Syllabus supplement
Term Paper Guide
The Term Paper must meet the following requirements:
Minimum length is 3,000
words. I do not read or grade papers that do not meet the minimum
requirements.
For Truth, Beauty, and Goodness the topic should be your analysis of the
narrative nature of a recent film (or another mass media presentation). See
links below for some book references.
A minimum of three references should be used for research. If web sites are used as references they can be included
as links in the paper. Avoid plagiarism!
Graphics can be included but do not change the minimum word length.
The paper can be turned in via e-mail or posted to a web page and the link
emailed to the instructor. If it is posted to a web page indicate if the address
may be shared with the class.
Since the paper can be presented in various ways there is no requirement
concerning the mechanics of the paper. You are encouraged to use your imagination! If you are
interested in suggested ways to reference materials on line you can look at this
MLA guide. However, I prefer to have a
"live" link myself. Using the web for research is still so new that
conventions do not seem adequately established. They may never be!
Here are some links to Google books (have your free account yet?) that are to pages where such a use of the word narrative is discussed. (I used the search string “narrative meta grand”).
Here is one book I quoted from briefly in class (though this is a different place in the book):
Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making
by James D G Dunn
Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
by William Cronon
In Narrative, Religion and Science: Fundamentalism Versus Irony, 1700-1999
by Stephen Prickett
Telling the Truth About History
by Joyce Appleby
On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation
Critical and Cultural Theory Reader
or you can just use the same search string and find these and many more.
Remember the goal of this project is not only having fun describing a media product (movie, book, etc.) that you love and choose, but analyzing it to see what meta-narrative it teaches with the main point being that you be aware of the various kinds of meta-narratives there are – or at least how academics are enthusiastically using this concept, since it is considered within the context of such narratives that we have truth, beauty, and goodness.