Paper 3 Guidelines: Analyze a Film
3. Justifications and Claims
Overview: Requirements and Guidelines
Choose any film (a feature-length, short, or animated work) and write a 6 to 8 page (note: 6 FULL is ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, so aim for 7 pages) evaluative analysis of your subject using any combination of the critical strategies discussed in this class, such as the issue, conclusions, and reasons you feel are presented in the movie.
The paper should demonstrate your ability to balance close textual analysis with MLA-style research on a broader topic supported by the text, or movie in this case, under analysis. Your thesis should forward an arguable interpretation and evaluation of the movies’s positive or negative value or impact, skill effectiveness or not, or significance or lack of significance, according to the criteria of any of the critical strategies covered so far.
Find some main, arguable point you will make about the movie, and then prove that point. Remember that words like “shows” and “displays” are summative words, not evaluative. You must continue to go beyond mere summary by displaying analytically critical judgement. Yes, that’s right, you must logically argue, based on analytic evidence, in favor of your educated opinion.
Whatever you do, you must make a judgement, an evaluation, which you express clearly in your thesis and then prove through your critical analysis and logical presentation of evidentiary details and examples.
Guidelines
Your essay should:
Have a compelling, original title.
Put forward a thesis that asserts an arguable evaluative claim about the text based on any of the critical strategies we have discussed.
Include at least four reliable, scholarly or professional sources that support your observations/analysis about the text.
Be 6 1/2 – 8 pages in length, submitted in MLA format with in-text citations and a separate Works Cited page.
Examples of Critical Strategies
For a documentary, analyze for any of the following:
Soundness of Argument
Issue
Conclusion
Reasons
Evidence
Ambiguous Language
Context
Logical Fallacies
Misleading Information
Credibility of Data
Focus of paper: An argument about the movie’s impact or value based on the soundness of its arguments.
For a fictional movie, analyze for any of the following:
Film’s Significance
Figurative Language
Literary Elements
Plot Structure
Mood/Tone
Characters
Any element of literary criticism
Any element of literary analysis
Focus of paper: An argument about the movie’s significance or value based on the power of its figurative and literary elements.
These are just examples. If you want to talk about issues and conclusions in a fictional movie, that’s fine, too.
Analyze, Don’t Summarize
Remember, this paper is not about summary. It is about analysis and critical judgement and evaluation. Figure out your evaluative thesis, and conduct an argument by using specific examples and analysis of the examples to show supportive evidence to prove your thesis. Having a clear judgement – an evaluative thesis – will help you stay on track because it provides the purpose of the paper, namely prove the thesis!
