This is a 6 page paper in which you will utilize concepts and readings from the course to analyze urban images in a specific media 'text' or 'texts', i.e. film(s), television program(s), music, etc. In addition to making use of course materials, I expect you to do a substantial amount of research and to utilize academic materials in your analysis i.e. peer-reviewed journals and books.
- Due on Week Three (Thursday)
- You must send me a copy of your paper via email (.doc -or- .pdf attachments are preferable). The document should have your last name as the title, for example: Jones.doc -or- Furness.pdf (it saves me the hassle of re-formatting your papers when I put them into folders on my computer).
- I will not accept late papers.
- Papers should be 12 pt Times New Roman font, standard margins, double-spaced.
- The only information you need to include at the top of your paper is your name, the date, and the title of your paper. Please do not give me a cover sheet, plastic binders or anything else...a staple in the corner works just fine, and feel free to print on the back of old assignments, show flyers, etc (just put an 'X' through the old material to avoid confusion).
When I talk about utiliazing theories and concepts from the course in your paper, I mean using other people’s ideas/arguments to support your position...not the other way around. That is to say, your paper is not simply a place for you to restate what an author already says. Instead, you need to integrate an author's ideas and specific points into your own argument.....and you need to do so by paraphrasing and making use of direct quotations (both of which need to be accurately cited). With respect to the general requirements, it should go without saying that I expect your paper to be well-written, free from spelling errors and major grammatical errors, coherently organized, and rigorously proofread.
Selecting Your Topic
I’m more than happy to help you develop your paper and/or formulate your analysis. I’m also willing to help you come up with ways to shape, or direct, your topic. What I am not willing to do is to simultaneously provide you with a topic, an argument, a way to organize your paper, and a list of resources to use. In short, you need to put some effort into thinking through your topic and your argument. Consequently, if you need to get in touch with me about your topic, make sure that you can at least answer the three most basic questions that I would ask you myself:
- What is your topic and why are you interested in writing about it?
- What do you want to say about it, specifically? In other words, what are the main questions you hope to address in your paper?
- What concepts or readings from the course are going to be the most useful in framing your analysis?
Format
I don't care what citation format you use in your paper, just stick with one throughout the paper (either Chicago Humanities style footnotes or MLA parenthetical citations). Make sure to include specific page numbers in your citations (unless it's an Internet resource) and also be sure to include a formatted bibliography of the sources you used in the paper. Not citing your sources and/or not turning in a bibliography will earn you an automatic 'F' for the paper.
If you make use of materials from the Internet--i.e. articles that are only available online and not in print--make sure to include the following information in your bibliography: the author, the title of the article or post, the main website from where an article was found, the date when the piece was originally written or posted (if/when available), and finally, the address itself. I do not care about the date when you accessed the article. Here are some sample citation and a corresponding bibliographic entry:
- Footnote: April Streeter, "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?," TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009, Online.
- Parenthetical citation: (Streeter, 2009)
- Bibliography entry: Streeter, April. "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?" TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/bcycles-big-bike-share-plans.php
I’m not going to put a quota on how many resources you are suppose to use for the case study but a good rule of thumb is to have at least one scholarly resource for every page of your paper (i.e. a five-page paper would have at least five sources, in addition to the main article or articles that you are using to build your analysis). However, it all depends upon the quality of your sources. For example, citing three different articles in the Chicago Sun-Times doesn’t count as doing scholarly research. Newspapers and other reference materials are immensely useful, but they are not a replacement for primary research, which should consist of:
- Class readings
- Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles (i.e. found in journals like Media, Culture & Society, Cultural Studies, Signs, Cultural Anthropology, International Journal of Zizek Studies, etc)
- Books written for a college audience (university presses are an easy indicator)
As far as Internet resources go, make sure to evaluate their credibility....just because it's online doesn't mean that it's not junk (duh). Also, a final note on Internet publications: Wikipedia is not a legitimate resource. If you are wondering why, please click here to see what I stumbled across when I looked up Simon Bolivar on Wikipedia in 2008 (I took a screenshot). So take it from Mr. T:
"I pity the fool who cites Wikipedia!"
Doing research means that you will undoubtedly have to spend some time wading through resources that may turn out to be irrelevant to your topic, your argument, or the specific points you want to make in your paper. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes. The right resources for your case study will not always be the most obvious ones, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time to do research.
