Official Term Paper Document

 
Read some interesting articles or passages from books containing philosophical arguments or positions about some controversial ethical and/or environmental topic. Then do the following:
 
1. Receive a satisfactory score on Take-Home Term Paper Quiz. A satisfactory grade on the Take-Home Term Paper Quiz is a prerequisite for a term paper submission.

2. Write a paper in which you, among other things, discuss the argument or position promoted in some source you have selected. Be sure to present quotations of the passages from which you extracted the selected argument or position. Cite your source(s).

3. In as clear a manner as possible, present the selected argument or position. Provide some background material on the moral controversy that the argument or position is allegedly being used to resolve. Explicitly identify the conclusion of any relevant argument you discuss: either an argument you are studying or one you a presenting against some position. Explain as clearly as you can how the conclusion is supposed to be derived. Explain the reasoning underlying the premises utilized by the author of the argument.

4. Evaluate the argument. Do you believe that the argument is sound? If so, briefly explain why. If not, indicate where and why you believe that the argument falters. And even if you believe the argument to be sound, present an objection to it anyway. (This might be a nice place to utilize the "insights" of a second source.) Explain why you either do or don't believe that the objection successfully undermines the argument.

5. Be sure to provide an introduction for your paper. In your introduction, state precisely what you plan to do in the body of the paper. Make sure that your plan matches the body of the paper.

6. Be sure to provide proper bibliographical entries for the sources utilized in your term paper.

• Please make sure that the paper is SHORT (4-6 pages double-spaced excluding the bibliography) and written in a professional style.
• This paper will be graded for content and style. Please take a look at Bruce Aune's "Punctuation and Syntax" on the class web site.
• Use the indented-block method for quotations over 4 lines long.
• No paper will be accepted unless it is typed.
• No paper will be accepted after 10:20 am Tuesday, April 8.
• Feel free to email drafts of your paper to me for pre-grading commentary. It's unlikely that I'll be able to provide any pre-grading commentary on documents turned in within a week of the deadline: Tuesday, April 8.