Bibliographic
Analysis Essay Exam
(3%)
Exam Date: 10/21/08
General Guidelines:
·
The exam is 50 minutes long.
·
This
is a small-scale version of your upcoming Bibliographic Analysis Essay, but
this one is written during class on the exam date listed above.
·
Make
certain that the essay has a function statement.
·
The
exam is open book, which means that you
must engage 2 of the scholarly articles (not the books) from your annotated
bibliography.
·
You
must turn in the copies of your two scholarly articles with your exam in a
pocket folder.
·
There
are no make-ups or retakes of this exam. No exceptions, regardless of
circumstances.
·
If your Annotated Bibliography is not turned in by
the beginning of class on the exam day you cannot take this exam, which means a
grade of zero will be recorded for this project. In such cases students should
have already made immediate arrangements with the instructor for what to do in
class during this exam. In any case, no one should be absent from class on the
day of the exam.
Prompt:
This is NOT
an argumentative essay.
This essay does NOT have a thesis, but rather a function statement.
Definition of a function statement: states that the purpose of the paper is to
explain and analyze a select group of scholarly publications on your topic.
Here is an example of a function statement: "The purpose of this paper is
to examine recent scholarship on the controversial issue of euthanasia."
Essentially, the function-statement establishes for your readers the fact that
the essay is not of an argumentative nature, but rather the business of your
paper is to summarize each of your sources.
Grading Criteria:
You have 3 main criteria over which
you will be graded:
1) Have a
clear function-statement.
2) Explain
each article, meaning its thesis and key points.
3) Make many
connections between the articles, which means that you constantly refer back to articles you have previously analyzed, for
this is a key factor in earning a superior grade.
Explain, for
example, the points over which the authors agree or disagree. You must make
clear the connections between the respective arguments. You might go about this
by using some of the following phrases:
"Smith responds by ..."
"Smith's view is similar to Jones' insofar as ..."
"Smith's view is similar to Jones' and Brown's insofar as ..."
While Smith's view differs from Jones' and Brown's insofar as _______, Smith
appears to agree with Brown on the notion of ..."
Above all, do
remember that you are NOT writing an argumentative essay, but rather an
analysis of selected articles that makes clear their connections, similarities
and differences.
Do not use any articles with an anonymous author. They are
automatically invalid and you will lose 10 points.
Very
Important: This is
not a cut and paste version of your annotated bibliography presented in essay
form. This is a new project that is relatively short in length and small in
scope, you have several days to prepare for it, and it should demonstrate that
you have given much thought to describing your sources differently than you did
in previous writings. It would be a serious error in judgment to use any of the
writing from your annotated bibliography. Neither should you reword the prose
from your annotated bibliography. Failure to negotiate these aspects of this
project successfully could result in a grade as low as zero on this essay.
Important:
You are not
to reveal your own views on the issue you are writing about, for that should be
saved for the Argumentative Research Paper.
Rather, your objective
in this paper is to explain the views and arguments of the respective authors
whose works you are analyzing. You are also explaining the ways in which those
views and arguments either relate to one another, or how they differ in focus.
Exam Date: 10/21/08