English 4140: American Romanticism
Dr. Patrick Erben
Critical Source Paper and Literary Analysis
Assignment Description
Due date: Wednesday, 7/18 (at the beginning of class, in your portfolio folder)
****************************************************************************
1) Goal of the Assignment: The goal of this assignment is to develop further your analytical skills of key texts
in American Romanticism, while familiarizing yourself with critical conversations in scholarship, and
developing an argument in response to those critical voices. The point of the assignment is not to fall prey to
the obfuscation and inflation one often finds in published scholarship (see the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon below!)
but to articulate your own argument informed by the knowledge or theoretical approaches that scholarship has to
offer. Thus, the critical articles may simply help you to sharpen your close readings and attention to language
and literary motives, they may contribute biographical or historical context to situate the literary work, or they
may offer theoretical or even interdisciplinary paths for reading (e.g., imagine what the discipline of
neuroscience might have to offer in understanding
Emily Dickinson’s poetry…). Your goal, therefore,
should not merely be to mine some scholarship for
secondary quotations and thus satisfy a certain quota
of secondary sources that your professor is asking
for but rather to gain a significant impulse for your
interpretation of a literary text. You should also
avoid one or both of the following extremes: either
arguing against a critic for the sake of argument
(like a straw-man, because otherwise you may not
have anything to say…) or plucking quotations from
the source that merely say exactly what you already
wanted to say anyway. Ultimately, the ideal paper
should put forth your own cogent analysis of one
(or portions of) a literary text we have read so far
in this semester, while demonstrating your
expanded understanding of the text through your
use of the critical sources.
A secondary (but equally important) goal of the
assignment is also to sharpen your skills
incorporating secondary quotations into your own argument/writing. Some important principles:
a) Introduce quotations effectively (rather than letting them float freely in a soup of your own
words; for example, preface quotations by saying in a nutshell what the source has to offer. You
want to be sparing or at least not repetitive with signal phrases such as “As Harold Bloom states,
“. . .”).
b) The first time you introduce a critic, use the whole name in your own sentence. Only say
“literary critic . . .” or “historian . . .” (or another “job description”) if you’re using sources from
various disciplines. Please do not include the whole title of the critical article (or book) in your
own text; that’s what the Works Cited list is for (I know that some instructors, for some reason,
want you to do that).
c) Do not use too many quotations that might overwhelm your own voice and critical argument.
Rather, strategically summarize or paraphrase a critic’s overall argument or perspective or theory
in your own words before or instead of inserting lengthy quotations. Especially use your own
words if you already find the critic’s point difficult to understand. However, you always must
acknowledge (i.e. parenthetically cite) someone else’s words or ideas, even if you are
summarizing and not quoting directly. In order to avoid surreptitious or accidental plagiarizing,
2
make sure you take diligent notes that always record the difference between quotations and
summaries and include the page number or page range from the secondary source.
d) Do not allow your source to make the argument for you; within each paragraph, secondary
sources always need to be “surrounded” by your own words and your own interpretations (or at
least the application of the source’s ideas, in your own words, to the interpretation of the literary
text). Don’t ever (I mean it—EVER!) finish a paragraph with a secondary quotation!
e) If you are using only a portion of a sentence from the secondary source, make sure you correctly
incorporate it (grammar and syntax) into the structure of your own sentence. Use square
brackets to indicate small changes, such as lower/upper case, that you used to fit the quotation
into your own sentence grammatically (never, of course, change the meaning of the source by
omitting portions or changing words!). Once you fit portions of the quotation into your own
sentence correctly, you do not need ellipses at the beginning or end of the quotation, but only in
the middle (i.e., if you cut out a portion).
f) Make sure you follow diligently all MLA rules for citing sources, using correct punctuation
and parenthetical documentation.
2) Stages of the Assignment (suggested steps):
a) Decide which literary text you want to analyze.
b) Develop a preliminary argument, idea, or working thesis about the text (use brainstorming, freewriting, outlining, etc.). You may, in fact, use the same text you used for your close reading, but you
must broaden your use of the text (if, say, you just used one portion of a larger text) and you must
significantly expand/adjust your ideas depending on your use of secondary sources.
c) Do research in library databases (e.g. Project Muse, MLA Bibliography, and JSTOR) to find full-text
(PDF preferred) articles on the text/topic of your choice. I suggest skimming titles and abstracts first.
Once you find an article that seems useful, skim or read the first couple of paragraphs and/or the
bibliography to see if it applies to your text/argument and seems productive for your purposes. Once
you make this determination, either save electronically or print out the article. It is always important to
have a copy of the source, even if you take notes.
d) For this assignment, you must have 2 (yes, exactly two) critical articles. Make sure they are from
a peer-reviewed scholarly journal and of substantial length. You may not use book reviews or the miniarticles included in Notes and Queries. Also, try to avoid citing critics second-hand, i.e. using
quotations already quoted in another critical source. Rather, go straight to the original source (who
knows, maybe someone misquoted or changed the meaning of the original…). In other words, do your
own legwork.
e) Once you have decided on your two articles, go ahead and assemble your Works Cited list, which
must also include your primary, literary text.
f) Outline and/or draft essay, incorporating secondary quotations.
g) Revise and proof-read essay. Make sure to check all quotations, parenthetical citations, and Works
Cited entries.
3) Length: 4 full pages minimum (i.e. not counting the Works Cited list).
4) Format: Follow MLA Format for Works Cited to assemble your bibliographic entries, listing all sources
alphabetically (by author’s last name).
5) Grading Criteria: Following the assignment goal and steps.