Paper IV

Your final paper will combine the close reading and critical analysis skills we’ve practiced this term, the research skills you developed in Paper III and your group-led discussion project, and the attention to design and visual rhetoric we have emphasized over the course of the term. For this paper, you will write a well-researched and thoroughly cited work of cultural criticism aimed at the specific online audience of your choice. The goal of your paper is to show your audience something interesting about one of the films from Unit IV and to strengthen your reading of the film with supporting evidence and analysis of the critical conversation.

Because your argument is participating in an online conversation, you should write and format your argument with that conversation in mind. This means that rather than writing a traditional academic paper in Word or Pages, you will draft and publish your argument as a blog post on our course blog.

Writing your paper in 10 easy steps

  1. Pick a topic

    The first thing you need to do is decide on a topic. Your goal is to show your readers something interesting about some specific element of Bridesmaids or Trainwreck, and to connect your close reading of the film itself to other people’s arguments. In other words, you want to show your readers how analyzing some part of the film helps them understand some larger cultural issue. You should look back at the film, as well as the readings from each group-led discussion. Are there any arguments that you want to respond to, perhaps by disagreeing or expanding on a major point? You won’t have room to talk about the entire film, or to respond to all the critics who write about the film, so you need to begin by narrowing your scope.

  2. Pick an audience

    One you’ve decided on a topic, you’ll need to pick an audience. Here, too, you can turn to the readings for guidance. Where were they published? Do any of them seem to be making the kinds of arguments or engaging the kinds of readers that you’d like to engage? Look over the different websites you identify and see if any of them appear to be a good fit for your topic. If you’re having trouble identifying a specific website and audience, feel free to consult with me.

  3. Research your audience

    After you’ve decided on a website, you’ll want to research your audience. Read through the material on the site and take some notes. Who do you think the site’s primary readers are, and why? What kind of stories do they run? What kind of ads do they publish? What do you think the readers are generally interested in, and what can you identify as their primary values?

  4. Evaluate your research

    Before you begin writing, you’ll want to make sure you have all the secondary sources you need to support your argument. Look over the texts from the group-led discussions. Which ones relate to your topic? What do you still not know about your topic, and how can you find what you’re missing? (Hint: Librarians are always happy to help you with your research, as am I.) Keep reading and searching until you have as many sources as you need, which should be at least 3.

  5. Identify your argument

    Now that you’ve looked at what everyone else has to say, you need to carve out your own space in the conversation. What do you want to show your readers that hasn’t been done in the sources you’ve found? You might want to connect the arguments other people make to a new or unexamined aspect of the film you have chosen. You might want to disagree with people about something. You might want to point out something everyone has overlooked. Whatever you do, you should be sure that you’re focusing on a specific issue within the film, because you want to support your argument with details from the film itself.

  6. Decide how you will use media and design

    As we’ve discussed, successful online writing makes use of a variety of media, including video and images. It also uses space, color, text headings, fonts, and other elements of design to communicate hierarchies, claims and other rhetorical elements. Your blog post should do the same thing.

    Decide what kind of media you want to use. Are there specific scenes you will analyze? Consider embedding a screen grab from a scene to supplement your analysis. If you want to discuss advertising or movie trailers, embed those as well. Your blog post should include at least two images, though you may use more if you wish. Remember, though, that every image you include in your argument must be accompanied by a thorough analysis. If you include ten images from the film, then you will need at least ten paragraphs of analysis. Choose your images judiciously.

    Decide how you will use design to augment your argument. What kind of visual hierarchy does your argument require, and how can you create that hierarchy? How can you use headings or different styles of text to visually communicate your important points? Remember that too much clutter or an unclear hierarchy will confuse your reader rather than strengthening your claims, so be sure to prioritize your use of features like bold or italic type.

  7. Write your paper

    Now that you’ve identified your audience and argument and planned out your design, it’s time to write your argument. Don’t write your paper in Word or Pages. If you already have a preferred editor for Markdown or HTML, use that. If not, use the editor on the WordPress site (but be sure to click “Save Draft” at regular intervals!).

    As you write, think both about what you’re arguing and how you’re formatting that argument. In addition to saving your draft regularly, preview it regularly. Make changes to the design as you make changes to the content of the argument.

  8. Follow online conventions for citation and quotation

    When you reference other people’s arguments, make sure you are making it clear to your readers which arguments are yours and which are drawn from other critics. Use attribution tags like “Jones argues,” “According to Smith,” and “Lee claims.” Rather than using MLA citation style, use the citation practices of online writing. This means that you should identify the author, title and publication in the body of your writing, and you should link to the text you are citing. When you quote a secondary source at length, use the block quote feature in the WordPress editor to distinguish the quotations from your text.

    As with your earlier papers, make sure you’re following a claim-evidence-analysis model. When your evidence is drawn from your secondary sources, be extra careful to follow up with analysis of how that evidence proves your claim and relates to your thesis.

  9. Look back at the beginning and end

    You probably had a thesis in mind when you started writing, but once you’ve drafted your paper, take some time and re-visit that thesis. Is your initial thesis actually what you ended up writing about? Often, your argument changes—sometimes substantially—as you work through your analysis. If that’s the case, re-write your thesis to reflect your new argument. Use your conclusion to remind your reader why your argument is important: that is, how does your thesis help your reader better understand the film?

  10. Reflect on your analysis and design

    In addition to your blog post, you should write two meta-analyses that you will submit on Sakai. The first should be a meta-analysis of the ways you engaged your specific audience. In about 500 words, tell your reader who your audience was, and what you identified as the most important things your audience values or is interested in. How do you know they value those things? Then explain the specific choices you made in your paper that respond to those interests and values.

    The second should be a meta-analysis of the design choices you made in your blog post. In about 500 words, tell your reader what the most important aspects of your design were. What were the intended rhetorical and visual effects of those choices? Based on your knowledge of your audience, why did you prioritize those particular effects? Be sure to include specific examples to support your claims. Here you might consider using your design analysis from earlier in the term as a model.

What your paper should do

  • Make an argument about a specific and appropriately narrow aspect of either Trainwreck or Bridesmaids that situates your analysis of the film itself in a broader cultural conversation
  • Address your argument to a specific online audience that you identify and research
  • Use specific details drawn from the film and your sources to support each claim in the paper, and follow each piece of evidence with analysis explaining how those details prove your claim
  • Refer to at least 3 secondary sources, and show how those sources support and expand your own argument about the film
  • Demonstrate attention to the relationship between the elements of design and the structure of your argument
  • Include at least two embedded images, and accompany each image with specific analysis
  • Follow the conventions of online writing for citation, attribution and quotation
  • Include a 500-word analysis that describes your design and reflects on how and why you made specific design choices to support and enhance your argument
  • Include a 500-word analysis that describes your audiences and reflects how and why you made specific choices in your paper to appeal to your audience
  • Be 2000-2500 words long, including your reflection

After your paper is written

Peer review instructions

Rather than uploading a copy of your paper to Sakai prior to peer review, you should publish your paper draft to the course blog before class time on Monday, April 4. Include the word “Draft” at the end of your blog post title.

Submission instructions

After our in-class peer review session, you should revise according to your classmates’ feedback and post your paper as a new blog post. You should submit your two meta-analyses to the “Paper IV Meta-Analysis” folder on Sakai. Your blog post and meta-analyses should be posted and submitted by class time on Friday, April 7.

Grading

Paper IV is worth 17 points. Two of those points are allocated to peer review, one for submitting a completed draft by the appointed time, and another for participating in the in-class session and submitting feedback. The final paper will be graded on the 15-point scale; for more details on that scale, consult the grading scale.

Revisions

Paper IV is the final paper of the term, so you will have only one opportunity to revise following peer review and submission. Your revised Paper IV should be submitted no later than 5 PM on Friday, April 14. You should post your paper as a new blog post and include the word “Revised” in the title of the new post. You should submit your revised meta-analyses to the “Meta-Analysis” folder on Sakai.