Source Analysis Essay 1

Overview
The source analysis essays are designed to guide you as you research and develop your term research projects. Each source analysis essay will require you to find at least one journal article related to your project, read it, summarize it, and discuss and critique the author’s arguments. There will be four source analysis essay drafts written in class throughout the semester; toward the end of the semester, you will choose one of these drafts to revise, edit, and submit for a grade.
While your final paper can (and possibly should) include scholarly texts as well as journal articles, for these essays I specifically want you to analyze scholarly journal articles, not full-length books.
Assignment
For the first source analysis essay, your task is to find a scholarly journal article that discusses a theme that interests you in your chosen work. For example, if you’re interested in the theme of destiny in Oedipus Rex, you should find an article that discusses that theme in that work. If you’re interested in the theme of poverty and income inequality in A Raisin in the Sun, you should find an article that addresses that theme. You may consider this article to be a kind of “base” article for your research: more narrowed and focused than just any old article about your chosen text, but still more general than you’ll likely eventually get.
The article you choose must be scholarly or academic in nature, not mainstream. While there are many reputable mainstream outlets, one of the goals of this course is to acquaint you with scholarly, rather than mainstream, literature. You should therefore use these assignments for that purpose (and, in any case, you’ll need scholarly sources for your final paper). As a refresher, you have several such resources available to you:
• JSTOR : In its complete version, JSTOR is a large multidisciplinary database and an excellent place to begin any research project. ECC does not subscribe to JSTOR; however, you can register for a personal account to access a more limited, but free, version from home.
• Google Scholar : Google Scholar, Google’s scholarly search engine, is another good, free place to begin your research. The downside to Scholar is that many of the articles will be behind paywalls and therefore inaccessible. However, many will be available. Additionally, many of your results will lead you to the relevant sections of electronic scholarly texts (useful in general, just not for this assignment), and even the articles behind paywalls will offer the information necessary to seek them out through a library.
• Netlibrary : This one is a bit finicky. It appears that you can access the databases available on Netlibrary if you are on campus and connected to ECC’s WiFi; however, I’m not sure yet that there is a way to log in and access those databases from home. I’m finding out more info; in the meantime, though, at least you can access Netlibrary’s databases while on campus.
• Guest access at Rutgers or NJIT: The widest resource available to you is your neighboring libraries. Rutgers and NJIT subscribe to a large number of scholarly databases (as research institutions rather than teaching institutions, it’s more of a requirement). You are unable to access these databases from home even if you get a barcode to check out books. However, you can take a trip over to one of those libraries and request guest computer access; from there, you will be able to access their databases, as well, which should give you more options in terms of research.
Please feel free to ask me questions about any of those resources. Additionally, reference librarians will always be happy to help, as well (and they are certainly more knowledgeable about research than I am—that is what they went to graduate school for, after all).
Once you have found a suitable article, your next step should simply be to read it once through. Familiarize yourself with the article and consider the central claim(s) of the author. How do the author’s claims connect to the theme you’re interested in? What does the author of the article have to say about the meaning of that theme in your chosen work? You should also pay close attention to the source itself. Who is the author, and why do we trust her? Where was the article published? What makes the article scholarly?
After reading it and considering these questions, write up a brief outline of the article and highlight some choice quotes that connect to ideas you have about the text.
Draft
In the source analysis essay, you will be expected to briefly summarize your chosen article, then critically analyze it. The structure should be as follows:
1. Introduction: Your introduction paragraph should acquaint the reader with your subject, including the work of literature you chose, the theme you’re interested in researching, and the title and author of the journal article you found. You should also include an analytical claim you would like to make that helps to connect the article with your chosen work.
2. Summary: Following your introduction, you should briefly summarize the contents of the journal article. What are the author’s primary claims? How does she develop and support those claims? This section should be no longer than one paragraph—concision is key.
3. Analysis: The bulk of your essay will be the analysis. Discuss the author’s claims. What do you think of her ideas? Do you see any flaws in her logic and reasoning? How does what she has to say fit with what you think about the text? Please remember that you are not being asked to describe the author’s claims; you are being asked to discuss and analyze her claims from your perspective.
4. Conclusion: Wrap up your essay with a conclusion that works to contextualize your more specific analysis. How does this fit within your overall project? How do your arguments help lead us to a stronger understanding of the text? Bring everything full circle and wrap it up neatly.
On Friday, October 14th, we will be visiting the Rutgers-Newark Dana Library for a reading/research day. While essay drafts will generally be written in class, you should consider this draft to be follow-up work related to your activities that class period. Therefore, please type and submit your essay draft to Moodle on Monday, October 17th, by 11:55pm. Your draft should be at least 500 words in length (the more, though, the better).