Paper Assignment and Oral Presentation of Paper
This assignment consists oftwo parts. The first part is an essay of approximately eight pages in length describing and analyzing a landmark Supreme Court decision. Due to class size and time constraints, students will work in groups of two on this assignment. Each student is expected to shoulder half the workload for this paper. The paper is worth 20% of your grade.The second part of this assignment involves students, again in groups of two, presenting their paper to the class. This aspect of the assignment counts towards your overall attendance and participation grade.
Expectations for the Paper:
As mentioned above, the paper should be around eightpages. The paper must address the importance and significance of the Supreme Court case in a clear, direct, and comprehensive manner within the page limitations. Thus, students need to write in a concise and succinct manner. First, there should be an initial introduction and overview of the case. Second, the paper needs to include a background and history section that describes the political context, events, actions, and specific circumstances that led up to the Supreme Court’s decision. Third, you need to analyze the Court’s decision and its immediate impact and long term ramifications. Last, the paper should end with a conclusion tying the different parts of the essay together.
Students will be penalized for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. In addition, the structure of the paper needs to be sound. All thoughts and ideas should flow together logically. The paper should contain identifiable topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph and appropriate transition sentences as the essay moves from one point to another. The paper needs to use 12 point font and be double spaced.
Analysis and other claims within the paper need to be supported by facts, examples, and evidence.Therefore, the paper needs to make use of at least five scholarly sources. These sources can only come in the form of journal articles, academic texts, and the Supreme Court’s opinion/ruling for the case in question. Newspaper articles and internet websites such as Wikipedia are not acceptable. Students should make extensive use of JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/) and Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) as they conducttheir research. You should be able to access most journal articles that you locate through these two sites by using any campus computer. Students can still access most sources from off-campus computers as well. If you find a journal article on Google Scholar that you cannot access normally through the internet, you can most likely access it by using academic search engines and databases by logging on to the UNLV library’s website. Go to http://www.library.unlv.edu/, click on ‘Journal Articles and Databases’, next click on ‘A-Z list of databases’, and then you will be given an extensive selection of journals and databases to choose from after you log on. JSTOR can be utilized by off-campus computers by following these same instructions. Information that is used from these sources in any part of your essay must be documented in the paper. Go to http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Documentation.html if you are unfamiliar with how to use footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical documentationto cite sources. The paper needs to have a bibliography/works cited page that lists the scholarly sources you consulted as well. Refer to the same website above for information on how to create a bibliography/works cited page.
Expectations for the Oral Presentation:
The presentation should be a summary and analysis of the Supreme Court case you and your partner are presenting. Students should provide the rest of the class with the details of the case, explain its relevance, and discuss the short and long term consequences of the Court’s ruling.You and your partner are essentially providing us with a 5-10 minute presentation of your paper. Students may use any or all the facilities in the class during their oral presentation.
