Mini-Research Paper s1

MINI-RESEARCH PAPER

DUE: Tuesday 9/3 POINTS: 150

FORMAT: 1 page, typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman size 12 font. TOPIC: Student chosen. ONE PARTICULAR American person, organization or event associated with the Red Scare of the 1950s. Be specific; not general. SOURCES: 1 CITATIONS: 4 DIRECT QUOTATIONS: 2 INDIRECT QUOTATIONS: 2

For this assignment, you are going to research and write a one-page mini-report. You will report on the information you find in a clear, organized (more than one paragraph), well-documented fashion, and provide brief commentary to distinguish your words and ideas from those of your sources. You may choose to write on any aspect of the “Red Scare” that influenced Arthur Miller to write The Crucible. Make sure you research the Red Scare of the 1950s (not the 1920s). You will use one source: book, encyclopedia, newspaper article, magazine article, or Internet article. If you don’t have access to these at home, you must spend a little time in the library between now and the due date. YOU MAY NOT USE YOUR LITERATURE BOOK OR HISTORY BOOK AS YOUR SOURCE (although those would serve well as a place to find key terms to search for on the Internet). Also, do not use the article written by MARCI RANZER. From your source you will cite at least four pieces of information including at least two direct quotations and two indirect quotations. At the end of your report you will include the source citation (works cited entry) for your source. Use easybib.com or some other source for proper formatting.

GRADING: You will be graded on Organization and Conventions only (75 pts. each).

For the sake of this assignment, Organization will refer specifically to how well you blend your words and ideas with the words and ideas from your source. If the words or ideas are not yours, you must give credit to your source with a citation. When you use the exact words of the author, put quotation marks around them. You must, however, not use ONLY citations from your source. I need to hear your words and voice in the report as well. One good approach is to report some information with a citation and then analyze or comment on that information before moving on to the next piece of cited information. To earn a high grade in Organization your paper must meet two standards that can be difficult to accomplish at the same time: 1. It should flow smoothly between your words/ideas and the words/ideas from your source, and 2. It should make evident which words/ideas are yours and which belong to your source.

In addition to the usual considerations of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar, Conventions will focus on how accurately you format your internal citations and source citation. Correct formatting takes time and care. Edit carefully. Be persistent! See the definitions on the back for further clarification. DEFINITIONS

Source: The written work from which you got your information. EX: “Timebends” by Arthur Miller (as compiled in our literature textbook).

Citation: This indicates in the text of your paper where your information came from. (Since it’s in the text of your paper, it’s also known as an internal citation.) It is the author’s last name or an abbreviation of the title of your source in parentheses with page number. EX: (Miller 216), (“Communism” par. 11)

If you share the title and author explicitly (EX: In “Timebends” Arthur Miller tells of…) then you need only include the page or paragraph number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. EX: (27), (par. 27)

Source Citation (Works Cited Entry): All the available information on your source organized according to MLA format. (When more than one source is used, they are listed on a works cited page with the source citations listed in alphabetical order.)

Miller, Arthur. "Timebends." McDougal Littell Literature, Grade 11. Evanston, IL:

McDougal Littell, 2008. 216.

(Notice the second line above is indented. That’s known as a hanging indentation.)

Direct Quotation: The exact words of the author.

EX: “At first I rejected the idea of a play on the subject,” stated Miller. “My own rationality was too strong, I thought, to really allow me to capture this wildly irrational outbreak” (Miller 216).

Indirect Quotation: A paraphrase of the author’s words or ideas. It still needs to be cited!

EX: Miller was interested in the witchcraft trials but was at first hesitant to write about them because he thought his rationality would prevent him from fully understanding and then accurately sharing its central hysteria (Miller 216). (Use the following as an example for CITATIONS ONLY. Your paper will need to be longer. Notice that one citation is EXPLICIT. Can you tell which one?)

Have you ever wondered why Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible, decided to write about the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 in the 1950’s? There is a reason!

Miller, along with many others of his day, experienced a “witch hunt” that, in many ways, parallels the action of his play. In the early 1950’s there was tremendous fear in the

United States because of the “Red Hunt” – hearings which Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted in Washington D.C. As Robert Anderson states in the biography on Arthur

Miller in our literature textbook, “Writers, actors, politicians – and all kinds of other people – were summoned to appear before McCarthy to answer the question: ‘Are you now or were you ever a Communist?’ Those summoned were required to inform on neighbors and friends or be sent to jail” (826).

Sound familiar? It should. Much the same thing happens to the characters in The

Crucible. It should come as no surprise, then, that, after he wrote his play, Miller himself was summoned and questioned before a congressional committee, where he refused to inform on others. He was found in contempt of Congress, and his conviction went all the way to the Supreme Court before finally being overturned (Anderson 826). Would you have had such courage?

WORK CITED (If there are 2 or more works, say WORKS CITED)

Anderson, Robert. “Arthur Miller.” Elements of Literature, Fifth Course. Ed. Richard

Sime. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000. 826. MINI RESEARCH CHECKLIST

1. Are sources cited by author’s last name and page number (Zimmerer 7) OR by an abbreviation of title and page number (“Communist” 1)? If no page numbers, use paragraph numbers: (“Communist” par. 3).

2. Do the internal citations (Zimmerer 7) match the source citation listed on the works cited page?

3. Do you have at least 4 citations?

4. Of the 4 citations, are two of them direct quotations and the other two not?

5. Do you cite ALL unoriginal information (not only direct quotations)?

6. Do you use quotation marks EVERY TIME the words/language come from your source?

7. When citing a direct quotation, do you cite the SOURCE, not necessarily the person who said or wrote the quote?

8. If WHO said a direct quotation is important, do you indicate who said it in the text but still cite the author or first keyword of the title of the source?

9. Do you include ONLY those sources cited in the text of your paper on the works cited page?

10. Is all necessary information included for each source on the works cited page? (For example, the institution/organization associated with a website.)

11. Are long works italicized (or underlined)? (Encyclopedia of the American Left [or Encyclopedia of the American Left ])

12. Are short works enclosed in quotation marks? (“Hollywood Blacklist”)

13. Do you include your own thoughts and ideas?

14. Do you distinguish CLEARLY between your own thoughts and ideas and the information from your sources?

15. Did you write on one particular person, organization or event associated with the Red Scare of the 1950s?

16. Is it long enough for me to assess your skill with both the citation format and distinguishing between yourself and your sources? It should be one full page.

REMEMBER: If it’s not your idea, CITE IT! If they’re not your words, use QUOTATION MARKS and CITE IT!