Overview
Each student will be required to write a short but serious research paper.
Subject: Your choice; anything related to the material covered in the course.
“Informational” papers can earn a strong “B.”
“A” papers will argue a position and deal with some academic issue grappled with by scholars.
DO NOT decide on a topic before doing preliminary research. You must first research to find out what scholars are writing about. Select a topic based on what you find…
MINIMUM length: 5 pages, excluding bibliography/ sources cited page(s). You're welcome to write MUCH more. ?
Format: IDC (“I don’t care!”)
Notes may be at the bottom (footnotes), and the end (endnotes), in the middle (MLA), as long as they are present and consistent in style.
Should your name be on each page? “I don’t care!” I don’t deduct “points” for such nonsense. I want something that’s well-written.
Websites: Scholarly articles and books accessed online are absolutely acceptable, but PLEASE cite them with “normal” publication information: Author, title, publisher, date, page numbers (as if they were found in hard copy). For this class DO NOT include web links. Look at your text books. Do you find web links in the bibliography? Cite everything (book, journal, etc.) as if you found it in hard copy. Author, title, place of publication, publisher, date, etc. Or name of the journal, volume, date, pages, etc. That way I know it's peer-reviewed, not an online encyclopedia or somebody's blog…
If an article is not published in a serious academic journal (and is not “peer-reviewed” scholarship) it should not be used. Encyclopedias of any kind (including online encyclopedias) are not considered scholarly research, though they can certainly be used for your own background knowledge.
Do not include web links at all for my course. Ever see web links in your textbooks? I use the web all the time, but I cite as if I found in hardcopy without a web link. You might give "real" books a try in addition to journal articles. Ever try google books? Regular Google search; from drop-down menu select "books." Some pages missing but it's a gold mine! We even have a library, which for some reason nobody uses!