The Abstract

As you know from searching databases, a scholarly article is often published with an abstract, which provides a summary of the argument, but really is the “elevator speech” answering seemingly rude but actually very relevant questions: So What? Why does this matter? Who cares? A draft of the abstract, continually revised and updated as your project evolves, can be useful earlier in the research process. Think of it as the humanities version of a working hypothesis.

 

Assignment Guidelines: 300-500 words. Articulate the argument you will pursue in regard to your topic: the Context; the Problem or Question you are raising; the Resolution or Answer you propose in response. What will your evidence focus on (primary sources)? What critical or theoretical perspective (secondary sources) will guide your interpretation of that evidence? Include a listing of 3-5 keywords. Also, provide a provisional works cited list consisting of at least 3 sources: one primary source; at least two secondary sources.

 

Example:

That Whitman makes use of the motif of pilgrimage
is well established. But the ramifications of its use have
yet to be fully explored. Both as a social mechanism and a
personal experience, pilgrimage involves liminality; and
when we view the Leaves from the vantage point of
liminality, our fundamental sense of what the book involves
can change. I discuss some of the contradictions associated
with the pilgrim-protagonist of poems such as “Song of the
Open Road” and argue that Whitman’s contradictions can be
seen as liminal structures pointing to the liminal
character of the Leaves as a whole. I push back against the
assumption that such contradictions are merely subsidiary
to “a Hegelian paradigm of synthesis bringing resolution to
thesis and antithesis” or Emerson’s notion of a Bipolar
Unity. I suggest that one of the constitutive features of
Whitman’s textual practice is the aggregative
contradiction, and that both individual poems such as “Song
of the Open Road” and the larger aggregate structure which
is the Leaves, are examples of its use. Key implications
are that Leaves of Grass is enabled by a radical,
open-ended indeterminacy, and that this hallmark of the
Leaves is, in part, what keeps the work relevant and alive.

 

Keywords: Walt Whitman; pilgrimage; liminality; indeterminacy

 

Evaluation Rubric [25 points]

 

23-25: Discusses texts with an independent intellectual and ethical disposition so as to further or maintain disciplinary conventions, persuasively identifying critical implications and extending beyond what’s already known.

20-22: Elaborates on the texts (through interpretation or questioning) so as to deepen or enhance an ongoing discussion, effectively identifying critical implications and the relation to what’s already known.

16-19: Discusses texts in ways that contribute to a basic, shared understanding of the text, but limited in identifying critical implications and/or the relation to what’s already known.

10-15: Comments about texts in ways that preserve the author’s meanings but fail to identify critical implications and/or an understanding of what is already known about the topic.

Below 10: failed to complete assignment as expected.