Paper – Topic
Literature can often be used as a socializing force. That is, a society will often use a text to reinforce social attitudes, to teach youths, and sometimes to oppress people. Similarly, a text can often have a socializing effect without intending to do so, or can actually challenge social attitudes. Keep in mind that the reinforcement or challenging of social or cultural attitudes can happen without governmental leaders, parents/families, or individuals realizing it.
For this paper, you must use Aeschylus’s Oresteia or Aristophanes’s Lysistrata plus one other text from the course and discuss the ways these texts reinforce or challenge ancient Greek attitudes, ideologies, taboos, morals, etc.
Hint: This topic will be easier if you choose your texts based on a similar theme. In other words, with only four pages, it will be very difficult to argue how Aeschylus does X and Euripides does Y. It will be easier to show how Plato and Euripides both do Z.
Paper – Guidelines
This paper is worth a significant proportion of your final grade, and things like having a strong thesis statement, using direct quotes to support your argument, clean grammar, etc., are important parts of grading. It’s always sad for me when I have to dock points from a paper because a student keeps spelling a title or writer’s name wrong, or because the student has no central thesis. Treat this paper seriously. I strongly encourage you to visit the Undergraduate Writing Center in Boucke (Links to an external site.)
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Here are several guidelines to keep in mind:
• Present a strong, relevant thesis statement.
◦ Make a clear argument that is the focus of the entire essay.
◦ And make sure that it relates to the topic above.
• Use direct quotes and specific examples to support your thesis and properly cite the quotes (e.g. book number and line number, act number and line number, etc.).
• Use at least two different ancient sources and properly cite the sources.
• Do NOT not use outside sources. Focus on the primary sources we’ve read in the class.
• Make sure that your paper is in final draft form (e.g. appropriate level of formality, correct spelling, clean grammar, proper formatting, etc.).
Paper – Formatting
It is essential that you follow the required formatting requirements. Failure to follow these requirements will result in penalties.
Your final draft must have the following characteristics:
• 3-4 pages, double-spaced (no extra spaces between paragraphs)
• 12 pt. Times New Roman font (this is no longer MS Word’s default font!)
• 1” margins
• Underlined or italicized title
• The document should be in one of the following formats:Microsoft Word document (*.doc or *.docx), PDF file (*.pdf), RTF file (*.rtf)
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