Yesterday, you and two or three of your classmates composed a short assessment of the student bibliography and preface “All Hail the King” and used the assignment’s guidelines and rubric to determine a letter grade. Notes on the bibliography and preface’s content and form follow, along with details on bibliography’s three additional print sources.
“All Hail the King”: Notes of Content
- Instead of beginning the preface with the three-and-a-half-line paragraph that currently serves as the introduction, the writer could start with what is now the second paragraph, which draws readers into the writing by placing them in the classroom with the writer as she reads “Strawberry Spring.”
- The phrase “my interest in King in the past” (par. 2) offers a place for the writer to introduce the details that are now in the introduction.
- The next paragraph should omit the first sentence that begins “I have compiled” (par. 3) and begin with a revised version of the second sentence: “The following bibliogrpahy includes . . . . (par. 3).
- The words “excerpts from a collaborative book critiquing” (par. 3) should be replaced with “chapters in a collection of critical essays on” (par. 3).
- The words the idea should be added between “supporting” and “that” (par. 3).
- In the annotation for James Egan’s “Technohorror: The Dystopian Vision of Stephen King,” the writer should omit the phrase “is useful because” (par. 2) and instead show its usefulness.
- In the annotation for Egan’s essay, the writer notes that he “published articles devoted to horror and other authors,” but horror is not an author; it’s a genre. The word “horror” should be followed by writers.
- In the annotation for Ben P. Indick’s critical essay “King and the Literary Tradition of Horror and the Supernatural,” the writer doesn’t clarify whether Indick claims that King’s work is derivative of Edgar Allan Poe’s or Shirley Jackson’s or simply inspired by it.
- Also, the writer notes Indick’s observation that King references other authors in Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Dead Zone but doesn’t specify which authors.
- The writer should omit “in his time” (par. 3) from the annotation for Indick’s essay becuase he could not publish out of his time.
- In the annotation for Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring,” the writer states the short story is “a great introduction” (par. 1) to King but doesn’t explain why. Also, since readers know the story wasn’t the first work of King’s the writer read, readers may question why the writer chose to address the story’s value as an introduction to the author.
- Elsewhere in the annotation for “Strawberry Spring,” the writer notes “similarities can be found between the story and the work of Edgar Allan Poe” (par. 2). That line should be rewritten in active voice, and the writer should include a detail from “Strawberry Spring” and one from a Poe Story to support the claim reagrding their similarities.
- Since the bibliography raises the question of the relationship of King’s fiction to his influences, the writer might have asked her classmate whether “Strawberry Spring” reminded him of any stories he’d read. Asking that question may have enabled the writer to link her interview annotation to the one for Indick’s critical essay.
“All Hail the King”: Note on Form
- The preface and bibliography have minimal errors of form, notably the omission of the period at the end of four of the five sources. Only the fifth source, the peer interview, includes the required period at the end.
Three Additional Print Sources (in One)
As I noted in class yesterday, the three additional print sources that the writer of “All Hail the King” included in her bibliography comply with the assignment’s requirements. All three were originally published in peer-reviewed journals. The screenshot above features HPU Libraries‘ catalog listing for the book, Stephen King: Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, where they were later published as part of a collection of analyses devoted to King’s work.
The screenshot below shows the listing for one of the three, James Egan’s “Technohorror: The Dystopian Vision of Stephen King,” in the MLA International Bibliography database on the HPU Libraries site. That listing shows that Egan’s essay was published in the journal Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy in 1988, ten years before it was included in Stephen King: Bloom’s Modern Critical Views.
Next Up
Wednesday, in the first half of class, you will conduct a short personal interview that will serve as one of the sources for your research project. If you decide that you do not want to use the interview that you conduct on Wednesday, you are welcome to include another one in your project. Keep in mind, however, that the student interview you include must be conducted with a student currently enrolled in section one or eight, and the subject of the interview must be the subject of your bibliography. In the second half a class, you will have time to continue your research and writing.
