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If this is your first time reading Hamlet, it may be difficult to come up with a topic
for your next paper as you are reading, but if you annotate the text and take good notes,
it can help you to be prepared once you get a topic. As you start working your way through
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, pay attention to patterns that you start to see developing.
Once you start noticing that certain things repeat themselves in the play, whether it
is a type of character, a common action (like deception), or certain phrases that are being
repeated, these repetitions tend to lead to the larger themes of the play. See if you
can find something that interests you about the play, but if you get stuck, you may find
it easier to choose either a minor character or a theme and explore that character or theme
in greater detail. Keep in mind that the paper is a longer one, 6 to 12 pages, and it must
have at least 5 secondary sources to receive anything more than a C. Having 5 secondary
sources doesn’t guarantee a good grade, though, but the more in-depth reading that
you do on the play, the more likely it is that you’ll have a interesting, nicely developed
paper. In the Drama Unit folder I’m putting a link to a website dealing with the mechanics
of quoting Shakespeare using MLA form, so make sure to explore that site. MLA has unique
rules for quoting plays, and you’ll want to make sure that you use ample quotes from
Hamlet. Good luck!