Final Project Guidelines

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For the final project you will produce will be a report on your research. The report may be any format–essay, PowerPoint presentation, web site, or a combination of formats–but it should have the publication standard appropriate to an essay. That is, editing, proof-reading, and citation in appropriate formats. It should have sustained discussion and analysis. However, the rhetorical approach may not be the same as an essay (which typically takes the form of an argument). You should choose how you wish to present the material.

All reports should nevertheless contain the following elements:

  1. Your name(s).
  2. A discussion of your methodology: what premises and questions you began with, how you chose to handle the materials, any problems you encountered, and how you incorporated them into your methodology. Since the algorithmic approaches we are adopting are, frankly, cutting edge, that comes with dangers, and it is appropriate to look critically at the approach and assess its strengths and weaknesses. Make sure you document your methods as you go along so that you remember what you did.
  3. Leading on from that last point, what critical questions emerged from your engagement from the material and/or what interpretations of the text(s) emerged from your research?*
  4. What conclusions your work leads you to about the historical and literary context of the texts you are studying. This should be informed by appropriate reference to scholarly literature, which should be cited properly.
  5. Finally, if there were world enough and time (and the semester a less coy mistress), what would be your next step in exploring the material further or try to build upon your initial methods and/or findings?

* I want to emphasise that what you are doing for this project is real research, not the go to the library (or, ack! Google) and find what others have said variety that many students conceive of as research. I think it’s great that all of you have embraced the challenge to discover something new.

Drafts of your projects must be showcased in class on 5 December. The final project will be due the 13th of December.