Summary:

The Critical Analysis Essay asks each student to produce a researched, thoughtful, scholarly essay. Essays should be approximately 2,000 words in length and in a standard bibliographical format of each student's choosing (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). Essays should utilize at least two sources (one of which must be a textual secondary source) and contain a bibliography.

Topic choice for essays is open, as long as they critically engage a subject related to video gaming. A workable structure for essays is as follows:

1. Introduction: This section provides relevant background information about the subject to lead up to the thesis, which is the argument the paper seeks to prove. This section often establishes why this argument is relevant or important (i.e., why the reader should care).
   
   
2. Body: This section contains evidence in support of the thesis. Evidence may come in many forms, including reference to external works, first-person research, and critical interpretation of texts (such as specific games). This section is often broken into multiple subsections.
   
   
3. Conclusion: This section provides a recapitulation of the argument that has been presented. It often gestures toward the implications of this work, how it may be extended, and/or its applicability in other areas.

Informative headings that foreshadow the material to follow (not "Introduction," "Body," and "Conclusion") are useful to help organize an essay. They also help the reader follow its argument. We will see examples of Critical Analysis Essays to understand better the structure and flow of these documents, and to share ideas about possible topics and approaches.

Deliverables:

• Design Plan (10 possible points)
• Critical Analysis Essay (80 possible points)
• Postmortem (10 possible points)