For the Final Research Essay, you are to choose between the "Critical Analysis" and the "Comparison/Contrast" Essay formats, and clearly indicate your selection. The final essay should focus on one of three (3) options, and that option should be noted on the submission:

• (1) focus on two works by a single-author (example: Kate Chopin: "Story of an Hour" and "The Storm"; or Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "Young Goodman Brown", etc.), or
• (2) focus on two works by two separate authors (example: Susan Glaspell: "Trifles" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper", etc.), or
• (3) apply three literary conventions (plot, setting, characterization to a critical analysis or comparison/contrast of a single work (example: plot setting, and characterization in Gail Godwin's "A Sorrowful Woman" or Metaphors, setting, and irony in Kate Chopin's "The Storm", etc.). The thesis must be a single statement, and the essay format must be identified; your thesis must also include identification of the writer(s) and work(s) you will be focusing on, the main points you will be making, and the literary conventions you will be using to develop your thesis.
• The final essay should engage a critical analysis or comparison/contrast of some literary aspect of the work(s) under consideration.
• Example: Essay Format; Option #; and Thesis; followed by a statement of purpose (what you intend to accomplish through the essay.

Format and Thesis Options: Select one, two, or three literary conventions related to characterization and/or character development; you may also elect to examine specifics aspects of plot, character background, character actions, character motivations, setting, and/or theme.

3. In addition, you may elect to adopt a critical perspective (biographical, feminist, historical, psychoanalytical, etc.) if you choose, but this is not required;

4. Develop your thesis statement: your topic, plus the points you will make in your essay;

5. Complete your research and your planning pages (review the instructions and follow the examples);

6. Draft your essay; edit your essay, and submit your essay.

Tips:

• Your C/C Thesis statement should:

1) Name the items to be compared/contrasted

2) Indicate the purpose of the comparison /contrast

3) Name the grounds for comparison/contrast

• The essay pattern in plain English: Introduce; compare; contrast; and conclude (be sure to include primary and secondary support and MLA in-text citation of all borrowed material used in the essay; cite where you borrow).

• Make sure you avoid engaging in an “extended summary” of the work (telling what happened in the play);

• Use literary conventions to discuss “what the writer (Shakespeare, Chopin, Hawthorwne, Hemingway, Hurston, etc.) is accomplishing through the characters, and in the work;

• Use your sources to demonstrate your knowledge of how other writers have examined the work, as well as points they have raised; no more than 25% of your essay content can be from sources; use sources sparingly to support points that you are already making in your essay.

• Use the primary text to illustrate points, rather than to summarize the play/story;

• Make your points clear, and avoid speculations which your sources(primary and secondary) do not support.