Tips and Ideas for Next Week's Short Essay

I know that for many of you, this assignment is frustratingly open. In other words, it's radically non-prescriptive. I apologize half-heartedly for this.

Your short essay (5-7 double-spaced pages, not including illustrations, works cited page, and other appendices) is due next week at the start of class. Now that we've finished Matthew Sweet's somewhat breezy history of Victorian popular culture, it's time to take a deeper look. Which chapter intrigued you the most? Why? Chase down some of the primary sources that Sweet mentions. What else is there to learn? How does it relate to our cultural milieu in 2016? This is not primarily a research paper (although it does require some research); it's a critical thinking paper.

One of many great online sources is BRANCH. The essays are academic but not primarily for specialists. Click on the tab at the top, "Topic Clusters". This might be a good place to generate ideas.

As always, send me an email message if you would like an informal consultation.

Remember to revise and edit your paper carefully (details matter). Give it a meaningful title. Submit your paper via email to kcs@gwu.edu no later than 9:45 next week.