short story essay

20Jan 2022 by

Choose a story that we have done a workshop on that you would like to write a paper about. Remember, you are not just to re-present the workshop. The workshop provides a model for the thinking process you should go through before writing your own paper. The workshop has prompted you to find several things “potentially significant” to help you come up with an idea for your paper. For instance, you may write a paper around the argument that you come up with in the Argue step. The Argue step is meant to help provide the main thesis of your paper, the central claim you are arguing. Remember, your paper should make an argument about the short story and support that argument with quoted evidence from both the story and at least one scholarly text (see below for more information about this).
Review the general guidelines about other requirements for the paper, such as, not only using quotes from the play for support, but also quoting at least one scholarly source other than your text. What does scholarly mean? You should draw on what you learned in English 101 to determine this, but a brief, and limited review of what sources not to use in a college level paper that is meant to be scholarly include common knowledge sources such as dictionaries and encyclopedias (you can assume that an intelligent reader knows the basic meanings of things and common facts), most .com sources including student aids such as schmoop.com, SparkNotes, and Cliffs Notes, biography.com, quotes.com, and so on. These sources are too general, offer information that should be commonly known instead of scholarly arguments, and are often dubious in their authority or credibility. 
Where can you find scholarly sources then? The TTC Databases are a great place to find scholarly essays presenting arguments on the works that we are reading, and you can access them online. Again, you can draw on what you should have learned in your Library orientation in English 101. If you need a refresher or help, contact the TTC library online at  or reach out to the Writing Center.
        The Writing Center has its own web page.  Students and instructors can access an excellent set of links to aid in helping students write various types of assignments.