‘War’ in The Lord of the Rings
You will conduct research on WAR and how this theme or complex of related themes bears directly on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Your primary objective is to illuminate an aspect of the text in such a way as to yield a richer understanding of it. Your research should elicit and clarify dimensions of the text likely obscured for the more casual reader.
Suggested outline for paper:
- Google War-
Note how the definition of war goes from broad to more specific. I would structure your paper like the definition.
- Start big (the basic story line is the war of Good v. Evil) Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? What is the essence of the conflict?
- Get specific and describe a number of particular armed conflicts
- Get specific and describe conflicts between the characters (competitions, even differences of opinion or even the characters’ internal conflicts (such as when Bilbo is hesitant to give Frodo the ring)
- The story takes place over a long time period- describe the length of time that elapses during the story and the changes that occur (what is the unpleasant or undesirable situation or condition) that push the story along and make the characters continue their battle.
- Throughout the whole paper use evidence from the sources provided to make sense of the plot and or provide incite into the story form the researches outside perspective.
E.X- Tolkien fought in WWI how does this play into the text.
Assignment
- An introduction that (a) clearly and concisely establishes your overall theme for the research paper; (b) establishes a clear and engaging thesis; and (c) indicates briefly the thematic structure of your paper by noting the sub-themes you will consider in the body.
- A literature review: one paragraph that briefly summarizes what you have discovered so far from the scholarship you read, noting how it bears on your theme and sub-themes. In this section, you don’t have to summarize or annotate whole articles. Just summarize the main thesis or main points in your sources to establish the background for your own contribution. Try to frame the issues already discussed in your sources in a way that addresses what you will say in your own work. This establishes you as a member of the “discourse community.” I want you to consider at least five sources.
- At least two body paragraphs. This will let me assess the progress of your analysis. You should try to develop these paragraphs as fully as possible. These paragraphs do not have to be continuous, but could come from any projected part of your paper. It would be helpful, therefore, to add outlined elements to indicate what will fill any gaps.
- A correctly formatted Works Cited page (seventh-edition MLA style), which should include at least Tolkien and the five scholarly sources you discussed in step 2 above. If you have more than five sources (whether scholarly or non-scholarly), you should include them also on the Works Cited page. The fuller the picture you give me of where you are at in your research, the more helpful I can be.
Writing Checklist
- □ Introductory paragraph: Try to establish the theoretical framework for your paper. You may develop your view later in the paper as well, but the reader needs to know what the issue is before proceeding. You should also try to give a specific overview of the main points constituting your argument. This gives the reader a kind of map and makes it much easier to follow your analysis. Avoid making vague or grandiose statements in the introduction, such as “W. H. Auden points out different elements . . .” (vague: tell me which elements) or “Throughout history . . .” (grandiose: stick to what you know). Make sure the course of the argument follows your map.
- □ Body: Be sure to give adequate discussion of the position or positions you are defending. This means that you should not leave too many questions about your meaning or interpretation of the text. Be concise but thorough.
- □ Keeping your conclusion in mind, be sure that you develop a step-by-step argument to convince the reader of the cogency of your point of view. Each paragraph should contribute to your final conclusion. Especially in a relatively short paper, do not use your conclusion simply to repeat or summarize the paper. Instead, pull everything together for the first time and leave the reader with some memorable line or thought.
- □ Avoid vague or unjustified claims. Always explain yourself and try to integrate textual support for your interpretations. Doing so will enhance the persuasiveness of your argument.
- □ Avoid overuse of the passive voice, which only creates wordiness and makes your claims less direct. So, instead of saying, “It is argued in Plato’s Sophist that X,” use the active voice and say, “In his Sophist, Plato argues X.” Instead of saying, “It will be shown in this paper that X,” use the active voice and say, “I show that X.” This change yields prose that is more aggressive, confident, and persuasive, eliminating a lot of academic verbiage along the way.
- □ Feel free to use the first person. Especially in philosophy, you should take responsibility for your thesis and argument, instead of pretending to keep them at an artificial “objective” distance. There is no need to overdo it, however. Don’t say “I believe,” “in my opinion,” and so on, since this weakens your point, especially given the weak status of belief when compared with knowledge. Just make your claims and defend them,
- □ Format: Staple your paper. Make sure it is double spaced. Use black ink and a 10- or 12-point easily read font, such as Times New Roman. Set margins at 1 inch. Number your pages. You do not need a title page. Just put your name, class, assignment, and date in the upper left corner of page one. You may also include your last name in the header, next to the page number.
- □ Do not permit MS Word to insert extra space between paragraphs (which it currently does by default). If MS Word is inserting such space automatically, go to the paragraph menu and set “spacing before” and “spacing after” at 0. I recommend that you then click the “default” button to make this the default spacing for your MS Word documents.
- □ Quotations and Documentation: Be sure you have included a Works Cited page and/or Works Consulted page, properly formatted in seventh-edition MLA style. Refer to The Little Seagull Handbook or some other manual giving seventh-edition MLA style.
- □ Be sure you use in-text citations to document quotations, paraphrases, and or implicit references to the ideas and theories contained in the assigned texts or other sources. Do not use footnotes, except explanatory footnotes or footnotes acknowledging outside assistance, such as assistance received at the Writing Center.
- □ Do not set quotations in italics. Use italics only if they appear in the original or if you wish to emphasize a key word or phrase. If you do add italics to a quotation, include the phrase “emphasis added” (or some equivalent phrase) after the cited page number: (172, emphasis added). Make sure the in-text citation appears outside of the quotation marks. Final punctuation should appear after the citation: Frodo said, “I will take the Ring” (Tolkien 264). Long quotations (more than four lines) must be set as block text. Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks. (I will accept single-spaced, indented block quotations, however. In this case, insert an extra space above and below the quotation and indent the entire quotation on the left side only.) Always use double quotation marks (“x”) for non-block quotations or so-called “scare-quotes.” Use single quotation marks (‘x’) only for quotations within quotations.
- □ Be sure to introduce quotations with adequate context. And make sure you integrate quotations in such a way as to yield complete or correctly formed sentences. If you use an introductory phrase with a quotation in such a way as to yield a complete sentence, use a comma before the quotation. Example: According to Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” Introduce evidentiary quotations (quotations that serve as direct evidence for a preceding statement, but which do not flow into a complete sentence) with a colon. Example: Plato thinks knowledge is open to everyone: “The power to know is already in every soul.”
- □ If you add any words to a quotation or alter any words, enclose the additions or alterations in brackets: [ ]. Do not enclose the added words or alterations in parentheses, since that will imply they are part of the original source.
- □ Quote precisely. Misquotations are unacceptable and show inadequate attention to detail. You should proofread your quotations word for word against the original during the final stages of preparing the paper for submission.
- □ Proofreading and Editing: Make sure you verify the spelling of all proper names, along with the book title and author’s name! Hint: Once you have verified a proper name, highlight it, then right-click and add it to the dictionary.
- □ Book titles should be underlined or italicized both in the paper and in the Works Cited. I prefer italics throughout, but whichever you choose, be consistent. Do not underline some titles and italicize others. Italicize foreign words (e.g., eudaimonia, nous, cogito)
- □ Make sure you form possessives properly: one’s theory, not ones theory; Socrates’ or (Socrates’s) theory, not Socrates theory, etc.
- □ Insert one space between ellipsis dots and quoted material. Examples: “blah blah blah . . . blah blah.” MLA recommends that you not use ellipsis dots at the beginning of quotations, since the reader takes it for granted that material may have been omitted. If you omit a whole sentence, insert a period at the end of the sentence that appears prior to the omission: Plato says, “blah, blah, blah. . . . blahdy blah blah.”
- □ Avoid contractions altogether in formal writing (may be appropriate in alternative formats, such as written dialogue).
- □ Be sure you do not make the following all-too-common mistakes: confusing than with then; confusing it’s (a contraction for “it is”) with its (a possessive); confusing there, their, and they’re; confusing principal and principle; confusing affect and effect. To avoid other common usage errors, familiarize yourself with Hacker’s section on usage (§ W1).
- □ Learn to avoid comma splices (marked CS in the margin), run-on sentences, and fragments! Refer to Hacker, §§ G5 and G6. The presence of such poorly punctuated sentences will lower your grade.
