Discuss the role of the Players in Hamlet.

Final Paper Requirements
Please find below the requirements for the paper. There are General Requirements AND Research Requirements. There is also a list of possible topics. You are also free to construct your own topic. Please make certain that your paper fulfills ALL paper requirements.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:

–Paper must be 8-10 typed double-spaced pages long. The paper must be a minimum of 8 full pages.

–Paper must engage in sustained textual analysis. Focus on specific parts of the text to close read and analyze and connect this close reading to the broader themes of the play and to your thesis.

–Paper must be a critical analysis. Do not write a descriptive, personal, or narrative essay. That is, the paper must have a critical argument. Do not simply summarize the texts, analyze them. Make evaluations, draw conclusions, and make connections. Prove something.

–You may use one text or several from the reading list. You may include texts that we have not read for the course IF they are relevant. Check with me first.

–Construct a manageable, focused topic. Do not choose something too big or broad. Avoid compare and contrast topics.

–The topic MUST examine some issue relevant to Shakespeare.

RESEARCH REQUIREMENTS:

–Paper must include secondary research. Use a minimum of 4 secondary sources and a maximum of 8ALL sources MUST be peer reviewed. A peer-reviewed source is a source (usually a journal article or book) that has been vetted by experts/specialists/scholars in the field. People with knowledge, training, and experience have evaluated it and have judged it to be original, insightful, and thoughtful scholarly work. It is considered to be sufficiently well researched, well written, and properly documented.

–Not all databases retrieve peer-reviewed materials exclusively. Some, like EBSCO HOST, often retrieve material that is not peer-reviewed even if the researcher limits the search to peer-reviewed material only. Be careful.

–Two excellent databases to use are JSTOR and Project Muse.

–For peer-reviewed books look at the publisher. If the publisher is a university press (for example: Rutgers University or University of Pennsylvania or Carnegie-Mellon) then the book is most likely to be peer-reviewed. There are also several commercial presses that publish peer-reviewed material. Some of these are Routledge, Blackwells, Ashgate, Palgrave, Transactions, Verso, and McFarland.

–If you are in any doubt about your source, please show it to me.

–The paper must include a bibliography and/or a works cited page. Follow MLA format for all citations.

Paper Topic: Discuss the role of the Players in Hamlet. What is the significance of the Player King? Besides plot purposes, what role do the Players play? What is their impact on Hamlet?

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