The paper started as a smaller assignment for the English Literature I class she took two semesters ago. When the Department of English alerted its students to the scholarly journal’s call for papers for the 2013 edition, she decided to revisit her work and prepare it for submission.

With the guidance of her sponsor Dustin Mengelkoch, Assistant Professor of English, Muledy spent much of her winter break gathering additional research for her paper about the character Eve, lengthening it from eight pages to 11.

“In this examination of Milton’s introduction of his character Eve, I look closely at the poet’s word choice and syntax,” the English major writes in her abstract. “I use his choices to argue that Milton, with every word placement and every use of contradiction or double meaning, makes it clear that Eve was not predestined to fall.”

In her research, she learned that many other scholars had reached similar conclusions about the passage as she had, giving the aspiring literary critic an affirming feeling of “I belong here,” she said. 

Mengelkoch attributes Muledy’s success to the fact that she, first, took the English Literature I assignment seriously, and secondly, “took herself seriously as a scholar.”

Students from the 14 members of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest are welcome to submit to the journal papers from five to 50 pages in length on topics in any discipline. Muledy said her motivation to get published stemmed from her plans to possibly go to graduate school and to begin to establish her name in literary criticism.

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• Visit the Midwest Journal for Undergraduate Research's website