Final Project 
Due Dates:
proposal - Tuesday, April 4
bibliography - Thursday, April 13
final project - Friday, April 28, 5:00 pm

Your final assignment is to produce a well-researched, thoughtful, critically astute, technically sophisticated, and above all interesting analytical web project on the text or texts of your choice.  The topic you select may involve only one of our authors, but ideally your work will make connections between them.  You may choose to focus solely upon the novels we’ve read this semester, but you may also choose to involve other Pynchon and Melville texts, or other primary texts that seem pertinent.

Your project should make a focused, insightful, well-elaborated, well-supported argument about the novels you select.  In addition to performing a close critical analysis of your primary texts, your paper must make careful use of the technologies we have worked with this semester, with an awareness of the principles of good web design we have discussed.  Be sure, in other words, that you’re making sufficient use of the medium of presentation — but also be sure that your bells and whistles are there in service of your ideas, and not the other way around.

Your project should also make some attempt to engage with the critical writings on the novels you discuss.  The approach you take to this secondary material is entirely up to you — there is no minimum or maximum number of secondary texts you must use — provided your use of these texts is significant.  In other words, your secondary texts must illuminate something about the novels you’re discussing that is absolutely pertinent to your argument.  Be sure, however, that your project does not devolve into a compilation of the research you’ve done; the center of this project is, as always, your own original thought. 

This assignment involves three requirements:

Proposal:  On Tuesday, April 4, you and your partner will hand in a 250-500 word (1-2 page, double-spaced) preliminary project outline, in which you discuss both your projected argument and your technical approach.  This is of course not to suggest that you will be tied to this argument or design, or that it won’t be affected by the research you will do.  But this proposal should let me know the basics of what you’re interested in and, above all, why you’re interested in it.  This need not be a polished piece of prose, but do give us as much information as you can; our feedback on this proposal may be helpful in focusing your investigation.

Annotated bibliography/webography:  On Thursday, April 13, you and your partner will post an annotated bibliography that presents the results of your research into the texts and ideas you will explore in your final project.  This research should be both traditional, library and journal-oriented research and web research.  Your annotated bibliography should list ten to fifteen sources for material potentially helpful to your project.  You need not have read everything you cite in detail, but you must at least have skimmed it well enough to tell us, in a brief note following the citation, what each item is about and what you think it will contribute to your overall concept.  This work will become a “for further reading” page helpful to viewers of your final project.  Please use correct MLA citation format.

Final project:  The thing itself.  This project must, as always, use appropriate citation format and must — MUST — be carefully proofread.  Projects whose meanings are obscured by a plethora of typographical or spelling or technical errors will not be read, and will incur late penalties until resubmitted.

Note:  All deadlines are firm.  No extensions will be granted.