Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize Essay

Dylan’s Nobel Prize Essay

Assignment:  Write an essay advancing your claim about whether or not Bob Dylan—this year’s recipient of the Noble Prize in Literature—is a good choice for the Prize, given what we know about the history of the award, the criteria for consideration, the processes of selection, etc.

Superior essays will do the following:

1. Advance a specific claim that is defended through a logical and persuasive presentation of the writer’s thinking.
2. Show that you have mastery of the conventions of writing (grammar, spelling, usage, mechanics, etc.).
3. Use—through direct quotation, paraphrase and/or summary—the sources we’ve read related to this essay in order to advance the logic of your claim.
4. Show an understanding and fair treatment of perspectives that differ from your own.
5. Avoid the mechanical use of the five paragraph essay format.
6. Observe conventions in academic writing related to use of names.
7. Use of MLA style that reveals that you understand:
   1. How to format your essay (heading, font, spacing, etc.).
   2. How to use author tags and parenthetical citations correctly.
   3. How to create a correct works cited page.
8. Avoid plagiarism of any kind.

Your essay should be as long as it needs to be in order to do what it needs to do.  Having said that, a length of between 1,000-2,000 words is a good range.

You may consider writing your essay in the following “chunks” or portions that imitate what professional academic writers do[1]:

1. Begin by establishing context and purpose (this should probably be first, though the rest of what follows can be mixed around however you wish).
2. Articulate your own claim.
3. Discuss the viewpoints of claims that are opposed to yours (what “they say). Explain why you do not agree with or find compelling these claims.
4. Discuss viewpoints that are similar to yours (also what “they say”). Explain the basis for your agreement with these claims.
5. Discuss your own reasons that are distinct from any other claim (i.e. your own opinion).

[1] N.B. The fact that there are five items in this list is not meant to suggest writing five paragraphs!