Part of writing an effective analytical research paper (which you will begin working on a little later in the course) involves using evidence directly from your primary texts (the literature itself) as well as the works of other critics and scholars (secondary texts). Therefore, you will need to get comfortable with finding these types of sources, analyzing them, and accurately quoting or paraphrasing from these outside sources in your own writing. This activity helps build these research skills by writing a brief article analysis. 

For this activity, choose a critical article from one of the GMC Library databases that makes a clear argument about any one of the stories you’ve read for the class so far. The databases that would work best are Bloom’s Literature, JSTOR, Literary Reference Center, Literature Resource Center, or ProQuest (see the Library Database How-To in the Online Learning Resources this week for more on accessing and searching those). The article you choose must provide more than basic biographical information and plot summary to make an opinionated argument about some aspect of the literary work you read in class. Your response should be at least 300-500 words in length and sufficiently address all stated content requirements.

Requirements: 

Analysis

• In your analysis, you should clearly identify the article author’s thesis and main points by briefly SUMMARIZING the article’s main ideas.  
• Next, ANALYZE the article author’s argument. What is he or she trying to say about the literary material? What textual evidence does the author provide? What new point or idea is the author trying to introduce about the literature? Also make sure to consider what literary theory the author is using. How can you tell?
• Finally, EVALUATE the article author’s argument. Is the article’s thesis relevant or convincing to you? Why or why not? What does the author do (or not do) that helps to convince readers of his or her viewpoints? Would you have used that literary theory in your own analysis of the text? Why or why not?
• At some point in your paper, you should include at least one QUOTE and/or one PARAPHRASE from the article, with appropriate in-text citations.