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+# Midterm Paper
+## Analytical Summary
+
+**Due March 1, 2024, by 11:59pm.**
+
+Upload the paper to the #work channel on our Matrix chat.
+
+### Formal parameters
+* Formatted according to standard manuscript style, according to the _Chicago Manual of Style_:
+    - Double-spaced
+    - Sans-serif font, 12 pt.
+    - Ragged-left (not full justification)
+    - Chicago style footnotes (MLA is acceptable)
+    - Page numbers, plus headers with author & title
+* Between 1,500 and 2,000 words
+    - I will stop reading at 2,500 words
+    - This word count does *not* include notes
+
+NB: You can access the Chicago manual [here](https://www-chicagomanualofstyle-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/book/ed17/frontmatter/toc.html).
+
+### Prompt
+Select one (1) essay from [_The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory_, ed. Kyle Stevens (OUP, 2022)](https://academic-oup-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/edited-volume/44429).
+You should be the sole student who has selected this essay.
+Write an analytical summary of this essay, answering the following questions:
+
+* What is the argument this essay makes?
+* How does the author situate its argument in the field?
+* What are the _questions_ and _problems_ this essay poses?
+* What is the archive/what are the cases this essay convenes?
+* How does the author make the argument?
+* What does the argument help you understand?
+* What does the argument help you think?
+* What is new in this argument? (To you, to the field...)
+* What are the limitations of the argument?
+* What is your sense of the importance of this argument for film theorists in 2024 and beyond?
+
+You need not answer these questions step-by-step, and you need not address all of them explicitly.
+Instead, you should write this as a helpful guide to a reader who is (literally and actually) a fellow MA student at the University of Toronto who may want to work with this essay as part of their research.
+
+### Stylistic considerations
+This essay should, in the first instance, be an aid to understanding for somebody else.
+That means it should _clarify_, and thus be written with as little indirection as you can muster.
+To the extent that you can (and these will be clarified in our writing workshop):
+
+* Write short sentences
+* Put subjects and verbs next to each other
+* Develop clear and cosistent characters and themes
+* Repetition is not the enemy
+* Use the first person pronoun judiciously
+
+In addition, while this is not a research or argumentative essay (and thus will likely not develop its own questions and problems), be as explicit as you can be about the questions and problems (à la Booth & co.) the essay poses in its own terms.
+In other words, your task here is to track the posing and development of questions and problems in another scholar's essay.
+(You will use your newfound abilities to talk about, describe, and track questions and problems to help you pose your own in your final research paper.)
+
+You should bring your own concerns and insights into this essay, and do so specifically with news that you want to share with your colleagues.
+The piece of writing I've published that is closest in form and style to this paper is ["Faith in Abstraction."](https://www.provocationsbooks.com/2020/02/14/faith-in-abstraction-a-response-to-scott-fergusons-declarations-of-dependence/)
+It's longer and more in command of a variety of fields than I expect you to be, but it's a good working model where the questions articulated above are worked through in something other than a paint-by-numbers approach.
+It's also perhaps, a bit more "book review"-ish than you may wish to be; I'm not sure you'll want to call your essay "preposterous."
+Your taste is your own business; we do, however, want your judgment.
+
+### Evaluation and marking
+I will not offer a formal rubric for graduate students, since evaluation at this level ought to be more holistic.
+However, I tend to evaluate across three categories:
+* Style and clarity
+* Technical argumentation and correctness
+* Conceptual sophistication and ambition
+
+(If we were reading films, I would also include analytical verve.)
+
+Mid-term papers are worth 25% of your final mark.
+
+Marks will be on a letter scale.
+
+I mostly don't believe in A+es.
+
+In graduate school, B-level marks are cause for concern.
+
+A mark of B- or below is cause for grave concern, and looks like a failing mark.
+
+### Other details
+* I will mark your paper within two weeks of submission.
+* I will offer written comments if you submit your paper before April 1.
+* There is no late penalty, but if you're more than 10 days late with your paper, I will expect you to have a meeting with me.
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