Progress report/ Term paper
Term paper has to be 3,000 words absolute minimum!!!on the topic “Rabelais:Gargantua and Pantagruel” and/or “Rousseau: The Social Contract” Your term paper must be eminently relevant to course material.
This assingment consists of just two things: (1) the introduction to your term paper, along with thesis statement, and (2) an annotated bibliography. Here are the requirements:
- Your term papermust be based on “Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel” and/or “Rousseau: The Social Contract”. Other than that, it is pretty much a standard college term paper with introduction, argumentation, and conclusion. You can write from a historical, philosophical, literary, or even theological perspective. Write about whatever captivates your interest.
- Your introduction should be about 200 wordsin length. The last sentence of your introduction is your thesis. This is where you will tell your reader precisely what you intend to demonstrate in your paper.
- A good rule of thumb is that you should haveabout five reliable resources in your bibliography.
- An annotated bibliography is not the same as an ordinary bibliography. Each entry includes a brief summary of what your paper will be about. Here is a sample I found on the University of Oklahoma web site:
Aras, Bultent and Omer Caha. December 2000. FethullahGulen and His Liberal “Turkish Islam” Movement. Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. Volume 4, No. 4: 13 pages. http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/2000/issue4/ jv4n4a4.html Retrieved through LORA Search, University of Oklahoma Libraries. Accessed on 6 September, 2005.
FethullahGulen has founded a movement that attempts to be modernist, nationalist, Islamic, and democratic all at the same time. The article is a brief survey of Gulen, covering his life and influences, the foundations of the movement, the relationship to the military and Islamic community. The secular elites are covered, but not in any great depth. The authors provide a well reasoned and insightful analysis of the significance of the movement, and conclude that Gulen’s role will be an important one as a religious leader in modern Turkey, despite the multiple conflicting interests of his followers.
You can find more at http://www.ou.edu/cls/reference/bibliography. When you are finished, upload your progress report to BB Learn. DO NOT upload the introduction and the bibliography as separate documents. Both are part of your term paper.
Term paper: It serves two purposes. First, it is an exercise in intellectual analysis. It assures that you have read and understood the books on the reading lists. Second, it is an exercise in written expression. Your first task is to choose a topic. Whichever one you choose, make sure that what you write is a good indication of your thought processes. The best ideas in the world will convince no one if they are poorly expressed. Your professor may have some suggestions concerning topics, but don’t count on it. The ability to decide on a doable, non-trivial research topic is in itself an important academic skill. You shouldn’t expect your professors to do this for you any more than you would expect them to find and check out books for you. Your topic must be based on at least one of the works we have read in class. Papers that have been submitted for other classes, in whole or in part, are not acceptable. Tips for writing a successful term paper. Make sure that your reader knows exactly what you intend to prove in your paper. Suppose you intend to write a critique of totalitarian ideology in Rousseau. Your professor trashes your paper because you have neglected to discuss Rousseau’s views on religion. Now you take your paper to your prof’s office and argue that “no, I did not discuss Rousseau’s views on religion in my paper, but that is not what my paper is about!” Others things being equal, yours is a perfectly legitimate argument. However, if you did not make it abundantly clear what your paper is about, then you have no cause to complain. Here is a good rule of thumb. By the end of very first paragraph of your paper, your reader should know exactly what types of arguments can in principle be used against your paper. The more irrelevant criticism you rule out, the more clearly defined your topic will be. Here is another. Add the words “In this paper, I will show that…” to the last sentence of the first paragraph of your paper, and then read the first paragraph back to yourself. If it still makes sense, then you are on the right track. When assigning a grade, your professor will accept whatever standard of truth you have established in your paper. Consider another scenario. A student concludes his (or her) discussion of Freud by saying “I just don’t think Freud should be taken seriously because his work is really depressing.” Your professor gives this student an F but writes no comments at all on the paper. When the student goes to the prof’s office to complain, the prof says “Well, I just didn’t take your paper seriously because it was really depressing.” How is this student to respond? If, on the other hand, the student has been rigorous in his reasoning, objective in his analysis, and coherent in his presentation, then he certainly has the right to expect the same from the professor. 6 of 9 Consult your dictionary and the style specifications thoroughly. Include a bibliography, and cite all references correctly. Be sure that your paper is in compliance with the university’s policy on academic honesty. If you have questions or are not sure what the policy is, ask! Otherwise your professor will assume you understand the policy. The length of your paper is an indication of how well you have defined and treated your topic. My expectation is that you will write a 4,500 word term paper. If your paper is fewer than 3,000 words (excluding bibliography and quoted material), I will assume that you have not addressed the question in a manner worthy of your intellectual skills, and I will not read it. Remember too that the necessary conditions for ensuring that your professor will read your term paper are minimal conditions. Writing exactly 3,000 words is no guarantee of an A. It merely guarantees that the professor will consider your paper for a grade of some sort. Edit your paper carefully. Edit your paper again. Recall Pascal’s dictum: “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
