Paper One

The Proposal. The proposal for Paper One consists of submitting a proper bibliographic listing for the source on a paper (or email) with your name on it. I will look at this bibliographic information and may ask to see the source itself before I give my final approval. I will only ask to see your full source if I have questions about whether the source will be too technical and difficult for you to get anything out of it. However, I will try to save you the cost of making copies of multiple sources which may not be acceptable to me because they are already taken by other students. So, start with a bibliographic listing (or two) for the proposal. If you need information on a proper bibliographic listing, click here

Paper One has two parts. For this assignment, you are to locate a source and do the following:

1. summarize it (part 1, also known as Paper 1a)
2. write a brief report on it (part 2, also known as Paper 1b)

The source should be an academic source about something we have read or will read in class. There will be more details later on how to write the two parts of the paper.

Criteria for a source:

• It should be 8-30 pages long.
• Except in special cases, it must be dated 1997 or later.
• Show it to me for approval, before or after class. All assignments must be done on sources approved by me.
• Xerox it and submit it with your paper.

How to find a good source:

1. Go to Drexel's Hagerty library and look up your topic in the online databases and printed indexes available there. Go to "Electronic Resources" on the Drexel Library Home Page. Look under "Databases by Subject" and then under "Fine Arts, Architecture,, Literature and History" or under "Interdisciplinary Research." Continue your search in Expanded ASAP, the Literature Resource Center, the MLA Bibliography, the Wilson Select Index, or First Search, (Humanities Abstracts, Article First). Get research help from Drexel's librarians, or see me for help with the research element of the paper.
2. The indexes will list a great variety of materials. Be sure you only consider articles in classics journals, not popular sources. Also, make sure your sources focus on Homer's Odyssey only, not on its relationship to other, modern works of literature. MLA Bibliography in particular will give you lots of sources dealing with Homer's relation to other works. Avoid such works as they will only get you in trouble in the long run.
3. Print or copy a list of the journal articles you are considering as sources for this assignment. Be sure to include the name of the journal, volume, number and pages, as well as the title and author of the article.
4. Look for the journals you need at Drexel.
5. If Drexel does not have the source you need, look for it at Penn.
6. Check the source with me if you are unsure whether it is a good one.
7. Be sure you can understand the source! See me for help in understanding it or interpreting any unfamiliar terms.

What to pick as a topic:

1. Any aspect of Homer's Odyssey
2. Any aspect of Vergil's Aeneid
3. Comparisons of Homer and Vergil
4. Any aspect of Aeschylus' Oresteia (this trilogy includes Agamemnon, which we read, and Choephoroi and Eumenides, which we did not)
5. Any aspect of Euripides' Medea

How to write a summary: A document named "Summaries" explains what you are expected to do to write a summary.

The topic: respond or react to the source you read for the first half of the assignment , comparing it to your own understanding of the work, and/or to what was said in class.

Here are some rules to follow as you write this paper:

• DON'T give me a list of similarities and differences between what we/I said in class and your source.
• DO write a complete paper with a thesis statement. A thesis is more than a topic: in this case, it means taking a point of view or presenting an argument you are making about some aspect of the literary work you are discussing.
• DON'T make statements without evidence. Evidence means references to specific words in specific works, giving line or page numbers in parentheses.
• Your paper should have an organization apart from "The next point is," an organization based on sense or development of the argument.

Some suggestions for ideas to consider in developing a thesis:

1. Compare what the article says to what I say in class. This works if I cover what the article said in some form, and if I didn't cover the exact article. (That is, if you do the Russo article on Penelope and Odysseus you actually have very little to say here.) It also works if I focused on some other issue. For instance, I spend a lot of time talking about Odysseus' "growth" in the Odyssey you might focus on how he stays the same.
2. Extend what the article said to something that I said in class or to something you read in the book. For instance, if you looked at succession in the Odyssey, you might look for how the issue of succession affects Penelope, etc.
3. Apply the ideas in the article to another work we read. For instance, look at similes not in Homer but Aeschylus. Or compare guilt in the Odyssey to guilt in the Agamemnon.