Guide: Comic Book Character Research
Paper
Instructions: What to do and How to do it.
1. Start here: Go to either the Marvel Comics or DC
Comics website and select a comic book character
(heroic or villainous) that interests you.
2. Next—and this is the most important part—locate
the biographical information or “origin story” on the
character that you have selected to do this writing
assignment and read the biographical information.
3. As you sift (read) through the biographical
information on the character, locate the problems or
troubles the character is having or has had in his or
her life and explore how these problems are part of
larger issues that are widespread in society.
Guide: Comic Book Character
Research Paper
Instructions: What to do and How to do it.
4. Once you have read through the biographical
information on the comic book character you have
chosen, begin thinking how to write this essay,
exploring how the character symbolizes or represents a
larger societal problem or that larger groups suffer with
in society.
5. Do not write about the character! This is not the
assignment. You are writing about how the character is
a reflection of a societal ill or societal problem, which
the creators of the character depicted visually, so
citizens will address them and form solutions for them.
Guide: Comic Book Character
Research Paper
Instructions: What to do and How to do it.
6. You must have three sources written on your Works
Cited page, “but” you must write four citations written
in the body of your essay as supporting details. The
citations will be from the web source where you
borrowed the biographical information on the
character, one citation from both chapter 1 and chapter
7 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, and one
citation from a nonfiction article that discusses the
social problem you have learned is connected to the
comic book character.
Guide: Comic Book Character
Research Paper
Instructions: What to do and How to do it.
7. Specific writing instructions
•You must use standard MLA Format
• Times New Roman font face
•Double Line Spacing throughout the essay.
•12” font and 1” margins--top, bottom, left, and
right
•Heading (name, class title, class period, Instructor’s
name, and date, 10 September 2012) in the upper
left hand corner of the first page).
Guide: Comic Book Character
Research Paper
Instructions: What to do and How to do it.
7. Specific writing instructions continued
• Last name and page number on the first line of
each page—e.g. Vickery 1, Vickery 2, Vickery 3 and
so on. Place in the upper right hand corner of each
page.
•Provide a Works Cited page, listing all of the
sources used in the paper.
Guide: Comic Book Character
Research Paper
What To Remember!
8. This is not a writing assignment where you talk
about what you like or dislike about the character
you have selected. You are exploring how the
character’s troubled life is symbolic of the social
issue that is attached to his or her persona. Your
task is to show how the character reflects any one
of the many social problems societies have to
contend with and explain how the character
contributes to either its progression or regression.