Proposal

Proposal for final paper* (Updated 19.03.2025)

By week 6 (March 21 *Updated 19.03.2025), students should have an idea as to the focus and format of her, his, their final paper.  

Requirements:

1)   Proposal. A proposal should include a problem you want to address, your rationale, as well as method you will use to address this problem. Some examples: Are you collecting short forms? Comparing short forms, or a short form with a longer work? Close reading? Analyzing a topic in literature? More practically, however, a proposal’s purpose is to convince a teacher, advisor, or publisher that the topic is unique and interesting, methods are clear and rigorous, and knowledge adequate enough to proceed with the project.  

2)   The beginning of your proposal: collection. You should collect 2 examples of your particular short form. You should offer an annotation of each entry to justify its existence in your anthology or field guide following the format for an anthology or field guide. (*Updated 19.03.2025)

3) The beginning of a bibliography: You should submit 5-6 secondary works that you plan to use for your literature review.  These works should be related to your particular form and offer substantive analyses of your form. These can be peer reviewed articles or books.  

Format of Proposal and Collection: (*Updated 19.03.2025)

All documents should be TNR, Double Spaced, MLA format, 12 pt. Font

Page 1

  A proposal offers an introduction to your form, method, and reason for completing such a project. This introduction often comes in the form of a question that categorizes the literary artefacts in a unique way or brings together artefacts from otherwise unrelated fields. Your question is your unique approach to the primary texts or artefacts. After you introduce your artefacts, method, and question, you should explain the implications: why is your question more interesting than others? What does your question reveal that other questions do not? What does your question conceal that other questions reveal? Is your question answerable?  In brief, you should clear state WHAT you are doing and WHY it is important. (*Updated 19.03.2025)

Your proposal should be no more than one (1) page. You should give enough detail to interest the reader but not too much to overwhelm. Since your final paper will offer a brief review of secondary literature, you will only need a bibliography for this proposal. If you are unclear on how to write this proposal, see me in office hours. look at the introductions of any anthology or field guide in the library. 

Page 2-4

4) Annotated collection as either an anthology or field guide

Final Page:

5) Bibliography 

TOTAL: 2 pages (*Updated 19.03.2025)

Grading (*Updated 19.03.2025)

AA      Clear and insightful proposal with bibliography of relevant works with 2 annotated entries

BA      Clear Proposal with bibliography of relevant works with 2 annotated entries

BB       Vague proposal with bibliography of relevant works with 1-2 annotated entries

CB       Unclear proposal with inadequate bibliography of relevant works with 1 annotated entries

CC       “          “                                  “          “

DC      “          “                                  “          “

DD      Something, but less than above