of evaluation for this paper will be in how insightfully you interpret the text in question and how effectively you support your position. Even so, pay careful attention to the organization of individual paragraphs and the document as a whole, and proofread carefully. An “A” paper will be effectively organized with a strong, clear thesis statement; clear and coherent supporting points; written in clear and effective prose and a minimum of grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistakes.
Practical Advice
A few general dos and don’ts:
Do follow the sample format that I have provided here: https://sit.instructure.com/files/9387137/download?download_frd=1. Deviation from the sample format may affect your final grade.
Do have a strong thesis statement. At its core, your paper is making an argument about how you interpret the text in question, and your thesis statement should make it immediately clear to the reader what that argument is. So, for instance, a statement like “This paper will explore whether ‘Young Goodman Brown’ represents nature as a positive or a negative force” is a poor thesis statement; a better statement would be: “This paper will show that nature is a destructive force in ‘Young Goodman Brown’.”
Don’t rely on comparison and contrast for your thesis statement. These are useful tools, but use them to construct an argument, not as a topic in and of themselves. Comparing and contrasting nature in “Young Goodman Brown” with nature in “The Open Boat” is not an argument—comparing and contrasting nature in YGB with nature in “The Open Boat” to illustrate mankind’s evolving relationship with nature, on the other hand, is.
Do support your argument with specific references to the text in question, including quoting the text, where appropriate and productive. Use parenthetical references to indicate where the quotation comes from. For example:
Miles Coverdale says that the house was unremarkable, except that, “on the peak of one of the dormer-windows, which opened out of the roof, sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn” (152).
Don’t overuse quotations—as a rough guide, you shouldn’t need more than 10-15% of your text to come from direct quotations.
Do provide an effective introduction and conclusion to your paper. It’s a good idea, in your introductory paragraph, not only to clearly state your thesis, but to also briefly preview how you plan to support that argument in the rest of the paper. Likewise, in your conclusion you should reassert your thesis and summarize your effective defense of that position.
Don’t feel as though you have to make grand claims in either your paper as a whole or in your introductory sentence. Sure, it’s a good thing to grab the reader’s attention, but not at the expense of sacrificing your credibility or distorting the tone of your paper as a whole. You should also refrain from including unnecessary details, such as providing a summary biography of the author when it isn’t relevant to the argument that you’re making. (This, incidentally, is a hallmark of really bad essays available on the Internet.)
Do anticipate and address counterarguments.
Do feel free to ask for help/advice if you need it. I’m available during office hours and after class on most days, or we can set up another time to meet.

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