Essay requirements: Perhaps the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University says it best:

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1 Guidelines for Humanities Essay Due Date: March 23 You must read this handout thoroughly. Failure to follow all directions could result in a loss of part or all credit for this essay. The assignment: For your essay, you are to join the philosophical debate about some project (issue/question) of interest to you and argue your own philosophy. Respond to one of the attached questions/prompts (or propose and clear an alternate question with me). Remember we re interested in your answer to the question, your opinion of what other philosophers have offered as an answer, and a good argument for why you take the position you do. Essay requirements: Perhaps the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University says it best: A research paper is a piece of academic writing that requires a more abstract, critical, and thoughtful level of inquiry than you might be used to. Writing a research paper involves (1) first familiarizing yourself with the works of "experts and then (2) comparing their thoughts on the topic with your own. The final product will be a unique and appropriate integration of evidence you have located outside yourself and personal insights generated from your own internal think tank--your mind! Note: A mere review of the academic "literature" in a field--i.e. a summary of the existing body of knowledge on your subject--does not make a research paper. --see With that in mind, I have established the following guidelines: A) SOURCES 1) You must cite at least fourteen SEPARATE sources. In order to, as Purdue OWL says, familiarize yourself with the works of experts, you need to cast a broad and thorough net. You are to look for informative and appropriate academic resources which will inform your thinking. Then you will need to cite them in your essay as you present and interact with their ideas. A book by a single author, no matter how many articles or topics are included, is considered one source. A website with multiple sections remains one source. We will allow one exception to this: your first three uses of The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy may count as three sources. You may make additional uses of the SEP, but it will not count toward your source needs. Are two essays in one book separate sources? Well, it depends. If the text is presented by an editor presenting one major viewpoint, the answer probably is no. Yet there may be situations in which the source could qualify as more than one source. However, no one book may contribute more than a few sources; to be sure, you should discuss the source with me well in advance of your deadline. You may, of course, use as many sources as you would like, as long as you meet the minimum. Remember you shouldn t stop at fourteen sources if further research will help make your paper better. 2) Of the fourteen sources above, you should include a significant number of print sources. Print sources include books, magazines/journals, and newspapers. In the past, we have required a certain number of print sources. Due to the confusion over Google books and similar issues, this requirement has been modified. The key is to inform your thinking by using appropriate academic resources, which includes, but is not limited to, print sources. 3) You may use Looking at Philosophy for your research and in your essay, but you may not count it toward fulfilling your fourteen-source minimum. However, you probably will want to at least consider the list of other books in the back of LAP it may help you find some good sources. \\stratford-ds1\users$\staff\nancy.todd\2008 senior humanities\essay\sr Sem Essay 2009.rtf 1

2 4) You may not count general reference works (dictionaries, encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), almanacs, etc.) toward your fourteen-source minimum, although you certainly may use them. Subject-specific reference works (say, an Encyclopedia of Ethics) are acceptable toward the minimum. 5) Your sources must not overwhelm your essay You are to write an essay, not merely review the academic literature. Remember: your sources should back up your points, not the other way around. 6) You must be sure to consider the value of each source you should not use any sources unless they are clearly professional and written by authors who understand the subject. Do not use anybody s personal homepage unless you can clearly establish the author s credentials in the essay, as anybody with an opinion can now post his or her reasoned arguments on the web. I m serious about this: poorly chosen sources will hurt your essay grade. 7) Do not stack the deck by using only sources that argue on one side of an issue or by using many sources on one side of an issue but only two or three on the other. Balance is crucial. B) PHILOSOPHERS You must consider the RELEVANT opinions/philosophies/beliefs of at least TEN philosophers. Your research should include at least 4 classical philosophers and 4 modern philosophers. The remaining two may come from whichever group adds to the discussion of your project. I have divided the philosophers into the following groups: Classical Philosophers (use at least 4) 1) Thales 2) Anaximander 3) Anaximenes 4) Pythagoras 5) Heraclitus 6) Parmenides 7) Zeno 8) Empedocles 9) Anaxagoras 10) Leucippus 11) Democritus 12) Socrates and/or Plato (we ll count them as one) 13) Aristotle 14) Epicurus 15) Plotinus 16) Saint Augustine 17) John Scotus Eriugena 18) Saint Anselm 19) Confucius 20) Averroes 21) Maimonides 22) Saint Thomas Aquinas 23) William of Ockham 24) Martin Luther 25) John Calvin 26) Petrarch 27) Desiderius Erasmus 28) Thomas More 29) Michel de Montaigne 30) Niccolo Machiavelli Modern Philosophers (use at least 4) 1) Rene Descartes 2) Thomas Hobbes 3) Baruch Spinoza 4) Gottfried Leibniz 5) John Locke 6) Jean-Jacques Rousseau 7) Thomas Jefferson 8) Thomas Paine 9) George Berkeley 10) David Hume 11) Immanuel Kant 12) Georg Hegel 13) Arthur Schopenhauer 14) Soren Kierkegaard 15) Karl Marx 16) Ludwig Feuerbach 17) Friedrich Nietzsche 18) Jeremy Bentham 19) John Stuart Mill 20) Gottlob Frege 21) Mark Twain 22) William James 23) John Dewey 24) Sigmund Freud 25) George Edward Moore 26) Bertrand Russell 27) Ludwig Wittgenstein 28) Willard Quine 29) Edmund Husserl 30) Henry David Thoreau 31) Carl Jung 32) Martin Heidegger 33) Jean-Paul Sartre 34) B. F. Skinner 35) Ferdinand de Saussure 36) Victor Frankl 37) Martin Luther King, Jr. 38) Claude Levi- Strauss 39) Jacques Lacan 40) Jacques Derrida 41) Luce Irigaray 42) Michele Foucault 43) Peter Singer 44) Noam Chomsky 45) Robert Nozick 46) Ayn Rand 47) Mortimer Adler 48) John Rawls If you want to use philosophers not listed here to meet your 10- philosopher minimum, consult me for specific substitution. \\stratford-ds1\users$\staff\nancy.todd\2008 senior humanities\essay\sr Sem Essay 2009.rtf 2

3 C) Avoid allowing your prejudices to tarnish your philosophical inquiry. For example, if you re answering the question Does God Exist? it isn t good philosophy to simply dismiss all atheist ideas simply because you re a theist, nor is it a good idea to assume that all arguments that God does exist are wrong simply because you re an atheist. Likewise, it isn t a good idea to simply assume that the answer to What is the ideal government automatically must be The one we have in America!!!!!! just because you re American. Use REASON, not prejudice. This is a philosophy-based essay, after all, and the essence of philosophy is reason. In the end, after examining all arguments, the answer you may come up with may be the one in which you already believed, but it d be nice for you to arrive at that answer, not start with it. D) That said, ARGUE against or for the ideas presented by the philosophers you discuss. Be AGGRESSIVE. An aggressive argumentative tone is appropriate when dealing with ideas. The point in examining the philosophers you will examine in this essay is so that you can agree with or dismiss what they say in answer to your question. Remember a good argument explains WHY you agree with or disagree with what these people say. E) All quotations and citations (as well as your essay itself) should be formatted correctly according to the current MLA guidelines. You may find these guidelines on the internet. I highly recommend purchasing a copy of the MLA Guide for Writers of Research Papers at Barnes and Noble or from Amazon.com it ll be very handy for you when you get to college next year and isn t very expensive. Failure to follow MLA guidelines will result in a severe penalty to your grade. The logistics: A. Your essay is due at the beginning of your class period on Monday, March 23. After this deadline, your essay will start to lose credit rapidly (at the rate of 2/3 of a letter grade per day). No seminar essays will be accepted after Friday, March 27 th at 3:45 p.m. Really. Sickness, by the way, is no excuse for lateness if you are sick on March 23 rd, have somebody else bring me your essay. B. Essay Length: The minimum length of your essay starts at 4,000 words roughly 14 pages double-spaced or 11 pages 1.5-spaced. However, the minimum length will vary depending on your homework scores. On March 16 th, I will calculate your reading quiz scores. If you have gotten between 60 and 88 percent of your reading quiz points, minimum length remains 4,000 words. For every percentage point lower than 60, the minimum length of your essay increases by 100 words (roughly a third of a page) up to a maximum of an additional 2,000 words. For every percentage point higher than 88, the minimum length of your essay decreases by 100 words, to a maximum of a 1,200 word decrease. If you have a quiz average of 95% or higher, you may opt to reduce your required sources by one or reduce your required philosophers by one instead of reducing the length of the essay. Do the math: Essay length can be as short as 2,800 words (about 9 pages) or as long as 6,000 words (about 20 pages). C. When you hand in this essay, you must also a copy to me at nancy.todd@stratford.org. Your attached copy should be readable in Microsoft Word it is up to you to figure out how to get it to be readable in Word if you don t own Word; I d consult the computer-savvy people at the school if you don t know how to get it to be readable in Word D. Also, you must hand in photocopies or printouts of all sources. If you hand in an internet source, you should print out the first page of the article and the pages from which you cite. If you hand in a print source, you only need to photocopy the pages from which you cite. I do recommend you copy the title page and copyright page so you know you have all the information you need for citing the source. Be sure to label all sources, though, so that I can figure out which source is which. Failure to hand in a copy of a source will result in a 1/3 letter grade essay penalty PER SOURCE MISSED. E. Your final product will include several items, which you will submit in a pocketed folder. In the left pocket of the folder will be the final draft of your essay and a project checklist. In the right pocket will be your source photocopies and a copy of the rough draft you handed in \\stratford-ds1\users$\staff\nancy.todd\2008 senior humanities\essay\sr Sem Essay 2009.rtf 3

4 before your presentation. These requirements are outlined and explained on your project checklist. F. Naturally, I expect that your essay will be carefully proofread and edited. Please be aware that I will neither proofread nor edit your rough drafts for you. You should avoid more than three surface-level errors per 250 words. An abundance of surface-level errors (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.) will surely result in a lowered essay grade. If your essay is filled with surface-level errors, it will automatically fail. I highly recommend that you take advantage of the Writing Center. Make an appointment NOW for the days leading up to your deadline. TWO LAST THINGS: 1) Your essay will be checked using anti-plagiarism software. 2) The essay is worth a huge portion of your course grade. Remember that you need to pass this course to graduate. The presentation: In early March, you will present a rough draft fragment (1,500 words) of your paper to your fellow classmates who will endeavor to help you refine your ideas. You will deliver copies of the rough draft fragment (RDF) on a pre-assigned date, allowing your classmates time to read the RDF in preparation for your presentation. Presentations will take about 20 minutes each (two per class period). In order to receive helpful questions and feedback from the audience, you should expect to talk for about ten minutes and then lead a discussion for about ten minutes. These presentations are designed to help you generate a better essay, so you are obligated to make sure that the discussion stays on the subject of your essay (I will not lead or moderate the discussion; that is your responsibility). You may give your presentation in any format that will be helpful to you (use the whiteboard, power-point, or props ), but you MAY NOT simply READ your presentation. Reading your presentation will result in a failing grade. The presentation will count as a separate test grade. Since the class schedule depends on your timely execution of this portion of this assignment, missing any of the deadlines will really hurt your grade. (We will discuss the specifics of this assignment in more depth in class.) \\stratford-ds1\users$\staff\nancy.todd\2008 senior humanities\essay\sr Sem Essay 2009.rtf 4

5 SAMPLE QUESTIONS ASKED BY PHILOSOPHERS 1) Does God exist? 2) What is the nature of God? 3) What makes an action right or wrong? What do we mean when we say that someone ought to or ought not to do something? 4) How should we live in order to live the best life? 5) How should we treat other people? 6) Is morality simply a matter of opinion or custom or can we give good reasons for moral beliefs? 7) What is equality? Is equality a worthwhile goal? If so, how can it be best achieved? 8) What is freedom? Is freedom a worthwhile goal? If so, how can it be best achieved? How is freedom possible in a world governed by natural laws? Are there degrees of freedom? 9) What powers should the government have? 10) What traits are desirable in a leader? In other words, what makes the best leader? 11) Under what circumstances, if any, is it right to break the law? 12) What is the best possible government? 13) Is the scientific method as reliable as we are commonly led to believe? Are there weaknesses or limitations to the scientific method? 14) What makes good art good? What makes one piece of art superior to another (by art, I refer to paintings, plays, films, novels, photographs, etc.)? 15) What is truth? How can we tell whether something is true? 16) What is the relationship between knowledge and opinion? How can we tell the difference, assuming there is one? 17) Does knowledge require certainty, or can something be known without being known for certain? 18) How do human beings obtain knowledge in other words, what is/are the mechanism(s) by which we learn? 19) What is the difference between appearance and reality? How can we tell the difference, assuming there is one? 20) What is real? What is the nature of reality? 21) What is the relationship between what we perceive and what actually exists? 22) Are values absolute, or are they relative to time and place? 23) Do human beings have any political duties or social obligations? Under what conditions? 24) Are there such things as natural rights? If so, what are they, and under what circumstances can they be overridden? 25) What are the limits of knowledge? 26) What is happiness? 27) How should I live in order to live ethically? 28) What constitutes a just war? When, if ever, can war be justified? 29) What do we mean by education? What is the value of education? How much education should we have? \\stratford-ds1\users$\staff\nancy.todd\2008 senior humanities\essay\sr Sem Essay 2009.rtf 5