Prompt: For this essay, you will consider one of the following major works of literature studied this semester: Beowulf (This one please), The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Everyman, or Hamlet by William Shakespeare, or any other preapproved major British work from the 9th to 18th centuries. You will identify one ethical issue (a concept that people associate with right and wrong behavior) presented within the work; explain how the author presented the issue by connecting character choices, actions, and consequences to ethical decision-making; and explain the work’s relationship to the British culture of its literary period.
Requirements:
The paper will be approximately 1,200 words (not counting the Works Cited page).
The paper must follow current MLA formatting guidelines, including the paper format, the works cited page, and parenthetical in-text citations. This is not something you learn and memorize. Formatting a paper requires following the guidelines each time you write a paper. It is detail work! Here is a link to Purdue University’s online guidelines: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html
Please understand that you must use in-text citations for every piece of information that does not come out of your own brain. A Works Cited page is meaningless if you do not have citations in your paper. The in-text citations lead your reader to the Works Cited, and the entry there leads your reader to the actual source. The Purdue OWL explains and provides examples for all of this. Be sure to set aside time to study the guidelines as you are writing the paper; it takes almost as long to include citations and format everything correctly as it does to write the paper! It is tedious. Using a formatting guide will be an expectation for every essay you write, which will be in almost every college course. Again, you don’t “learn” how to do this, you follow the guidelines every time.
You must use a minimum of FOUR scholarly sources (no Wikis or blogs, unless maintained by a scholar, and no student helper sites, such as Gradesaver or student essays uploaded to the internet or Sparknotes). Two sources must be examples of literary criticism (sources in which scholars have analyzed the same work of literature). You will likely use 2-3 sources about the work you’ve chosen, one source for background to some aspect of the literary period, and a source that discusses (not defines – assume your reader understands the issue) the ethical issue you’re addressing.
4-5 Paragraphs 1 intro, 2-3 body, and conclusion
