Beowulf
In preparing to write your primary source paper be sure to read the instructions of what you are to do found in Writing Guidelines in the topic Paper Aids under Class Tools, especially the last section Instructions for the Paper. By this time, you should have read your book and the chapter in the textbook relevant to its period. You must address the questions asked in the Writing Guidelines document and not about what you are comfortable writing.
The paper is in three parts- a short introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. The introduction should have a thesis – that is a clear statement of the topic of the paper is and what you are going to say about it. In a essay for an English class, the thesis is called a theme. The main body is most important part of the essay. In this section you develop the thesis stated in the introduction and give the evidence that supports it.
Main Body
Give a summary of the book
Set the book in it historical context
Explain why the author wrote the book and how it fits in (or not) with the context of the time (thoughts, events, ideas of the time.
Explain how the book reflects the larger themes of the course.
For this section you need to give passages and examples from the book. Also you need to find three other scholarly sources in addition to the primary source your are using – properly cited as shown in the Guidelines document. You may use credible Internet sources also formatted properly. Wikipedia, encyclopedias, and dictionaries do not count as proper sources for this paper.
Conclusion – Reiterate the thesis and the arguments that you used to support it. It is the last chance to convince the reader of your stance.
