Final project guidelines

project description:

You have two kinds of final projects you may pursue: a) a “long” Yoknapedia entry or equivalent* (see Religion for a great example) or b) a traditional research paper. The deadlines and most of the process are the same; the difference is that the Yoknapedia entries will gloss a term* using a wide array of secondary sources and moorings in Faulkner’s fiction, whereas the research papers will mount an argument that engages with one or more ongoing critical conversations in Faulkner studies and/or other fields. This distinction might be pretty subtle in some cases: ask me for advice if you’re not sure whether a topic is a good fit for the encyclopedia. In both cases, you will submit 3-4,000 words and have a generous handful (5-7) sources at a minimum.

** I'm open to two medium-length entries that add up to minimum 3000 words: let me know if you're interested in this approach, and we can evaluate whether your proposed plan is workable.

Here are the sub-assignments and deadlines:

4/18: Project proposal (on blog)

Your proposal should define a topic. For a research paper, you will pose a question aimed at one or more primary texts that relates them to some kind of cultural context. For an encyclopedia entry, it should take a complex object or idea that’s native to the “county” and explain its importance across at least two primary texts, grounding your approach in scholarship. The proposal should be brief and pithy: about 100-200 words. It should include some ideas about research strategies: what primary texts you will engage, where you will look for secondary sources, etc. Here’s a pretty good example of a question, and here’s another one . Note that you need not go into as much detail as these authors did, nor provide so many sources! I’ve assembled a bunch of potential topics (some extremely broad and in need of sharpening!) here . For the Yoknapedia, check out the good old entry list for “long” ideas.

5/2: annotated bibliography (on blog)

  • at least 5-7 sources (depending on your project, might be “secondary sources” like journal articles and books from university presses or “primary sources” like Faulkner’s novels, letter, interviews, etc.).
  • each source should have a sentence or two beneath it describing the argument of the source or otherwise explaining its relevance to the project. Here are two good examples.
  • a brief paragraph describing your process: what you’ve looked for, what help you’ve gotten from the library, what some of your keywords/research questions are, etc.
  • Don’t forget to look at the Zotero library I’ve put together.

5/16: final project due by class time

  • submit via email (research papers) or the Google Form (Yoknapedia)
  • please come to the final class prepared to give a very brief (3 min) and informal reflection on your project: your argument, interesting aspects of the research process, something that didn’t go well but you learned from. No wrong answers; just an opportunity to share your work with all of us.