UWC2101H: Writing and Critical Thinking: Power, Space and Pleasure
Paper 2: The Lens Paper
| Lens papers and comparative (compare and contrast) papers are not completely discrete; rather, we might think of them as lying on a continuum. These types of papers cannot be completely separated since, in the case of a lens paper, you need to connect two papers, which necessarily involves elements of comparison (at the very least, the sources will need to share a frame of reference). By the same token, a comparative paper will necessarily involve elements of lensing. Nonetheless, it is useful to distinguish between the two kinds of papers as there is one thing that makes them quite different from each other: a lens paper is firmly focused on one text (the 'primary' source), whereas a comparative paper lays equal emphasis on both sources. |
In the case of a lens paper, you would select a primary text (a film, novel, or essay) from the texts we have been studying, one that you find interesting. As in Paper 1, you would identify a passage/scene that presents something striking/puzzling/interesting about the text which needs to be explored further, and concerning which you can therefore post a question or problem: (a motive). You would then select another source that can act as your secondary text, one which would help you understand the primary text better, and in particular the problem you have identified in it.
One useful way to consider the relationship between the secondary and primary source is to think of the former as a lens through which to read the latter: the secondary source provides you with ideas/concepts as expressed in key terms that you can apply as evidence to your reading of the primary text. These concepts from the secondary source (stick to two or three), when applied to the primary text, should help you understand it better and thus aid you in putting forward your argument that attempts to make sense of the problem you have identified, and consequently of the text as a whole. This means that your secondary source needs to be a text that works primarily on the conceptual level. Of course, the distinctions are not hard and fast, but this means you are more likely to find a critical or theoretical text useful for illuminating a film or novel than the other way around.
Examples of text pairings (from among those we have read in class)
| Possible primary texts |
Possible secondary texts |
| McTeigue, V for Vendetta |
Bauman, Brown, Foucault, Mathiesen, or Rojek |
| Weir, The Truman Show |
Bauman, Brown, Foucault, Mathiesen, or Rojek |
These would be the most likely text pairings if you end up writing a lens paper. But you are of course free to experiment with other combinations of texts, and other texts. It might be possible, for instance, to use one of your theoretical texts (i.e.,Bauman, Brown, Foucault, Mathiesen, or Rojek) as a primary source, and another theoretical text as a secondary source. It might even be possible to use a theoretical source as a primary source and then ask how The Truman Show or V for Vendetta illuminates, or points to a gap in that particular theory. However, these texts do not in the first instance operate on a conceptual level, and therefore it would be much harder (though not impossible) to use them as lenses for approaching a primary source. Indeed, if you end up choosing a combination of these texts, you'd probably need to write a more strictly comparative paper.
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