Young Writers Society

Right, i have to do a dissertaion for my Advanced course, which counts as 40% of my grade ana has to be around 4000 words. I need you guys to help me come up with a few novels, or some short stories (preferably well known, which have a LOT you can write about) that i can write my dissertation on.

You know you want to. If you've ever had to do something similar, tips would be useful as well.

thanks x

One idea:

George Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm.
I have yet to read 1984 but Ari adores it. Animal Farm, however, is short and there's a lot you can say about it, and it's satire, so it's fun to read. Actually, any Orwell would be good.

Selected classics from some lists I found:

Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Tips:
Start by going to the wikipedia, sparknotes, or cliffsnotes websites and getting a basic summary of the book to see if it is the one you want. Then go buy the book, read it, become intimately familiar with it, all the while collecting information about it and the author.

I wrote a thesis in my sophomore year, defending the Harry Potter books from a Christian perspective.

The thing I would stress to you most strongly is to get right to work. Do not procrastinate, or you WILL NOT FINISH! Set deadlines for yourself to break the project up into manageable pieces; that's probably the only way I ever finished mine. Also, have lots of people look at it and give you feedback. It's hard to tell if something is phrased awkwardly or if your structure needs work unless you get a few different outside opinions.

I started out by spending a lot of time online: reading articles, skimming book summaries, talking to other people, gathering opinions. Then I went to the library and took out about twenty books. I'm not saying you'll want to use that many (I only ended up using about seven of them), because oftentimes a panel will try to attack something in a book unless you specifically cite which part of the book you used. So, essentially, the first step is to amass information. You can't use it if you don't have it!

Next you'll want to organize all that mess, then get yourself a really good, detailed outline. Mine saved my life on my thesis, because it was a great thing to have to refer back to if I ever lost sight of the purpose of a paragraph or wanted to reconsider addressing a particular point.

But, maybe even more importantly than getting right to work on it: pick something you like. The only reason I made it through my thesis is because I was really passionate about my topic, and I genuinely enjoyed reading different articles, skimming books, and considering which arguments I was going to use. A couple of people in my class picked things they thought were kind of neat, but three months into the project, they were sick of revising their papers and looking for more sources. If you really have something to say and honestly want to get your point across because YOU think it is important, it will show. If you picked a novel or a short story just because you had to, that will show too.

A couple of book ideas to add to Addie's:

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Here are about a million possibilities. I almost did my thesis on Jane Austen, because you can discuss how she changed the way the novel was thought about in common society, her portrayal of family and marriage, her use of satire, or her style of writing.

1984, George Orwell.
Addie is right; I adore this book. Actually, if you wanted to use this one, you could pull Lois Lowry's The Giver and Plato's The Republic to talk about the way that totalitarian societies have been portrayed in literature throughout the ages in different genres or something like that.

I don't know if that's what you were looking for or not.... but I hope that helps! If you have any other specific questions, feel free to ask here or just PM me.

Areida wrote:I wrote a thesis in my sophomore year, defending the Harry Potter books from a Christian perspective.

Can you send me this? I'm very curious to read it.

Anyway, back on topic. I could come up with a list of classics that I've enjoyed, but I think your best bet is to go to Sparknotes and read through the plot summaries, and then go find the actual books if something catches your eye.

That being said, I recosmmend The Great Gatsby or The Picture of Dorian Grey; both very good and simply bursting with things to analyze.

One other thing to consider is if the books you analyze have to be classics. I wrote a research paper on anime; not really considered very academic, but my teacher loved it because it was different. Ask your teacher if you have to stick ith traditional, classic subjects, or if you're free to branch out a little.

If you need help, I just finished a really tough course load this semester and can help give much advice and knowledge from this side of the pond. However, in order for me to help, I need you tobe more specific on what, exactly, the assignment is.

I second 1984 and would like to add 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck. My sister did a similar thing recently and she used one book called 'Do Androids dream of electric sheep' as one of them and it's really interesting. I think it's by a guy called Philip K. Dick if you want to check it out. Look on the internet for a review and see what you think. There's defineately a lot you can discuss in it.

Grapes of Wrath- John Steinback
The pearl-John Steinback.
The red pony-John steinback.

Sorry gone a bit steinback crazy

I'll third 1984. I love it to death, and there's heaps you can write about the book. Also, parameters of the project depending, you can compare the novel to films (my favorite at the moment being V for Vendetta).

Other than that, Catchh-22 is awesome. I didn't do a lot in the way of analyzing it, though, but the potential's there.

Some others that haven't been mentioned yet...

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Invisible Man - Ralph Elison

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein

Bambi - Felix Salten

Gonw with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell