Shakespeares significant counterpointing of scenes in Midsummer Nights Dream or As You Like It. Choose some particular examples of this technique, whereby the scenes are significantly juxtaposed to comment implicitly on the characters or events, and explain these effects and their implications.
Prof. Instructions:
Length should be about 2000 words (about 8 pages typescriipt, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, in a twelve-point font). That figure is exclusive of endnotes, footnotes, and bibliography. Dont forget to number your pages. Also remember to have a good title that relates to your topic and the play or plays youre discussing. A title is a focusing device for a writer, and will help you to develop a good essay; for a reader it clarifies what the text is going to do, and provides an entry point.
Focus your topic and approach so that you can deal with it effectively within the assigned scope. Effectively includes using the literary text well for evidence, examples, and illustrations in your argument, with quotation and discussion of relevant phrases and passages, and references to relevant features of the play. However, do not quote more of a passage than necessary, because that would take up space you could use better in developing your argument.
Integrate quotations properly into your own sentences so that the result makes grammatical sense. Not doing so is a common mistake. Check the sentence to see if it makes sense as normal, grammatical, readable English, without the quotation marks. Cover them up, in effect, and check the sentence. If it does not pass that test, adjust the wording of the sentence. This correction can be made in various ways (e.g., introduce the quotation differently, or modify what youre quoting by quoting only the important phrases, and string those quotes together with your own words).
When you quote brief passages from Shakespeare, give the act, scene, and line reference in brackets at the end of the sentence, inside the period: at the outset of Henry IV, Part One, the king says that he is wan with care (I.i.1). Verse quotations of three lines or more should have a two-inch left-hand margin, and should follow as closely as possible the arrangement of the original text. In that case (a block quotation), quotation marks are not used, unless they appear in the text, and the reference to act, scene, and line number goes in brackets outside the period. Prose quotations of five lines or more are handled in the same way, except the arrangement of the words in the original text does not matter.
I recommend doing some consultation of outside critical sources, in which case you would need to include in your bibliography all those you have you found useful and also those that you actually cite, and you would need to reference any ideas or quotations or information from those sources. Plagiarism has two basic forms: 1) the unacknowledged usage of a source for an idea that is original to that source; 2) the unacknowledged use of two or more words in sequence from a source. Avoidance of plagiarism is extremely easy: 1) in the first case, simply cite your source or sources; 2) in the latter case, either use quotation marks and cite the source (for the quotation and idea), or paraphrase and cite the source (for the idea). In both cases, you still need references.
Please develop your own approach, ensure that your interpretation is based on careful assessment of the topic, the play or plays, and the evidence, and present a good, clear, and factually correct case for it. Secondary sources are best used in an independent-minded, evaluative way, for useful information or to help provoke or stimulate or enlarge your thought on a texts interpretive possibilities, or to see new points that assist you to build your own perspective. Originality as such is rather different and not expected at this level. What is optimally wanted is a well-informed, judicious, cogent, and well-written consideration of your chosen topic, which makes a good case through appropriate handling of textual and other evidence.
Keep the focus of the essay clear, and narrow enough to be managed well within the scope of your chosen assignment. Establishing a well-defined thesis in the introduction is crucial: it should take a position on the topic, that is to be elaborated and demonstrated in the body of the essay, and thus anticipate the conclusion. It should not say, in effect, this is how I will proceed. Instead, it should say specifically what you are out to show