Format: Approximately 11-14 pages, typed, double spaced, 11 or 12-point font, 1 margins
For this final paper, your goal is to utilize 1 of the 3 approaches to textual analysis that we have explored this semester to produce a critical analysis of a text related to issues within Global Health. This is your chance to work with a more complex (longer or more diffuse) text that will give you greater freedom to explore larger questions of cultural significance.
The goal is to make an argument about the ways in which your text intersects with wider cultural concerns related to power broadly understood.
Introduction: (2-4 pages)
Provide a brief overview the text and its context to familiarize the reader with your topic. This should include
where the text was published
who the intended audience might be (and how you know)
who created the text
when it was created/published
Briefly outline the method that you are using for your analysis. Assume a smart reader unfamiliar with your chosen concepts.
Explain how/why your chosen text is important and relevant for a critical analysis. What are the concerns that are motivating your analysis?
What other research is informing your approach?
Provide a clearly articulated thesis statement that addresses your evaluation of the text through the lens provided by your critical method. This is not simply an indication of your topic, but an argument about the text based on the method you are using. The thesis should:
Go beyond the obviousyour job is to teach the reader something about the text that is not immediately apparent
Be debatable and uncertainremember that the point of textual analysis is not to prove something as empirically true/false, but to advance a particular perspective/judgment that requires supporting evidence
NOTE: In this type of writing, we almost never start off with a good thesis. Rather, we often find the beginnings of a good thesis in the conclusion of the first draft. This means that we then have to take that thesis, move it to the intro, and revise the paper with that new thesis in mind.
Body: (7-10 pages)
The body should be used to develop, fill out, and support the thesis statement outlined in the intro.
Focus on applying the terms and concepts of your chosen method to your text.
Include specific examples (often quotations or close descriptions) from the text and the readings as the evidence to support your claims.
You will have both interpretive and critical claims in the body of your analysis, but all claims should relate back to your guiding thesis.
Strive to use the readings and analyze the text in a creative, sophisticated, and nuanced way. Your grade is based not only on whether you use the readings to analyze a particular text, but on how well you do so. Your goal is to demonstrate to me that you not only understand the readings and course concepts, but that you can do something interesting with those concepts.
Lead with your arguments not with your evidence. The text is what you use to support your claims. Your discussion of the significance follows from your identification of particular elements from the text.
Try to anticipate counter-arguments that someone might make to your own position. This means thinking of multiple ways in which the text could be understood and then making a case for why you find one interpretation in particular the most interesting, useful, etc.
Make sure to fully develop your claims by explaining how and why you reached your conclusions. Be as explicit as possible when explaining your reasoning. Do not assume that your reader can fill in the missing links in your argument.
Conclusion: (1-2 pages)
Return to the critical questions that informed your analysis. What conclusions can you draw from your evaluation of the text? Why should Global Health scholars be interested in this conclusion?
Additional notes:
Cite all sources using APA or Chicago citation styles
Be sure that your paper is thoroughly edited and proofread
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