Draft research proposal
In this assignment, you can practice on making a research proposal without any particular format. The research proposal must have the following components: background, statement of the problem, literature review, objectives, proposed sample design, proposed data collection technique, proposed analysis plan etc. Please note that the next assignment will be a refined and revised version of this assignment.
regulations:
 
1- APA style guidelines, citing references as appropriate.
2- Submit  4 page document, excluding the title page, abstract 
3- 100% free plagiarism 

EN 321:  Work and Working-Class Life in Literature                                                       Anderson
Fall 2020
Final Exam, due at 2:30 PM Monday, December 7^th
 
Instructions:
Below are ten quotations from Part 1 of Ed Park’s novel Personal Days.  Write an essay of 2- to 2½-pages that uses four of these passages, plus two that you have found on your own, to describe/explain the experience of Park’s white-collar office workers.  Be sure your essay has a thesis statement, but keep your introduction to no more than 2-3 sentences.  While I want you to reference four of the passages below (plus two of your own), some of them are a little long, so you should avoid quoting them in their entirety.  Use paraphrase and commentary to show that you understand the underlying ideas.  Please submit the exam as a word document by the date and time listed above.
 
“Softball is a morale-boosting carrot that the Sprout most likely has read about in a handbook or learned at that seminar he goes to every March.  Morale has been low since the Firings began last year.  Pru says morale is a word thrown around only in the context of its absence” (Park 5).
 
“Despite Maxine’s scatterbrained management style and seeming incompetence, we can’t help but be caught in her spell.  . . . .  The more she does everything wrong, the more she can do no wrong” (Park 12).
 
“Our company was once its own thing, founded long ago by men with mustaches.  After several decades it wound up, to its surprise, as the easternmost arm of an Omaha-based octopus” (Park 17).
 
“Last year Jason got fired, right in the middle of a project.  No one saw it coming.  Crease, who was not on the same team, was told to take over . . . .  With no time to move all of Jason’s folders . . . to his own desk, Crease commuted from one side of the office to the other, doing the Jason work until 2 and his own until he left at 7, at 8, at 9” (Park 22).
 
“We all play the lottery.  We buy our tickets individually because we don’t want to divvy up all that loot in case the numbers come up right” (Park 34).
 
“At noon on Monday the Spout moves Jill to Siberia.  It’s a spacious cubicle on the sixth floor, miles from anyone else, next to the door leading to the fire exit” (Park 45)
 
“Workers from other offices in the building also congregate here to light up, of course, and though at first some of us tried to make small talk, now barely a nod passes between the various factions.  They are not like us” (Park 68).
 
“Work picks up.  There’s hardly time to talk.  Pru doesn’t think Maxine wants to fire us.  She says there’s no way the company can function if they cut anyone else” (Park 72).
 
“Pru says what we’re doing is constructing a layoff narrative.  The idea is that you look back on your period of employment, highlight all the abuses suffered, tally the lessons gained, and use these negatives and positives to mentally withstand what you anticipate will be a series of events culminating in expulsion” (Park 82).
 
“Jenny feels a chill.  She has a sudden premonition that she’ll be moved to Jill’s freshly vacated Siberian desk.  In five minutes Jenny looks like she’s lost ten pounds” (Park 84).
 
 
Optional Extra Credit:
Choose one of the poems that we read for the last day of class and write a 1½-page essay explicating its meaning through an examination of 4-5 of its images or passages.  This essay is worth up to three points (1/3 of a letter grade) added to exam grade.
 
 
 

Write 5-7 pages on one of the topics below (12pt, double-space, MLA)
NO plagiarism
**Be sure that your paper has an argument to make (a thesis). The thesis should reflect an
interpretation, an analysis. A good thesis often emerges in the process of writing the paper,
because the writing is a thinking process. A good way to proceed is by beginning with notetaking or conceptual mapping and experimenting with possible points you think you will want to
develop. Begin writing a draft. Then continue reading, including critical secondary sources, to
see whether your idea is reinforced or changed by your reading. Finally, after your paper is
drafted, see whether a thesis has indeed emerged. What is it? Revise your paper to place the
thesis near the beginning of the paper. If you started with a thesis in mind, check to make sure
that the paper indeed speaks to it and attends to persuading your reader with evidence from
Boccaccio’s text.
**Be sure to:
• Supply evidence from the Decameron itself to illustrate your points.
• If you are using a different edition from the Penguin one for the class, supply a citation to
that edition.
• Include meaningful reference to at least two outside sources (probably critical articles).
• Do NOT write extended parenthetical references. If you are citing an article, the
parenthetical reference should simply be, for example: (Lucente, 325), or (Psaki 2013,
218).
• Include a bibliography at the end of your paper. The bibliography is not counted toward the
page limit.
• Underline your paper’s thesis (the statement of what you are arguing).
Topics (chose one only)
1. Present a portrait of Emilia (the brigata member). What does this character bring to
the Decameron’s social dynamics within the group? What consistencies do you see in the
stories they tell and the songs they sing? Do this character’s story choices have anything
in common? Discuss two or three contributions (tales and/or songs) by this character and
say how they are consistent in painting a coherent portrait.
2. Women are the explicit intended audience for the Decameron. Seven of his ten brigata
members are women, and many of the tales in Boccaccio’s book depict women: their
sexuality, their intelligence, their anger, their desires, their wit. Given this variety, it is
difficult to come to general conclusions about Boccaccio’s “message” to women in love.
Choose two tales from the Decameron that speak to you about this book’s sexual politics
and discuss why they have made an impression on you. Be sure to offer your own
interpretation of each tale, to say where it occurs and who tells it, and to offer thoughts
about how it relates to the Decameron as a whole.
3. Vittore Branca has described the Decameron as a medieval, mercantile epic, in which a
merchant mentality and merchant heroes are frequently on view. Choose two or three
tales from different days, exploring how they profile the merchant as a figure and
illustrate Boccaccio’s awareness of merchant attitudes. In your view, are Boccaccio’s
merchants “heroes”? Why or why not?
What makes a good paper?
1) The quality of the argument. Does the paper have a thesis, or alternatively does it lay out a
problem and explore it in an insightful way, offering a conclusion?
2) Demonstration of knowledge. Does the paper show that the material has been attentively read?
Is the information included from lectures or secondary material accurately rendered?
3) Support for the argument. Does the paper support its claims with evidence from the text? Does
it clearly show what the bases of its claims are?
4) Clarity and effectiveness of prose. Is the writing competent, careful, precise? Is the argument
developed logically?
5) Technical polish. Is the paper free of errors in spelling, grammar, usage?
Boccaccio’s Decameron
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23700/23700-h/23700-
h.htm
 
BrancaBoccacciosMercantileEpic