Week 11 FInal Paper

by

Humanities

We have talked about many different types of supernatural creatures through various lenses throughout the course. There is, however, one supernatural creature we have not yet mentioned. For your final, you will use three or more of the academic approaches we have been utilizing throughout the course to perform an in depth analysis on witches. This is a research paper and you will be expected to write a clear and precise thesis statement and find at least three scholarly sources that support your ideas. Depending on the quality of your sources, it is likely that you will want more than three to support your thesis.

Some ideas you may want to explore are:

  • Witches across cultures
  • Witches within a specific culture
  • Witches across time
  • Witches in classic literature
  • Witches in film in a particular era
Submission Details:
  • Paper should be 6-10 pages long double spaced using 12 point font in either Times New Roman or Calibri
  • Formatting should follow MLA formatting guidelines as outlined at Purdue OWL
  • You must use at least 3 scholarly sources for your paper (if you have questions on how to determine scholarly sources see the Evaluating Sources library guide)
  • All papers should be saved as a .doc, .docx or as a .PDF
  • Papers are to be uploaded to the Assignment tool in ulearn.
  • Do not copy and paste your paper into ulearn.

Attached is my rough draft of my final paper. Please use this as the baseline & here is feedback from the professor

Make sure that your final paper is formatted in MLA style. Your opening paragraph is good. It appears you have a two fold thesis to understand how witches change gone from villains to heros and what impact this has had on teenagers.

In your first section on historical background you mention a “popular piece” written by the Church but never say what it is. Telling us this now will make your connection to the next paragraph stronger. Some more information in both these paragraphs on the witch hunt and their repercussions will make your paper stronger.

Make sure your facts are accurate. Salem is the most deadly witch hunt in the United States, however witch hunts in Europe were overall deadlier killing thousands of people. Make sure you are precise with your information. Some more information on this history would also make your paper stronger.

You may want to discuss what was happening in each generation of film in regards to witches. Witches in film in the 60s and 70s reflected fears of the feminist movement. Where as witches in the 80s and 90s started to represent woman in positive role.

You make some claims about films and books increasing the number of practicing teenage witches but have provided no solid proof of that. Statistical information about the growth in number of practicing witches is needed. As well as solid evidence that certain books did indeed increase the number of practitioners and that the increase was not tied to some other sociocultural reason.

Your paper jumps around a bit with rise in practice being part of historical background and reasons for changes separated from films. I would consider rearranging things to flow more clearly. Keep the historical information in the historical section, but the information on the films to the factors affecting change. Move the information about practitioners out of the historical section and into the section on teenagers.

You are off to a good start, you just need to do some more research and fine tuning. Remember this paper should be 6 pages in length.