Humanities Homework Help

Objective:

The purpose of this assignment is to give you additional practice

with:

•

online library research

•

primary a

nd secondary source evaluation

•

literary analysis

•

source summarization

•

evaluating

rhetorical elements of source

•

MLA citations (parenthetical and Works Cited)

WA3 and WA4 are the Research

Project when put together. Some

teachers

like to give the

assignment in one lump sum by having students research and write an essay; however, I find

that students really need time to learn

where

to go for online literary research

in order

to find

academically viable sources for literary research

,

how

to select their secondary sources, and

how to analyze their sources

. That is why

I devote one entire assignment (WA3) to just the

research

part of the project

. Later

in WA4, you will write a comparative essay in which you

include

what

you have researched in WA3.

Let’s clarify

The six secondary sources (i.e. literary criticisms, academic journals, overviews, articles,

professional essays, bio

graphies…etc.) that you select and summarize

in WA3 are the ones that

you will

later

use in y

ou

r WA4 essay. In STEP 3 of WA3

, I

go

over the different ways to use a

secondary source OR the things to look for in a secondary source as you select your sources for

your future WA4 essay. I touch on it again in STEP 6 of

the upcoming

WA4

.

Purpose for Creat

ing Summaries for Sources

Back to WA3, the purpose behind having students create a summary for each of their sources is

to help them really “research” by actually taking the time to carefully read, understand, and

deconstruct their secondary sources, so th

at they are not just copying

–

and

–

pasting information

from that source. Unfortunately, getting to know one’s sources is an important step that

students often bypass in the In

ternet age.

All too commonly,

students tend to copy

–

and

–

paste

non

–

essential inform

ation from irrelevant sources.

That does nothing for a p

erson’s essay. In

fact,

a lot of inaccuracy actually stems from it.