Did the teacher tell you which direction to write the paper? Be sure to write an outline before writing a paper, and let the teacher determine the framework to avoid big changes in the process of revising the paper in the future! !
Pay attention to the format requirements and writing specifications of the school, otherwise it is likely to be returned for revision. If you still don't understand or know nothing, you can ask me. I hope you can graduate smoothly and move towards a new life.
1, should the paper be multiple-choice or comprehensive?
The first temptation that college students encounter is to write a lot of things in their papers. For example, if a student is interested in literature, his first thought is to give the paper a topic similar to "Today's Literature". If he had to narrow it down, he would choose Spanish literature from the postwar to the 1970s.
This kind of paper is very dangerous. This topic will make more mature researchers scratch their heads. This is an impossible challenge for a college student in his twenties. Either it will become a simple list of names and mainstream views, or the reference to the original materials will be biased (which is often caused by omitting things that should not be omitted). 196 1 year, the contemporary writer Gonzalo Torrant Bareste wrote a book, Aspects of Contemporary Spanish Literature (guadarrama Edition). However, if this is a doctoral thesis, people will definitely kill it, although it is hundreds of pages thick. It is accused of negligence or ignorance, not mentioning the names of some people who are considered very important, or sometimes he spends a whole chapter on some "not so good" writers and only gives a few strokes to some people who are considered "important". Of course, we know that the author's historical knowledge and critical ability are recognized, so these omissions or disproportion are intentional. Avoiding talking about someone is more telling than writing a whole page for him. But if the same thing happens to a 22-year-old college student, who can guarantee that there is no ulterior motive behind his silence? Or is it because he will spend a few pages discussing this problem elsewhere and avoid talking about it? Or does the author know how to write?
Students who write such papers often complain to the members of the jury that they don't understand what they mean, but those members actually "can't" understand what he means, so comprehensive papers are often regarded as a sign of arrogance. It does not mean that academic arrogance must be denied (reflected in the paper). We can even say that Dante is a bad poet, but it takes at least 300 pages to say it. These can't be seen in comprehensive papers. Because of this, for a college student, it is better to choose a more practical and low-key topic than to write Spanish literature from the postwar to the 1970s.
I can tell you directly what a good topic is. Not Alday Koa's novel, but two different versions of the bird of paradise. Does that sound a little boring? Maybe, but that would be a more interesting challenge.
As long as you think about it, you will understand that in the final analysis, this is a question of how to please. If you write a comprehensive paper on 40 years of literature, students will face all kinds of possible objections. If a patron or jury member just wants to flaunt that he knows a little-known writer, and students just don't include that writer in their papers, how will he face the attack of the former? As long as each member of the jury finds three people who are not mentioned in the catalogue, the student will turn pale in the fierce bombing, and his paper suddenly seems to be full of shit. On the contrary, if a student carefully chooses a topic with a small scope, he only needs to firmly grasp a material that most members of the jury don't know. I don't sell any dirty tricks. It's a trick, but it's not vulgar and it works. As long as the degree applicant appears as an "expert" in front of the public who is not as professional as him, and it can be seen that he has made a lot of efforts to become an expert, it is understandable to take advantage.
There are many intermediate forms between these two extremes (that is, a comprehensive paper on the history of literature for forty years and a single-topic paper with such strict differences between the two articles). For example, we can write about the experience of avant-garde writers in the 1940s, or the literary treatment of geography by Juan Bennett and Sanchez Phil rossio, or even the similarities and differences between Carlos edmundo de Orly, Ai Du Eduardo Chicharro and Gloria fortes: three post-island poets.
Let's take a look at a passage in the brochure. Although it is in the field of science, its recommendations apply to all disciplines:
For example, the topic of geology is too broad. Volcanology is a branch of geology, but it is too big. The volcano in Mexico is a good starting point, but it is not deep enough. If the scope is narrowed down a little bit, it may lead to a very valuable study: the history of Popo Karepel volcano (one of the conquerors of Cortes may climb there in 159 1 year, and it did not erupt violently until 1702). A small topic involving less years is the life and death of Palikudin volcano (its life span only lasted1February 20th, 943 to1March 4th, 952).
Ok, I still recommend the last topic. Because at this point, as long as the applicant can know everything about the unfortunate volcano, he can tell everything.
A long time ago, a student came to me and told me that he was going to write a paper entitled "Symbols in Contemporary Thought". Such a paper is impossible. Even I don't know what the symbol means. In fact, this word has different meanings in different authors. Sometimes, two authors will use it to express two completely opposite things. As long as we consider the "symbols" understood by formal logicians or mathematicians, they are meaningless, occupy a specific position in the calculation formula and have specific functions (such as A, B, X and Y in the algebraic formula), while other writers may regard them as things full of ambiguity. Those images in a dream may refer to a tree, a sexual organ or a desire to grow up. So, how can we take this as the topic of the paper? We must analyze all theories about symbols in contemporary culture, list their similarities and differences, find the basic single concepts of all authors and theories in their differences, and see if these differences are incompatible in different theories. No contemporary philosopher, linguist or psychoanalyst can solve this problem satisfactorily. A fledgling college student, no matter how early and clever he is, has only received six or seven years of adult education at most. How can he finish such a study? At best, it's something biased like Torrant barres. Or he will put forward his own theory about symbols, and put aside what the predecessors said. In the next section, we will discuss the controversial aspects of this approach. I talked with this student for a while, and I suggested that he could write the symbols of Freud and Jung. He needs to forget other opinions and focus on the above two authors. It's a pity that this student doesn't know German. Finally, we decided to make the topic "Symbolic concepts of Peirce, Frye and Jung", and the paper will discuss three different concepts expressed by these three different authors, namely philosophers, critics and psychoanalysts. Because they use the same word, which causes confusion, people often put the concept of one on the other. At the end of the article, as a hypothetical conclusion, students try to find a balance between these concepts with the same name and different meanings, and find out their similarities. He also mentioned some other authors he knew, but said that due to the limited space of the paper, he could not elaborate on them more. In this way, although his paper only mentioned the authors X, Y, Z, Y and Z, no one can accuse him of not considering the author K, and no one can accuse him of not being detailed enough about the other authors he cited, because that was mentioned by the way at the end of the paper, and the main body of the paper was the three authors who appeared in the discussion topic.
Now we can see that a paper need not stick to a single topic, and a comprehensive paper can also become well-behaved and acceptable to everyone.
It should be pointed out that the meaning of the word "single" is far more than what we use here. A paper only involves one topic, which is completely opposite to the History of XXX or a manual or an encyclopedia. In this sense, the theme of "upside down world" of medieval writers should also be a single theme. Many writers are involved, but they all revolve around a specific theme (from their imaginary assumptions to examples, paradoxes and fables, such as fish flying in the sky and birds swimming in the water). It seems that this is an ideal single theme. But in fact, in order to write such a paper, we need to discuss all the authors related to this topic, especially those unknown authors who are not recognized. Therefore, this topic should still be classified as "a comprehensive paper with a single theme", which is more difficult to write and needs to prepare countless materials. If someone must write it, I suggest that the title be changed to "The Theme of' Inverting the World' by Carolyn Dynasty Poets". As soon as the scope is narrowed, we will know where to find materials and where not to find materials.
Of course, comprehensive papers are more energetic to write. After all, it is boring to spend a year or two or even longer studying a writer. However, we must understand that writing a paper with multiple choices in a strict sense does not mean that we can't do everything from a perspective. Writing a paper on Aldecoa's novels requires us to have a deep understanding of Spanish realism, we also need to read Sanchez Phil rossio or Garcí a Oltra, and we need to study Aldecoa's American novels and classical literature. Only by putting the author in the panorama can we understand and interpret him. But using panorama as background and painting panorama are two different things. The former only painted a portrait of a knight with fields and rivers as the background, while the latter painted many fields, valleys and rivers. We must change the technology, or in photographic terms, change the focal length. The panorama shot from a single author's perspective is a bit out of focus, incomplete and inferior.
Finally, we should remember the following basic conclusion: the smaller the scope, the more secure and secure we are at work. Because a single topic is comprehensive, this paper looks more like an essay than a history or an encyclopedia.