Home button

Research presentations

There are some basic requirements on what sorts of articles you'll need to use, but this assignment should not take an inordinate amount of time to complete or be difficult to do well on. The length of your presentation should be between 500-700 words, meaning roughly two typed page max, so it's nowhere near an actual "paper." Plus, at least half of each presentation will involve summarizing the key points of the article you've read, so you won't have to sweat too much over what to write about: the author of the article will have done most of the sweating for you; you just have to read carefully and then restate the essential points in your own words.

1) Step one: choosing a novel
Select a novel you'd like to present on from those remaining on our schedule of readings (Pride and Prejudice through the end of the semester) and let me know via email your first and second choices for presentations by Thursday, August 25th.

2) Step two: choosing an article
The first thing to do is browse through sources of scholarly criticism or commentary on the novel you have signed up to present on and choose one to share with the class. Note that sources from web pages available freely, open-access to all, on the World Wide Web, are not valid for this assignment.

Scholarly criticism, sources valid for presentation
Scholarly sources are works of criticism or commentary written by established experts or others with particular authority to speak in an informed and learned fashion on a given subject: today most scholars are college professors, though professional writers and critics who are not technically "academic scholars" may also produce criticism or commentary that is considered scholarly. For instance, although the 19th-century poet John Keats was not a professional scholar or a university professor, he was indeed a great professional writer and certainly his comments on Shakespeare, even in casual letters, carry great weight and authority as "scholarly" despite his not being a scholar in the current formal sense of the term.

Generally the most authoritative sources of criticism and commentary on literary works are book-length studies ("monographs") written by a single author focusing on one particular subject (if not one particular literary writer or work more narrowly). I am certainly not expecting any of you to read whole books for this assignment, but your best first choice may be to locate a book of criticism or commentary on the novel in the MGA library and present your findings on one particular chapter from this book.

Second on the list of most authoritative sources are articles collected or presented together in books of criticism such as Twentieth Century Interpretations of Henry IV, Part 1, edited by R. J. Dorius. This book is a collection of fifteen different critical essays by more than a dozen different authors. Collections of essays are sometimes composed of original articles written specifically for the book, but most often they reprint a number of the best or most important essays published initially in scholarly journals or presented orally at scholarly conferences or conventions.

Third on the list of authoritative sources are articles published in refereed scholarly journals, such as Dickens Quarterly or the Journal of Narrative Theory. A journal that is "refereed" has an editorial review board composed of established experts in a given field who approve, as a group, the articles accepted for publication in the journal—as opposed to the fourth-most authoritative source of scholarly criticism, scholarly journals that are not "refereed," meaning that as few as one single editor may decide which articles are accepted for publication. Most refereed journals list the "editorial review board" on one of the first pages of each volume or issue of the journal.

You should have little trouble finding legitimate scholarly criticism on each of the novels we're reading, canonical as they all are. You have access to many hundreds (if not thousands) of qualifying articles via the MGA Library subscription databases in Galileo.

Note: select sources focusing only on the one novel you have signed up for—i.e. no "comparison" pieces between two or more works.

Article length (minimum): sources must be at bare minimum eight pages in length. Shorter articles are not valid for presentation.

Sources not valid for research presentations:

3) Step three: getting your source approved
To ensure that your source is indeed valid and also to prevent duplication of sources when two or three students are presenting on the same novel, you must email me the bibliographic information for your chosen source (a "works cited" entry; see Q5: QD5M or QD5j and/or QD5ft).


4) Step four: writing the presentation
Read the source carefully, identifying its thesis or central point and each of the major supporting claims that develop the thesis. Make an informal outline (purely for your own use, not to be turned in) of the article's primary claims about the novel. Reread the source, confirming, refining, and expanding your initial interpretation of it.

Write an evaluative summary of the source, 1) identifying its central analytical points of commentary upon the novel, and 2) explaining how or why the source improves or impacts your appreciation or understanding of the novel. You should present the summary of the article first, in one or two paragraphs at most, and then separately, after the summary, offer your explanation of how the source has influenced your perception of the novel. You may also comment on the source's weaknesses, explaining which of the author's points you find least convincing, least valid, or least helpful in illuminating important facets of the novel.

Format: Format your presentation according to the MLA guidelines for typed work as outlined on my "simple stuff' page. Begin the presentation with a correct "works cited" entry containing the bibliographic information for your source (see Q5M for items from books, Q5j for journal articles, Q5ft for full-text electronic journal articles).

Note on length: The length of your presentation must be 500-700 words, meaning just barely more than two typed pages max. Presentations shorter than 500 words will not receive passing grades, and presentations going beyond the 700-word limit will be penalized one full letter-grade for each 100 words beyond the limit. Although this assignment is weighted heavily at 100 pts., I do not intend that it be a truly major undertaking, and part of the point of a summary is brevity, so definitely don't get carried away with your writing!

Note on quotations: It's okay if you offer a few very brief quotations from the source, especially of its thesis or most central points, but do not at all quote extensively. Restate the author's primary points mostly in your own words. The idea here is to summarize and evaluate, not to copy the words of the author directly except in very small doses. It is perfectly fine and even desirable if you do not include any quotations from the source at all. Definitely do not include direct quotations from the novel that are contained within the source you are presenting.

See this sample research presentation on Ian Watt's Rise of the Novel re: Robinson Crusoe


5) Step five: sharing the presentation
You'll have 3-5 minutes to share the presentation orally with the class on the day it's due, and you'll also turn in a typed final draft of the presentation in both hard copy and electronic format.  I may post research presentations on the web.