Instructions:

Based on the theories you have learnt, write a two-page (double spaced) paper on the case provided to you. It will help you evaluate your knowledge of the concepts you are expected to have learnt at the end of this module. It will help you describe theories and apply them to real life situations.

Your paper should discuss the elements of crime and recognize the origins of criminal behavior depicted in this case. Using two different views of crime and two different explanations of crime in the context of different criminological schools of thought, explain what crimes Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was referring to as ‘dirty money”.

Article:

In a move with significant implications for the U.S. housing market, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is seeking to take a Treasury Department crackdown on dirty money in luxury real estate and expand it from a few high-priced enclaves to the entire nation.

Rubio says his proposal is an attempt to root out criminals who use illicit funds and anonymous shell companies to buy homes — a form of money laundering that hides the cash’s tainted origin from law enforcement and banks. The widespread practice enables terrorism, sex trafficking,corruption, and drug dealing by providing an outlet for dirty cash, according to transparency advocates.

Through an amendment to an unrelated major spending bill, Rubio will ask Treasury to study whether government regulators should force shell companies that buy homes priced at $300,000 or more in cash nationwide to disclose their owners. That could be a figure as high as 10 percent of the nation’s real-estate deals.

A similar reporting requirement affecting transactions priced at $1 million or more has already had a chilling effect on all-cash corporate sales in Miami-Dade County, which has been under Treasury’s microscope since 2016.“Shell companies involved in shady activities are a big problem, especially throughout South Florida,” Rubio said in a statement to McClatchy and the Miami Herald. “With this provision, a study would be conducted to look at requiring all shell companies that make cash transactions, regardless of their area, to disclose their identities.”

The amendment builds on a previous Treasury disclosure order that applied only to certain markets, including South Florida.

That order — which forced shell companies buying homes with cash to reveal their true owners to the government — has been in place in some areas since March 2016 at various price points. Its effects were immediate and stunning. As soon as the order took hold, shell companies buying homes with cash dropped off the map, a recent study by academic economists found. In Miami- Dade, the number of corporate cash sales plummeted 95 percent, although a strong overall market suggests creative buyers found ways to circumvent the rules, researchers said.

Before the crackdown, corporate cash sales accounted for roughly a third of home-sale volume in Miami-Dade, which is popular with foreign investors.

The amendment has the support of the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon’s Ron Wyden, as well as Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Both have tried to widen disclosure of true owners of shell companies, which can be listed in the names of lawyers, accountants, and other fronts. The lack of corporate transparency frustrates law-enforcement officials, who say it stymies their investigations.

A vote is expected on the overall bill as soon as this week, Rubio’s office said.

The powerful real-estate industry has fought attempts from the government to have it act as a watchdog against money laundering, as banks, precious-metals dealers, money-service businesses, and other financial institutions are required to do. Many Realtors and developers say their clients are simply wealthy buyers seeking privacy, not criminals.

But over the past two years, Treasury has moved with force into what had been a largely unregulated sector of the U.S. financial system. Starting in Miami-Dade County and Manhattan two years ago, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) began requiring anonymous shell companies to disclose their true owners when they bought pricey homes with cash.

The temporary directives — called “geographic targeting orders” or GTOs — were later expanded to other housing markets in Florida, New York, Texas, California, and Hawaii where foreign and anonymous investors are gobbling up real estate and driving up prices. The rules require title agents to identify the owners of shell companies buying homes with cash and disclose their names to the federal government.

Offshore corporations have one main purpose – to create anonymity. Recently leaked documents reveal that some of these shell companies, cloaked in secrecy, provide cover for dictators, politicians and tax evaders.

By Sohail Al-Jamea and Ali Rizvi

“The GTOs are working, and it’s time they were expanded. Laundering money through real estate isn’t new, but [what is new is] an effective approach to combat dirty money,” said Clark Gascoigne, deputy director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, a watchdog nonprofit.

Rubio’s proposal to take the project national, Gascoigne added, “sends a strong message that we’re serious about protecting the U.S. financial system, the real-estate market, and communities across the country.”

Stephen Hudak, a spokesman for FinCEN, declined to comment.

Cracking down

The Rubio amendment asks Treasury to consider expanding the FinCEN directive to include all cash real-estate transactions over $300,000 anywhere in the United States.

It would give Treasury 180 days to submit a study to Congress providing details about the data that has been collected by FinCEN since 2016 and how it is being used. The agency is also being asked to determine if it needs more authority to combat money laundering and whether expanding the targeting order would be of use. In addition, FinCEN is asked if a registry of company owners — something supported by a bipartisan cast of federal legislators — would help authorities fight money laundering, tax evasion, election fraud, and other illegal activities.

Previously, the FinCEN disclosure requirement kicked in for corporate cash sales that were priced at $3 million or higher in New York City, $1 million or higher in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, and at different price points in other states. In May, FinCEN enacted a new directive that secretly lowered the number to $300,000 in all GTO areas. Sources familiar with the agency’s thinking say the new order was kept confidential because regulators don’t want to give money launderers a road map for structuring their transactions to avoid reporting.

Rubio’s amendment would start at that lower price point, covering a major chunk of home sales nationwide. Last year, the median U.S. home sold for a price of $247,200, according to the National Association of Realtors.

A cash transaction is one in which there is no mortgage and the property is purchased outright. Cash doesn’t just mean stacks of greenbacks; it also includes such financial instruments as wire transfers, checks, and money orders. Unlike mortgages, cash deals don’t involve heavy scrutiny from banks, which can identify potential money laundering and file suspicious-activity reports to the feds.

The 2016 publication of the Panama Papers spotlighted how anonymous shell companies in faraway tax havens were used to camouflage property purchases in the United States by politicians, drug traffickers, and financial fraudsters. Housing analysts argue that the flow of anonymous money is driving up prices.

“There’s hardly a metropolitan area in the country that is not experiencing a real public-policy issue regarding affordable housing,” said Ned Murray, a housing expert and associate director of Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center. “The whole focus of the real-estate industry is on … supplying homes for wealthy investors that we don’t know much about. It really is a factor for prices and supply.”

Much of the world has responded to the threat of corruption in real estate by requiring greater ownership disclosure. The United States has done relatively less, although Rubio’s amendment could help close the gap.

Those operating in the shadows of the real-estate market certainly seem aware of the Treasury disclosure requirements — and are working to get around them.

Take Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, who is the former legal counsel to the Venezuelan Ministry of Oil and Mining. He was recently among those charged in a federal $1.2 billion money-laundering case involving funds stolen from Venezuela’s state oil company.

When Urdaneta prepared to close on a brand-new, $5.3 million condo at the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, he was informed by paperwork from the developer that “taking title [to the unit] under a company or trust may trigger FinCEN reporting requirements,” according to a federal indictment filed last week. He was worried enough about the disclosure that he discussed how to avoid it with a government informant.

Ultimately, Urdaneta set up a company in his wife’s name to do the deal, prosecutors allege.

Theories you can use (use 2):

good theory 

consensus theories 

micro theories
unit theories 

process theories

rational choice theories

cognitive theory

rounded labeling theory

power-control theory

My topic chose is : Should the United States provide Universal healthcare ?

Start by thinking about the different topics associated with a given subject category;  then examine the debatable issues in your topic ; then think about the different points of view and perspectives;  then develop your thesis.  A good way to visualize this is

  Subject  Themes  Issues  Debates  Points of view  Thesis

  The domains I have provided are very large (and may have significant overlaps).  You have to reduce them in order to be able to write a questionable claim (a thesis).  Remember that you will have to take a stand in the debate;  your thesis statement should clarify where you stand and what you stand for, so it should be crafted narrowly.

  The essay you write should be both informative and compelling.  This means that you are expected to be fully aware of the topic and set a position on it.  Your essay should start with a clear thesis statement (a clearly stated statement, assertion, or proposition).

example for doing this work:

Subject: The opioid epidemic

Topic: Who is to blame?

Issues: Increased over dosages, increased deaths in short amt of time, while Big Pharma’s pockets swell, and the government’s inadequate oversights

Debates: Some would say the physician has the responsibility or even the patient for abusing the medication, but Big Pharma is behind it all. 

Viewpoints: The physician prescribes the medications knowing that it is addictive, the patients are not willing to titrate off of their doses and have no desire to stop taking medication and have totally become dependent on these medications, Big Pharma has quotas to meet, they worry too much about their “bottom line.” Drug reps are taught how to “groom” doctors.

Thesis: Big Pharma companies like Purdue, Cephalon, and Insys who over-promote or “push” their products for off-label uses and use deceptive claims about addiction, are ultimately to blame for causing the worst man-made plague in the history of America: the opioid epidemic

Week 3 Discussion

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1. Do we live in a cosmopolitan era? In other words, can we achieve global citizenship? If so, what are some examples? 

2. What is natural law? Does it have universal weight, or is it a concept solely applicable to Western elites? 

3. Looking ahead, what is “cultural relativism?” Do you agree or disagree with its main tenets? 

* Please respond to one of the questions. Thank you. 

ONLY ONE QUESTION (150 words response)

I THINK NATURAL LAW IS THE BEST TO ANSWER.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/21/What_is_natural_about_Natural_Rights

extra information

The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics

 First published Mon Sep 23, 2002; substantive revision Tue Sep 27, 2011 ‘Natural law theory’ is a label that has been applied to theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality. We will be concerned only with natural law theories of ethics: while such views arguably have some interesting implications for law, politics, and religious morality, these implications will not be our focus here. This article has two central objectives. First, it aims to identify the defining features of natural law moral theory. Second, it aims to identify some of the main theoretical options that natural law theorists face in formulating a precise view within the constraints set by these defining features and some of the difficulties for each of these options. It will not, however, attempt to recount the history of the development of natural law thought. (For a very helpful detailed history of natural law thought up to the beginning of the modern period, see Crowe 1977. For a very helpful detailed history of natural law thought in the modern period, see Haakonssen 1996. For an article-length recap of the entire history of natural law thought, see Haakonssen 1992.)

1. Key Features of Natural Law Theories 

Even though we have already confined ‘natural law theory’ to its use as a term that marks off a certain class of ethical theories, we still have a confusing variety of meanings to contend with. Some writers use the term with such a broad meaning that any moral theory that is a version of moral realism — that is, any moral theory that holds that some positive moral claims are literally true (for this conception of moral realism, see Sayre-McCord 1988)— counts as a natural law view. Some use it so narrowly that no moral theory that is not grounded in a very specific form of Aristotelian teleology could count as a natural law view. It might be thought that there is nothing that can be done to begin a discussion of natural law theory in ethics other than to stipulate a meaning for ‘natural law theory’ and to proceed from there. But there is a better way of proceeding, one that takes as its starting point the central role that the moral theorizing of Thomas Aquinas plays in the natural law tradition. If any moral theory is a theory of natural law, it is Aquinas’s. (Every introductory ethics anthology that includes material on natural law theory includes material by or about Aquinas; every encyclopedia article on natural law thought refers to Aquinas.)  It would seem sensible, then, to take Aquinas’s natural law theory as the central case of a natural law position: of theories that exhibit all of the key features of Aquinas’s natural law view we can say that they are clearly natural law theories; of theories that exhibit few of them we can say that they are clearly not 1/21/2019 The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ 2/12 natural law theories; and of theories that exhibit many but not all of them we can say that they are in the neighborhood of the natural law view but nonetheless must be viewed as at most deviant cases of that position. There remain, no doubt, questions about how we determine what are to count as the key features of Aquinas’s position. But we may take as the key features those theses about natural law that structure his overall moral view and which provide the basis for other theses about the natural law that he affirms. For Aquinas, there are two key features of the natural law, features the acknowledgment of which structures his discussion of the natural law at Question 94 of the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae. The first is that, when we focus on God’s role as the giver of the natural law, the natural law is just one aspect of divine providence; and so the theory of natural law is from that perspective just one part among others of the theory of divine providence. The second is that, when we focus on the human’s role as recipient of the natural law, the natural law constitutes the principles of practical rationality, those principles by which human action is to be judged as reasonable or unreasonable; and so the theory of natural law is from that perspective the preeminent part of the theory of practical rationality.

1.1 Natural law and divine providence 

While our main focus will be on the status of the natural law as constituting the principles of practical rationality, we should consider for a moment at least the importance within Aquinas’s view of the claim that the natural law is an aspect of divine providence. The fundamental thesis affirmed here by Aquinas is that the natural law is a participation in the eternal law (ST IaIIae 91, 2). The eternal law, for Aquinas, is that rational plan by which all creation is ordered (ST IaIIae 91, 1); the natural law is the way that the human being “participates” in the eternal law  (ST IaIIae 91, 2). While nonrational beings have a share in the eternal law only by being determined by it — their action nonfreely results from their determinate natures, natures the existence of which results from God’s will in accordance with God’s eternal plan — rational beings like us are able to grasp our share in the eternal law and freely act on it  (ST IaIIae 91, 2). It is this feature of the natural law that justifies, on Aquinas’s view, our calling the natural law ‘law.’  For law, as Aquinas defines it (ST IaIIae 90, 4), is a rule of action put into place by one who has care of the community; and as God has care of the entire universe, God’s choosing to bring into existence beings who can act freely and in accordance with principles of reason is enough to justify our thinking of those principles of reason as law.

1.2 Natural law and practical rationality 

When we focus on the recipient of the natural law, that is, us human beings, the thesis of Aquinas’s natural law theory that comes to the fore is that the natural law constitutes the basic principles of practical rationality for human beings, and has this status by nature (ST IaIIae 94, 2). The notion that the natural law  constitutes the basic principles of practical rationality implies, for Aquinas, both that the precepts of the natural law are universally binding by nature (ST IaIIae 94, 4) and that the precepts of the natural law are universally knowable by nature (ST IaIIae 94, 4; 94, 6). The precepts of the natural law are binding by nature: no beings could share our human nature yet fail to be bound by the precepts of the natural law. This is so because these precepts direct us toward the good as such and various particular goods (ST IaIIae 94, 2). The good and goods provide reasons for us rational beings to act, to pursue the good and these particular goods. As good is what is perfective of us given the natures that we have (ST Ia 5, 1), the good and these various goods have their status as such naturally. It is sufficient for certain things to be good that we have the natures that we have; it is in virtue of our common human nature that the good for us is what it is. The precepts of the natural law are also knowable by nature.  All human beings possess a basic knowledge of the principles of the natural law (ST IaIIae 94, 4). This knowledge is exhibited in our intrinsic directedness toward the various goods that the natural law enjoins us to pursue, and we can make this implicit awareness explicit and propositional through reflection on practice. Aquinas takes it that there is a core of practical knowledge that all human beings have, even if the implications of that knowledge can be hard to work out or the efficacy of that knowledge can be thwarted by strong emotion or evil dispositions (ST IaIIae 94, 6). 1/21/2019 The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ 3/12 If Aquinas’s view is paradigmatic of the natural law position, and these two theses — that from the God’s-eye point of view, it is law through its place in the scheme of divine providence, and from the human’s-eye point of view, it constitutes a set of naturally binding and knowable precepts of practical reason — are the basic features of the natural law as Aquinas understands it, then it follows that paradigmatic natural law theory is incompatible with several views in metaphysics and moral philosophy. On the side of metaphysics, it is clear that the natural law view is incompatible with atheism: one cannot have a theory of divine providence without a divine being. It is also clear that the paradigmatic natural law view rules out a deism on which there is a divine being but that divine being has no interest in human matters. Nor can one be an agnostic while affirming the paradigmatic natural law view: for agnosticism is the refusal to commit either to God’s existence or nonexistence, whereas the paradigmatic natural law view involves a commitment to God’s existence. On the side of moral philosophy, it is clear that the natural law view is incompatible with a nihilism about value, that is, the rejection of the existence of values. It is also incompatible with relativist and conventionalist views, on which the status of value is entirely relative to one’s community or determined entirely by convention. It is also incompatible with a wholesale skepticism about value, for the natural law view commits one to holding that certain claims about the good are in fact knowable, indeed, knowable by all

  Do Your Own Work
The school has strict policies regarding turning in work that is not 100% your own creation. I will enforce these policies.  

PROJECT 1: COMPANY ANALYSIS
Objective
The purpose of this project is to demonstrate your understanding of the following course concepts:

1. How companies use digital and social media to effectively communicate ideas, information, arguments, and messages to achieve a specific goal.
2. How digital media has transformed the communication of an idea, information, and arguments in society.

Project Description
The use of digital media has transformed how companies communicate with their customers. The use of the websites, YouTube, e-books, e-mail and various forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, and blogs has shaped current day communication strategies.

Project 1 Consists of:

1. Project Requirements (topics and content to cover)
2. Paper Requirements (content organization)
3. Submission Requirements (how to submit your assignment)
4. APA Resources (how to cite and select sources)
5. Due Date Information and Late Policy

Project Requirements
Select a company that utilizes digital or social media to communicate with customers to complete Section 1.

NOTE 1: You are required to complete ALL THREE SECTIONS of this project (Sections 1, 2, and 3).

SECTION 1: COMPANY INFORMATION
Provide the following information about the company you select:
Item 1: What is the name of the company?
Item 2: What year was the company established?
Item 3: What is the company’s goal or mission?
Item 4: What products and services does the company offer or provide?
Item 5: Provide the company website address (URL).
Item 6: How many employees does the company employ?
Item 7: Where is the company’s headquarters located?
Item 8: What are the company’s most recent earnings?

Section 1 Source: Include at least one source for Section 1. Include this source as an in-paper citation and on your Reference page.
Section 1 Example: The Henkel Company
To help you with completing Section 1, an example is provided below:
“…Henkel was founded in 1876. People around the world trust Henkel’s innovations, brands, and technologies. In the fiscal year 2016, the company reported sales of approx. 18.7 billion euros and an operating profit of around 3.2 billion euros (adjusted for one-time gains/charges and restructuring charges). The DAX-30 company has its headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany. Henkel employs more than 50,000 people worldwide, over 80 percent of whom work outside of Germany. Henkel is thus one of the most international German companies…”

Henkel. (2019). Company Profile. In Company Profile. Retrieved 1/15/19, from https://www.henkel.com/press-and-media/facts-and-figures/company-profile

NOTE 2: You cannot use the Henkel Company in your project.

SECTION 2: DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA USE
How does the company use Digital and Social Media to communicate with their customers?

Item 1: List all of the digital and social media platforms the company uses to communicate with customers (including websites, YouTube, e-books, e-mail and various forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, and blogs).
Item 2: Describe how the company uses EACH digital and social media listed in Item 1 above to achieve its goals or mission.

Section 2 Source: Include at least one source for Section 2. Include this source as an in-paper citation and on your References page.

SECTION 3: ANALYSIS
Provide an example of how the company uses digital and/or social media to accomplish an objective (e.g. to address a serious public relations issue, promote a cause, market a product, achieve a strategic advantage by using Big Data, or promote an event).

Item 1:  Describe the situation or example in detail.
Item 2:  How successful was the company in accomplishing the objective? Support your answer with reference (s).
Item 3:  List one thing the company could have done better to accomplish their objective. Be sure to focus on the use of digital or social media here.
Item 4: If you decide to discuss the company’s use of Big Data to achieve a strategic advantage, does their use of Big Data concern you as a potential customer? Why or why not?

To help you with completing Section 3, we have provided two sample topics below:

Section 3 Example 1: Target’s Data Breach
Target’s December 2013 data breach was a public relations nightmare, but the company responded swiftly over social media, posting safety guidelines on Twitter and keeping an open dialog with its aggrieved customers.

Section 3 Example 2: Target’s Use of Big Data
Target is renowned in the industry for its data collection practices. Target maintains a customer relationship management database which includes information from in-store purchases (they link all of your purchases to a unique customer identifier) and data they collect externally (e.g. data from Facebook and other sources).  Combine the two data streams and Target can predict, with a high degree of certainty, what your gender is, where you live, how far you travel to work, your relationship status, and they can even tell if you are pregnant and if so when you are due. The amount of money spent each year on pregnancy-related purchases is tremendous. In efforts to win the market share in this profit area, Target has hired a team of statisticians to perform predictive analysis. The goal, in this particular situation, is to predict which women are expecting (or soon to be), without asking them directly, by analyzing their purchasing behavior (e.g. cribs, baby clothes, prenatal vitamins, etc.). This way Target can “target” this particular demographic (with coupons, discounts, and other offers) very early, thus getting a jump on the competition.

Section 3 Sources: Include at least two sources for Section 3. Include the two sources as in-paper citations and on your References page. At least one source should be professional or scholarly. 

NOTE 3: You cannot use Target in your project or any company we discussed in class (e.g. Google).

Paper Requirements
1. Your paper must follow APA format guidelines throughout.
(A sample APA template for you to use is attached to the bottom of this page). Be sure to use the the sample template.

a. Double-spaced
b. 1-inch Margins
c. 12-point size professional font (e.g. Times New Roman)
d. Header
e. Automatic Page numbers
f. Title page
g. Reference page

2. Length: Minimum of 1,000; Maximum of 1,500 words.
(Title page, Reference page, and direct quotes do not count toward the total word count). 

NOTE 4: Going over 1,500 words is fine, but if you are under 1,000 you will be penalized (10% or one letter grade) if you have under 900 words.

3. Include one Image.
Include at least one table, graph, or image of an appropriate size that is relevant and supports the information provided in your paper. Feel free to create the image if you like.

Image Example: The Henkel Company Infographic
To help you with completing your project, we have included a sample image. This is a great infographic that provides data on the Henkel Company. This infographic would work well in Section 1.

Henkel Company Infographic [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2019, from here.

4. Title Page
Your title page must be APA formatted and include the following:

a. Project Name
b. Your Name
c. Instructor’s Name
d. Course name
e. Due date of the assignment.
f. Title of Company Analysis

5. References Page
Your References page must be APA formatted.

6. Sources: Include at least Four (4) Sources (Total)
a. Include at least One (1) Source for Section 1.
b. Include at least One (1) Source for Section 2.
c. Include at least Two (2) Sources for Section 3. At least one of the two sources must be a Professional or Scholarly Source.

Clarification: Please do not use unprofessional sources such as Wikipedia, About.com, Answers.com, Dictionary.com, How.com, or anything remotely similar.  Examples of scholarly sources include textbooks, articles, academic journals, and conference proceedings. Scholarly resources are written by experts in their fields, grounded in research, and often refereed (reviewed and edited by researchers in the field). Examples of professional sources include trade journals or magazines. Professional sources are written for a specific audience that works in a certain field. They are not research-based. You can also use our course content (e.g. Read & Watch resources) as a source as well. UMGC has a top-notch, extensive online library. You can find many scholarly and professional sources there.

NOTE 5: You can also use social media (e.g. Twitter posts, blogs, YouTube) sources as well as this is a paper about the use of digital and social media.

7. Setup & Organization
Your paper must include the following pages and Level 1 Headings:

a. Cover Page
b. Company Profile (Section 1)
c. Digital and Social Media Use (Section 2)
d. Analysis (Section 3)
e. Reference Page

 REQUIRED TOPIC : ” M Butterfly ”    M. Butterfly, directed by David Cronenberg 

INTERVIEW: FILE ATTACHED 

Analytical Paper 

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an end in itself but rather a process to help you better appreciate and understand the work of literature as a whole. To analyze (discuss and explain) a play, you can analyze the relationship between a subplot and the main plot, or you might analyze the character flaw of the tragic hero by tracing how it is revealed through the acts of the play. You might also consider identifying a particular theme and showing how the writer suggests that theme through the point of view from which the play is told; or you might also explain how the main character’s attitude toward a social group is revealed through their dialogue and/or actions.

Writing ultimately boils down to the development of an idea. Your objective in writing a literary analysis essay is to convince the person reading your essay that you have supported the idea you are developing. Unlike ordinary conversation and classroom discussion, writing must stick with great determination to the specific point of development. This kind of writing demands tight organization and control. Therefore, your essay must have a central idea (thesis), it must have several paragraphs that grow systematically out of the central idea, and everything in it must be directly related to the central idea and must contribute to the reader’s understanding of that central idea. These three principles are listed again below:

1. Your essay must cover the play’s topic you are writing about.
2. Your essay must have a central idea (stated in your thesis) that governs its development.
3. Your essay must be organized so that every part contributes something to the reader’s understanding of the central idea.
    

The Thesis Statement

The thesis statement tells your reader what to expect: it is a restricted, precisely worded declarative sentence that states the purpose of your essay — the point you are trying to make. Without a carefully conceived thesis, an essay has no chance of success. 

The Introduction

The introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to capture your reader’s interest. To bring immediate focus to your subject, you may want to use a quotation, a provocative question, a brief anecdote, a startling statement, or a combination of these. You may also want to include background information relevant to your thesis and necessary for the reader to understand the 

The Body of the Essay and the Importance of Topic Sentences

The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story, poem, play) that supports those ideas. Textual evidence consists of summary, paraphrase, specific details, and direct quotations.

Each paragraph should contain a topic sentence (usually the first sentence of the paragraph) which states one of the topics associated with your thesis, combined with some assertion about how the topic will support the central idea. The purpose of the topic sentence is twofold:

1. To relate the details of the paragraph to your thesis statement.

2. To tie the details of the paragraph together.

The substance of each of your developmental paragraphs (the body of your essay) will be the explanations, summaries, paraphrases, specific details, and direct quotations you need to support and develop the more general statement you have made in your topic sentence.

The Conclusion

Your literary analysis essay should have a concluding paragraph that gives your essay a sense of completeness and lets your readers know that they have come to the end of your paper. Your concluding paragraph might restate the thesis in different words, summarize the main points you have made, or make a relevant comment about the literary work you are analyzing, but from a different perspective. 

The Title of Your Essay

It is essential that you give your essay a title that is descriptive of the approach you are taking in your paper. Just as you did in your introductory paragraph, try to get the reader’s attention. Using only the title of the literary work you are examining is unsatisfactory.

Audience

Consider the reader for whom you are writing your essay. Imagine you are writing for not only your professor but also the other students in your class who have about as much education as you do. They have read the assigned work just as you have, but perhaps they have not thought about it in exactly the same way. In other words, it is not necessary to “retell” the work of literature in any way. Rather, it is your role to be the explainer or interpreter of the work—to tell what certain elements of the work mean in relation to your central idea (thesis). When you make references to the text of the play, you are doing so to remind your audience of something they already know. The emphasis of your essay is to draw conclusions and develop arguments. Avoid plot summary.

 must be 6-8 pages in length.

GRADING CRITERIA

Contextual Knowledge of Play 25%

Originality 25%

Development of Ideas 25%

Organization and Conventions 25%

Must adhere to current MLA standards. work typed in 12pt font, Times New Roman. Must include a heading, page numbers, and double-spaced. Include proper in-text citations in addition to your works cited page. Failure to adhere to these standards will result in a failing grade.