Prompt:
The research paper will be a biography of a famous person. However, this paper will not be a typical biographical essay that tends to give a chronological—and boring—description of the subject from his or her birth to his or her death. Instead, focus on one particular part of that person’s life you consider to be a turning point. For example, if the subject of your paper were Barack Obama, you would probably focus on his election as president. If the subject of your paper were Harriet Tubman, you might want to discuss her first successful navigation of the Underground Railroad. A person’s turning point, however, may not be the most obvious choice. In your research, you may find that the most important instance of a person’s life occurred in his or her childhood, and not at the point where he or she achieved the apex of fame and accomplishment. And for certain celebrities, their deaths might be considered the most important turning point. Consider Abraham Lincoln, for example. Certainly, his tragic and unexpected murder could certainly be considered a turning point in our national history.
Remember, just because I want you to primarily focus on your subject’s turning point does not mean that you ignore the basic facts of the person’s life, such as where and when he or she was born, lived, died, etc.; you will, of course, need to write about those details. Still, the paper should focus on the turning point—and I want you to tell it like a story.
To be included:
First, I want to see your papers accurately formatted using MLA guidelines. This means that the margins are at one inch; a header with your last name and page number appears on the top right; a heading is present at the top of the first page with your name, followed by my name, the class, and then the date. Your paper should have a title that is centered, and the text should be double-spaced. As a visual aid, I am providing a link on how to assemble an MLA paper. When your paper is finished, look at both your paper and the sample paper: if there are any visible differences between your paper and the sample, then your paper is incorrect and you must change it to look like the MLA sample.
Next, I want to see a perfectly formatted works cited page. The works cited page is perhaps the most hated aspect of writing a research paper, so it’s good to get it over with in the rough draft. Luckily, however, we are living in a time when the creation of work cited pages is far easier than when I was an undergraduate. There are a host of websites where all you have to do is input the information and a perfect citation will be created for you. Below I provide a link that lists a number of these resources. And I also provide you a site that concisely describes the ins and outs of MLA formatting and citation.
Finally, and this is related to the works cited page, I want to see you attempt to include in-text citations in your paper. These are also known as parenthetical citations because they’re contained in parentheses at the end of each quoted or paraphrased sentence. Generally, the parentheses at the end of the sentence contain the author’s last name and the page number. Of course, it’s not always that simple; sometimes the article you are citing doesn’t have an author or page number, so you might be confused as to what goes in the parentheses in those cases. So the last helpful link I provide below explains all the different ways an in-text citation may appear.
