You are to write a brief (5-7 page) paper explaining some aspect of
Chinese society using evidence from the Book of Songs. You can pick
any topic that you would like, but it would probably be easier to pick
something that the Songs talk about a lot: warfare, marriage, agriculture,
religion, etc. Or you could be a bit more literary and do something on
nature imagery in the Songs. Or even something on how the songs
could be used allegorically to criticize bad rulers. Whatever you do be
sure you have a solid topic before you start. If you have a bad topic it
will be hard to write a good paper. Please come talk to me if you are having
doubts about your topic.
-Write well. This does not just mean avoiding spelling and grammar errors
(that goes without saying.) It also means writing a clear, well organized
paper. Your paper should have a thesis statement, and it should be underlined.
It should have a clear organization. You will probably have several pieces
of evidence, and you will need to organize them somehow to create a coherent
essay. The most common fault in student papers is to come up with some
good evidence but then fail to put it together into an essay, leaving you
with a string of disconnected paragraphs.
-Use evidence. Why do you think the things that you do and why should
I agree with you? Use specific references to specific poems to prove your
points. How specific you have to be depends on what type of point you are
making. Sometimes just a reference to the poem is enough, sometimes (if
the point is less obvious) you will need to quote from it and explain why
it proves what you say it does.