For both of the research projects, you are to choose at least

For both of the research projects, you are to choose at least one author included in the modules identified, and at least one piece of literature written by that author. Other authors not included for course discussion may be included, as long as they are part of the modules discussed. For example, your textbook includes writing examples from Bartolome de las Casas, Hernan Cortez, and John Heckenwelder. We will not cover those authors in our class, but they would certainly fit into the module on Exploration and Colonization. Should you choose an author not covered in our class, you must have your topic approved by the instructor before commencing with the project on your own. Once you have chosen an appropriate author, you must then choose a specific work created by that author. For example, if you wished to write your first paper on Benjamin Franklin, you could choose to write about his Autobiography, or you could choose an item not covered in our class but still in your textbook, or you could choose an item by that author not in our textbook but readily available, for example letters he wrote to his brother’s newspaper under the pseudonym Silence Dogood. Again, if the items you choose are not in our textbook, they must be approved by your instructor first. Email me or ask in some other fashion for approval. If the works you choose are short, you may use several, analyzing them by comparing and contrasting, looking at the evolution of works over time, examining a specific literary technique used in the works, or any other literary method of examination. However, some very short works are worthy of more extensive research. See the “Questions for Writing about Literature” folder for more details. Should you choose, you could possibly write about more than one author from a single module, using the same kinds of literary techniques. In this case, you must connect the authors in some way, such as geographically, gender, race, time period, topic, methods, etc. You will need to compare and contrast those authors, in this case. You should keep in mind the necessary elements of the projects when choosing a topic. For any authors you choose, you must give brief biographical information (no more than 1 page) that identifies which module that author fits within. The rest of the paper (3 pages, or more) is an analysis of the literature by that author. In addition, these projects are relatively short research essays, being 4 to 6 pages in length, so you will need to keep the topics to a brief enough scope to fit within that range. The papers themselves will be written using MLA 8th edition format, including page design, textual format, use of source material, and both in-text and Works Cited page citations for a minimum of 4 sources. The sources should be found in academic and scholarly sources, best found using an academic library like the library at FTCC, including the databases for the library. Do not use general web sources for academic research papers. Do not use general web searches – like Google, Yahoo, or Bing – to find those sources. Citation builders are not effective for this project, including the MS Word References Tab. You will need to use effective guides for your citations, including the Brief Cengage Handbook, the MLA Handbook, the OWL at Purdue webpage, or a number of other trustworthy guides. The library database contains a sample citation for sources found on the databases, but they are not completely correct; you will need to modify them to fit proper guidelines. You can also find lots of information on the announcements, like step-by-step instructions on how to write the paper and examples of papers that previous students wrote