Second Paper Assignment: English 142: Later Medieval Literature The second paper will be due on Monday, August 2. The paper should be NINE FULL pages. You will need to formulate your own topic, but must write on Piers Plowman, The Book of Margery Kempe, or The Book of Marvels and Travels. Remember, you must have a strong argument. This, in turn, requires a well-constructed thesis statement. Your paper should not be predominantly expository, but rather argue a particular interpretation of one of the texts we have considered. Close reading and explication will be essential components of a successful paper. If you are unsure what I mean by this, please ask me. This is not a research paper. You are welcome to choose to do research, but please discuss this with me. No outside reading is expected, but any ideas or wording not your own must be acknowledged with a note or a citation. If you fail to indicate that another’s words or ideas are not your own, you are plagiarizing. This is bad, and very, very serious. When in doubt, err on the side of citation. If your paper conveys ideas first articulated by me, a fellow student, or ideas found in a book, a scholarly article, or on a website, you must cite your source appropriately. Let me reiterate that plagiarism is very serious, and excess citation will never get you into trouble. Please follow MLA guidelines for quotations and citations, which can be found in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, and online at the Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/). The site also has an excellent reference section concerning grammar – consult it! In particular, quotations occupying less than three complete lines of your paper should be quoted in the body text. Longer quotations should be presented in block quotation form. As a reminder, in a paper of this length block quotations should be used sparingly. Please put some effort into the appearance of your paper – provide a thoughtful title, cite your sources properly, and identify quotations by book, chapter, or passus and line number so that a reader can independently locate them. I will not read complete drafts, but I am happy to discuss paper ideas and thesis paragraphs. Indeed, I urge you to send me an introductory thesis paragraph in 48 hours. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Please write an original paper with correct MLA format. STRONG THESIS AND ARGUMENT FOR 9 FULL PAGES is the most important issue. Please do not try to fill the pages with chapters or passus’ and do not repeat the same sentences by paraphrasing again and again. Please construct a well-prepared and sophisticated paper!!