Magic Essay Research Paper Doing this research

Magic Essay, Research Paper

Doing this research paper didn t really help me find anything extraordinary about the word magic. I pretty much knew what the word magic meant, from the comic books I read and the television I watch. It did however, make me view the word in more depth. Don t get me wrong, I m not implying in any way that the word magic, is dull, because it is just the opposite. I m simply stating that because of my fascination with the subject of magic, I am already familiar with its background and capabilities. I chose the word magic because the concept of any human being possessing unexplainable, supernatural powers intrigues me to the point where I wish I had been endowed with those powers. If I had to choose a favorite; I would have to go with the two poems I obtained from the Concordance to Shakespeare and the Granger s Index to Poetry. It all started when we received our word list. I looked for a word that I interested me, and that I thought would be easy to find information on. I guess, for the most part I was right. All the references available in our school library were pretty easy to find; such as the Roget s Thesaurus, the Unabridged Dictionary, and surprisingly the Book of Quotations and the Concordance to the Bible. On one day there, at the St. Paul library four were down and there were four to go, which wasn t too shabby for the first day. I figured I was doing well getting half of my list taken care of before Christmas vacation, and then during vacation I would finish the job.

Well as any normal teenager would agree the plan of doing work during vacation vanished as soon the final bell rang to start vacation. On the first day back to school I took a trip to a local library near my house. I already knew that I wouldn t find everything that I needed, but I checked it out any ways. I was only able to find the Oxford English Dictionary, but luckily I bumped into my wonderful English teacher Ms. Frausto who informed me that the Uptown Whittier Library would have the sufficient amount of information I needed to complete my research. In deed, my very wise mentor was right. I did find the rest of the items I was in search of, which were a periodical, a poem, and an excerpt from a Shakespeare play. It may have taken two hours of pen biting, flipping page after page, making copies, and looking up call numbers, but I did it. I definitely worked the hardest I ve ever worked in a library working on this research paper, and I lost all my patience in the process.

The first reference I found was the Second Edition Book of Quotations published by the Oxford University. On page 366 I found the quote, There s a magic in the distance, where sea line meets the sky, by Alfred Noyes. Now, I m not too sure what the quote means, but it sounded agreeable, so I stuck with it. Before this class I had never heard of a book of quotations so my school librarian assisted me in finding it.

The next item I went for in our school library was the Third Edition Webster s New International Dictionary, by Merriam Webster. This was easy to find because of its enormity. Lucky for me my word was only on page 1358, so I didn t have to flip through to many pages. The basic definition of the word magic is: the use of means that are believed to have supernatural power to cause a particular result, considered not obtainable by natural means. Can you believe that is only one sentence of the four to five paragraph definition. It is a good thing the most generous Ms. Frausto didn t make write the definition. The only difficulty I had with the dictionary was taking that huge book to the copy machine.

The next thing I looked for in the St. Paul library was the Thompson and Stock Concordance to the Bible. I didn t even have to look for it, just borrowed it from one of my peers who already had it. On page 1034 it said my word was located in the Book of Wisdom chapter 17, verse 7. The excerpt read, A mockery, now, seemed those magic arts of theirs; ignominious the rebuff to their boasted cunning. I read the whole passage and I thinking it was talking about the prisoners in Egypt. The concordance to bible wasn t even difficult to use.

The last reference available in our school library was the Fifth Edition Roget s International Thesaurus, by Robert L. Chapman. Thanks to my helpful peers this was also easy to get to hold of. I think this was probably the next easiest reference to use next to the unabridged dictionary. I found my word on page 464. Some of the synonyms for the word magic are sorcery, wizardry, witchcraft, voodooism, shamanism, enchantment, and spellcraft. I liked looking at all the different words for magic. Some were funny looking words, like, jujuism, obeahism, wanga, hoodoo, and fetishism. I like looking at Thesauruses to see all the bizarre words there are for everyday normal words.

My next reference was the Oxford English Dictionary volume 6, by the Oxford University. For this book I had to go to I went to a small public library near my home. This reference gave me access to the word magic s origin and another more in depth definition, which I found on page 24 and 25. I wasn t able to read the information on the copy I made or even in the book because the word was right in the middle of the two pages. When I finally got a descent copy of it, I still could only read half of it because there was a big black streak going down the middle of