Short fiction is one genre where the United States has made a significant contribution to world literature. You will write a short research paper (about 1200—1500 words) that focuses on at least one short story we studied by Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, or Melville. Including Poe’s “The Tell-Tell-Tale Heart,”. Our school subscribes to Bloom’s Literature, an excellent database that you can access from the school library’s homepage by clicking on databases and then clicking on B in the index. You might be able to go directly to Bloom’s but the link sometimes doesn’t work. Bloom’s“How to write about. . .” section includes substantive advice for writing about Hawthorne, Poe, or Melville, along with numerous essays about specific stories written by the above authors and Irving that you can access by typing the title into Bloom’s search engine. You must use at least one of the essays you find there about a specific story to support and develop your paper. You should also use at least one source about the author’s biography or work in general. Each essay in Bloom’s has a citation link that you should use to ensure proper MLA documentation and so that you can reference writers by name in your paper. You may argue against expert opinions or use them to supplement your own.On Bloom’s home page, click on “View Authors” in the “How to write about…” section. On the right side, there is a section called Preparing to Write: you’ll find many tips for planning and writing your short research paper. There is also a sample paper concerning “The Birth-Mark” that you might find helpful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t follow strict MLA format style. Elsewhere in the term paper module, I’ve included a link to proper MLA rules. You can easily find essays about the story you selected by typing its title in Bloom’s search box. It is vital that you come up with a strong, specific thesis and a coherent, logical outline for your paper.
