Discussion: Your Ideas for the Individual Paper

What do you plan to write your Individual Paper on? In at least 150 words, tell me what topic you are addressing and what two or three literary works you will use to support this topic. What will you say about the topic; in other words, what is your projected thesis? Include commentary on how this topic relates to your chosen profession and/or your major, in other words the source of your interest in the topic.

Note: You do not have to include the secondary (non-literary) sources here, but you should be conducting research on that by this point.

Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Oink

ENG 203 Literature and Medicine

Individual Paper Assignment

750 words minimum; not more than 1500 words

between 4 and 8 sources (primary and secondary)

APA style documentation

This is an assignment that you will work on independently, not as part of a team. Leading

up to submission, you will present (1) a proposal to me for approval and (2) post about

your topic in the discussion forum, to share with classmates.

Directions for the Individual Paper Assignment

This should be a paper that sheds light on the connection between a medical issue and

two or three works of literature. (I mean short stories, plays, or poems.) The idea is to

write about a current medical issue from the list you’ve been provided by demonstrating

how that medical issue has been depicted in two or three works of literature, and what

importance you draw from that depiction.

These works of literature can be anything contained in our assigned course readings or

anything in On Doctoring, but at least one should be something I recommend on the list of

topics. NOTE: Your paper will be a better paper if you choose a combination of short story

and poem; in other words, choose a story and two or three poems, or a poem and two

stories.

In addition to the two or three works of literature, your paper should also be supported by

two or three non-literary (i.e., medical) sources. These sources should contain information

that helps you clarify the medical issue you are writing about.

A suggested organization of your paper would look like this:

I. Introduction to the medical issue and a thesis that clarifies your “take” on how it is

depicted in two or three works.

II. Explanation of this medical issue that informs the reader about it enough to follow your

ideas about its depiction in the literature. (In other words, don’t spend pages and pages

writing about a disease or condition; devote two or three paragraphs to the issue.) In this

section, you should draw upon any sources of information about the disease (or condition).

III. Demonstration of how this medical issue is treated in one work. This section would

contain at least two quotations from that work that help you show how the medical issue is

depicted.

IV. Demonstration of how this medical issue is treated in a second work. This section would

contain at least two quotations from that work that help you show how the medical issue is

depicted.

V. Demonstration of how this medical issue is treated in a third work (if you’re doing

three). This section would contain at least two quotations from that work that help you

show how the medical issue is depicted.

VI. A conclusion that restates your thesis in fresh language by saying something about the

significance of these literary works’ power to shed light on the medical issue.

Note

Your paper will be deemed exceptionally good if you are able to demonstrate the

connectedness of your ideas through (1) meaningful transitions between

sections/paragraphs, and (2) smart, intelligent organization of the body.

What do you plan to write your Individual Paper on? In at least 150 words, tell me what topic you are addressing and what two or three literary works you will use to support this topic. What will you say about the topic; in other words, what is your projected thesis? Include commentary on how this topic relates to your chosen profession and/or your major, in other words the source of your interest in the topic.

Note: You do not have to include the secondary (non-literary) sources here, but you should be conducting research on that by this point.