Critical Exercises 3 and 4

English 608                                                                                                     Klimasmith

Critical Exercises 3 and 4

For these exercises, you will need to submit copies of the three articles you work with.  I will return them with your exercise.

Critical Exercise 4

Decide on a topic or text that inspires you—preferably one that connects directly to work you are doing in a graduate seminar. Find three articles on the same topic/text from three different scholarly journals. The articles should all have been published in the last five-ish years—i.e. 2010 and thereafter. You can use the online MLA database to identify likely articles,; these should all be pdfs of page images, not htmls. Don’t worry about the importance of the journal, the influence of the article, the reputation of the scholar, or whether you agree with or like the article. Do try to provide three articles that seem to cover a range of different approaches or emphases. If possible, find the Tables of Contents for the issues you are using, or, even better, find hard copies of the journals so you can see what other kinds of articles appeared in that issue.

For each of the articles write a brief written assessment (3 paragraphs; 1 per assessment) that addresses the following questions:

a)     Briefly describe the journal from which the article is taken. Who publishes the journal and how often is it published?  How many articles are included in the issue, and of what kinds (both in terms of subject matter and the form of the article)? Does the issue have a special topic? What information is provided about the specific focus and/or approach of the journal?

b)    Carefully read the introductory section of the article (usually the first two to five paragraphs). Briefly comment on how the author frames the task of the article in this introductory section, both in terms of the position it sets out to argue and in terms of the specific form that argument is likely to take.

c)     Skim the rest of the article. On the basis of this quick survey, comment upon how your initial expectations (as they were shaped by the introductory section) compare to your sense of what the article as a whole seems to be doing. Try to account for any divergences from your initial expectations.

Once you have written up your assessments for each article, write a final paragraph comparing and contrasting the articles. What similarities and/or differences do you note in style, form of argument, premises, and conclusions?

Critical Exercise #3 due by 9 pm Sunday Oct 1 via email; bring paper or electronic copy of the articles and your assessment to class on Oct 2.

Critical Exercise 4

Decide on a topic or text (you are welcome to stick with the same topic as in CE4). Find three articles on the same topic/text—they don’t all have to be from different journals, but you should have one each from the following three timeframes: before 1980, 1980-95, and 1995-2010. The online MLA database can help you to identify likely articles.

Respond to the questions from the previous exercise. When you compare the articles, briefly comment on the differences you note in how scholars at different moments in the recent past approached the same topic/text.

You will need to submit copies (pdfs are fine) of the three articles you work with. Again, be sure to budget time for trial and error in settling on a focus for your exercise. It may be a good idea to begin working on this exercise concurrently with the previous exercise.

Critical Exercise #4 due by 9 pm Sunday Oct 15 via email; bring paper or electronic copy of the articles and your assessment to class on October 16.