Working on your Final Paper
Your final paper is due on December 8, 2000.
The 5-7 page final paper is due by 3 p.m. on December 8 in
my mailbox at the Film department. I will gladly give comments
to drafts, outlines, or first paragraphs that you give me in office
hours or through e-mail. Because the grades are due shortly after that date, I cannot give extensions except for VERY
special circumstances. If you expect a conflict, contact me as
soon as possible.
The final paper will focus on a topic of your own choice,
so start working on your research. If you need help, let
me know and I can work with you to develop a topic, or
give you an assignment.
You should give me a large envelope, with your address and enough postage on it so that I can mail your paper back to you after the grades are done.
This paper has an academic, analytical and expository writing emphasis.
For the final paper you can select your own topic, or consult with me and we will figure it out together. You can also give me a two-page topic "preview" or outline and I will give you comments and guidelines. What to know about the final paper Things to Consider 1. The biggest trap for a comparative paper is the idea of "contrast": "this film is similar/ different from that film here and here and here." This is NOT an analytical premise.
2. Instead, you can imagine a topic that asks a theoretical question and uses two or more films to make the question clearer. Our class discussions on how differently the "spectacular body" is treated in horror and in action films is an example of this approach.
3. In any case, your task as critics is NOT to answer a question. If you can answer the question it was too simple of an issue to begin with. You task is to make our understanding of the issue or the films more complicated: to explore the implications of things, to imagine their effects on genre conventions, to approach the question from many different points of view and see what happens.
4. For example: if you wanted to write about some aspect of the body in certain films, first you would have to really expand your own imagined horizon of what "bodies" mean. Does the film focus on representing the male or the female body, body parts, imaginary body parts, mechanical bodies, ironic bodies, body integrity, or bodily pain? Are there moments in the film that are disembodied? If bodies are usually visible, and film depends on visual representation, how does film imagine new ways to represent visible or invisible bodies? What role do clothes play in the film?
5. These kinds of questions will help you understand what you want to focus on, and will move your initial idea into more theoretical issues. As before, allow yourself enough time to do this well, and to write a paper that represents your intelligence and your understanding of the films.
About the Writing Process: Focus on Topic Selection
- you can write about more than one film
- you can use a lot more critical and theoretical materials
- you can use questions of genre to elucidate your topic
- you can make historically specific connections
- you have to use visual information and visual close readings
- you have to emphasize filmic elements (not plot)
- you have to construct an argument, and use evidence from the films to prove your thesis
- you have to ask ambitious and interesting questions and try to answer them from the films
Find out more about the final paper
Contact the instructor: dk2244@yahoo.com