short story writer

You will pick one short story writer from this book and defend his or her claim to greatness as a writer of short fiction. You must include the story in your book in your paper, but you may choose to include other works of short fiction (no poetry, no plays, no novels, only short stories) by that writer. If you are not sure about a certain work, ask me first.
Research papers should fall between 1,200 and 1,600 words, must be documented according to MLA standards (taught in class), and must be YOUR original work.
You do not need a title page, but your work should be double spaced, and you must have a Works Cited page; if you do not have a Works Cited page, or if you do not make internal documentations, you will not receive a passing grade for this assignment.
You will be graded on content, grammar, and research paper mechanics.
Papers are due Tuesday, August 6 no later than 11:55 P.M. Since the course concludes August 6, late papers will not be accepted.
Most research papers for your future English classes will not be broken down this way.
Each section is detailed below, but if you have questions, please post them to the Help Forum so that everybody can benefit.
Before you begin writing, review the general essay guidelines for this course. For the most part, they apply here.
Section One
This part is a brief (200-300 words) biographical sketch that will serve as an introductory paragraph; try to avoid using your literature book as a source for this part. Many authors have official homepages that you can paraphrase from and credit. You can also find biographical information about your author through the Library, which has a link under the Resources section on the course’s homepage. Use your author’s biographical sketch to help you prove that (s)he deserves to be called great. Put your thesis statement as the last sentence in this paragraph.
Section Two
This part begins the meat, the literary analysis section of your paper and should contain the following:
(1) You should have at least one paragraph where you cite a critic or critics who praise your author’s work; remember, it’s your job to paraphrase their words and make specific references to the story to support their claims.
(2) You should have at least one paragraph where you cite a critic or critics who find faults with your author’s work; again, it’s your job to paraphrase their words and make specific references to the story. However, in this case, you will want to argue that these critics are wrong. It’s a strategy commonly called the antithesis, and it will work for just about any sort of persuasive writing you do. Present your opponent’s case and discredit it.
(3) You should have at least one paragraph of your very own textual analysis. That’s right€“you present your reasons for the author’s work being great. Of course, you’ll need to quote directly from the story and explain what’s so great about the part you’ve presented. How good is Poe at creating suspense? How shrewdly does Faulkner foreshadow? How realistic is Tim O’Brien? How bizarre is Shirley Jackson?
(4) As with any writing assignment, make sure you have a concluding paragraph. However, it really should be the shortest one in this paper.
To access the library, just click on the link under the Resources section of this course’s home page. Once you arrive at the library homepage, watch the extremely helpful orientation video.
Articles are going to be the easiest source for you to access; you may use books, but you’ll obviously have to physically check those out from the library.
Articles may be found under the Articles section at the library homepage, and you may use any recommended online sources as well.
If you get stuck trying to find information, I can try to help you, but the librarians are more readily available to answer your question through a chat, wonderful, and amazingly resourceful.