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Fall 2014: To Do List
Reading James Joyce’s Ulysses,
Instructor: Laura O’Connor
An overview of the quarter’s work
and guidelines for the timely
completion of your research paper.
New Yorker cartoon by David Jacobson
The major course-requirement for the E106 seminar is a 13-15 page research
paper on an elective topic. The goal of the seminar is for you to build confidence in your
own critical judgment and research skills by creating and following through on a project
of your own devising. There is a strong emphasis in the seminar on participants doing
self-directed work: choosing primary texts, seeking out useful secondary criticism and
whatever input you need from me to get oriented in the best way for you, generating
dialogue on topics of mutual interest with other participants, etc. Almost all your grade is
based, one way or another, on your research paper and you need to organize and pace
your independent research effectively.
The E106 research-paper requirement presents several challenges that distinguish
it from writing requirements in other English courses. The most obvious is the length and
heft of the paper: you are expected to mount a sophisticated argument with several
components, supported by close readings of texts and informed by secondary criticism. If
asked to write this “big” paper on an assigned topic you could begin writing around
midterm, but you are also required to generate a topic of your own. Hence you need to
get going by week four at the latest, but at that stage we’ll have discussed only the first
200 pages of Ulysses in class and you’ll have only a sketchy sense of the field of
possibilities. Welcome to the quandary of writing a self-directed research paper in a
quarter!
In order to ensure your steady progress on the project over the entire quarter, you
are required to meet the following deadlines:
In the first 3 weeks you’ll post two thesis statements and a critical précis on the class
messageboard, and two more thesis statements in weeks 4-6.
Oct 28: show sample “critical review” item to the instructor
Nov 4: Take-home midterm essay distributed; clear research-topic with instructor
Nov 13: Take-home midterm essay or prospectus due
Submit working thesis-statement for approval by instructor. Students who are undecided
will complete a take-home essay in week 5, agree upon a thesis in conference with the
instructor in week 6, and submit the prospectus and annotated bibliography on Feb 19.
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Nov 19: office hours. Take-home essayists who have not yet submitted their prospectus
are required to confer with the instructor to finalize their thesis
Nov 20: Late or revised prospectus and annotated bibliography due (if applicable).
Nov 30: Final draft paper—4,000 words—must be circulated before midnight Sunday.
Dec 2: Peer-review groups meet in HIB 352, class cancelled
Dec 11: completed Research Papers due
One: Building
With E106 papers, it helps to recognize that the class readings and discussions are
just a supporting framework for the main event--your paper—and that over half of your
work is self-directed. Imagine you are enrolled in an independent-study to work on a
research-paper and you are participating in the coursework because you believe (rightly!)
that it will help. All of the course requirements are designed to help you optimize your
research time. You are expected to post a thesis statement about the assigned episode(s)
or to write a critical précis / review once a week. These postings are due on the messageboard by noon on Monday (A-K team) or by noon on Wed (L-Z team). From this you
will learn that it is possible to do a fascinating research project on a part of Ulysses, and
may even discover your research topic. This matters because we’ll have discussed less
than a third of Ulysses (200 pages) by the end of October, and composing theses will ease
the process of settling on a topic early enough in the quarter to do it justice.
Ulysses is a great novel to read in collaborative group contexts. Your reading will
be guided by reading questions, which you are encouraged to incorporate into your own
note-taking format. You’ll be asked to participate in group discussions or to do in-class
writing on one of the assigned questions. The questions, which are posted on the class
website, are also an aid for reading ahead. Luckily for us, the SoCal Irish Studies
colloquium is running a conference at UCR on Oct 18, Riverrun: James Joyce and the
Ecologies of Modernism.” I plan to organize car-pooling so that everyone who wishes to
attend may go.
As you do self-directed research you’ll also join the critical conversations that
have flourished around Ulysses since before it was published (more on that later!). By
definition, a research paper engages with secondary criticism. You’ll be asked to write a
précis of an assigned critical article we’ll all read, due either on Oct 16 (L-Z) or Oct
23(A-K). A précis conveys the gist of a critical article: it includes a brief summary of the
purpose and trajectory of the critic’s argument and the method and evidence used to
support it. You’ll also complete a sample critical review of a selected article by Oct 28.
The latter may be included in the annotated critical bibliography which you’ll work on,
along with a prospectus, during the “Focusing” phase of the quarter.
Two: Focusing
During weeks 4-7 you’ll settle on your research topic: some of you will be launched by
Nov 13, and the rest of you before Nov 20. You’ll also work on and submit a prospectus
and annotated critical bibliography (details later). On Nov 4 you’ll receive a midterm
take-home essay designed to help you arrive at a congenial research-thesis, due on Nov
13. You may submit a prospectus and annotated bibliography in lieu of the take-home
midterm on Nov 13. If you don’t submit a prospectus and annotated bibliography by Nov
18, or if the proposed research-thesis seems sketchy, you are required to confer with me
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on Nov 19 and commit to the working thesis we hammer out together from the midterm
(or sketchy prospectus!)
Three: Writing
In weeks 7-9 you’ll write the research-paper; this is the familiar part of the course. You
are strongly encouraged to consult with me during office hours to get any help you need;
E106 senior seminars are designed to facilitate fuller interaction with the instructor than
usual. Completing and circulating the final draft before midnight Sunday Nov 30 is a
basic requirement of the course. It you don’t turn the draft in on time, or if your draft is
incomplete, your final paper will be docked a full letter grade. The rule of thumb I use to
determine “complete” status is that the draft must be at least 12 pages and coherent
enough to receive a passing grade as is. The paper should be accompanied by a coversheet with your name, the title of the paper, and (this is crucial!) a single-sentence thesis
statement. The thesis statement can be, but need not be, a verbatim version of the
statement in the essay.
Four: Revising
On Dec 2, class is cancelled to allow us to meet in groups of 4 (you, two other students,
and me) to review your final drafts. On Dec 1, you’ll complete a written-feedback
exercise for the peer reviewee and share it at our session. This is time-consuming, but
your peers are doing it for you and many students say that reviewing peers’ work enables
them to re-read their own draft in a more constructive critical light. Attendance at peerreview sessions is mandatory. During weeks 9-10 you’ll revise your paper; this entails
some unfamiliar work since revising a long research-paper presents challenges of
reconceptualization that you don’t encounter when revising 5-7 page essays.
Five: Completion
The final revised paper is due at the beginning of our last class meeting, on Dec 11.
Delivering your paper feels as good as graduation (and we’ll have a graduation party)!
The body of the essay should be between 3,500-4,000 words (13-15 pages) long. Your
paper should have a cover-sheet with your name and the title of the essay, a list of Works
Cited following the MLA format for citations, and MLA-formatted endnotes, if included.
Papers should be typed, double-spaced, and carefully edited and proof-read. The
research-paper counts for 60% of your overall grade. Your grade will reflect the care with
which you’ve read Ulysses and thought about the topic you’ve chosen, and your success
in conveying that thought in a compelling and polished argument supported by attentive
interpretations of the texts.
It is sometimes difficult to hand over a paper when you want to revise it further,
but learning to let go of your work (and learning to get it into a satisfactory state by the
deadline) is a key part of research-paper writing. There is an inducement to help you hand
it over, moreover--a stringent late-paper policy. An A paper submitted at the beginning of
class on Dec 11 is an A; delivered to HIB 352 by Fri Dec 12 before 5PM is an A-. Papers
delivered on Dec 18 will be docked another half-grade, bringing it down to a B+, and one
half-grade per subsequent day during exam week. Hence an A paper will be reduced to a
C (and a lower-grade paper to an F) by the end of exam week. Yes, I agree, this is
draconian. I believe that making the timely submission of the paper the basis, in effect, of
a pass/fail policy is justified, however, because completing the research-paper within the
quarter is an essential part of the discipline required by the course.