One of you asked today about the paper, here's a clearing house for questions. As you begin to work on them I'll respond to questions in the discussion thread, then move to separate posts to keep out of the way. There are a lot of resources available to you for the papers: the syllabus has ten suggested topics; a previous post on this blog has a page or so of suggestions; and learn@uw has a section devoted to it, with two highly recommended books. Most of the books you'll need for the paper you will find on learn@uw. The links are regularly (and mysteriously) broken so please alert me to anything that produces an error message and I'll get it fixed. Finally, the Writing Center and the department have a long and productive friendship. I'd venture a guess that those who make use of the writing center generally receive a full grade higher than those who do not. And what you learn there will be portable. You've probably heard me claim that those who don't write well generally end up working for those who do, even in fields such as engineering. The Writing Center will help set you off in life in the second group.
The question of length frequently comes up, my only answer is: as long as it takes. 15 pages ought to do it, though students regularly turn in papers of 20-25 pages. You might be able to handle one in 10 pages but it will have to be perfectly organized, missing nothing. A ten page paper should be harder to write than a fifteen page one, so if you shoot for ten pages they had better be elegant and you had better have a reason for doing so.
The same criteria for the midterm apply to the papers: they should have a beginning, a middle, an end, and a point. Each of these is hard to do well, so keep organization on your mind from the beginning.
You are free to do the standard thesis-statement sort of paper if that is what you are most comfortable with. But let me encourage you to try it another way: question at the beginning, answer at the end. I'm repeating what I wrote in the blog entry devoted to the issue so just click back a few pages to get the whole thing.
Questions?
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So I can choose any topic for my paper, provided that I speak to you, right? Or am I restricted to the topics on the syllabus?
ReplyDeleteJust checking...but this 20-25 pages isn't an April Fools joke ,right? =)
ReplyDeleteAcutally, my real question is: How does one go about writing a 20-25 page paper on a single topic? I was assuming that we were supposed to narrow down the topics he gave us and write about something less broad relating to the topic. Is this not the case?
Really, some people do it, but we by no means expect it. The longest paper I received in an earlier version of this course was 60 pages, based entirely on original archival research, but that was at another university. She wasn't even a history major, but was so good at whatever she tried her hand at she ended up heading one of the first research groups at Google and is now a major player in her field and in Washington.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, if you do hope to write a paper over 15 pages you will want to consult with us. We do not, repeat do not, expect anything more than 12-15 pages from you, 10 if the analysis or interpretation is so right and so acute that you want extra points for elegant exposition.
On narrowing the subject down: you may do so, but the suggested topics and their associated readings should permit you to take on the topic as a whole. Run any narrowing you want to do by us so we can see if it is workable. I recognize that most of your teachers have stressed narrowing, but this will usually refer to papers topics you have defined yourself, though of course there are exceptions. Trust me, the suggested paper topics work. Some are new, but all of the older ones have been the basis for some outstanding papers.
We recognize that we are pushing you, but just a little, in order to get you to produce your best, something you can be proud of. In the real world of business, law, government, etc., people regularly produce much more than this assignment requires constantly, daily even. In law, it is not at all uncommon for people not much older than the average age of the class to produce documents well over 100 pages, under stress, in a matter of days.
And again, let me stress that many of the papers that come out of this assignments are of very high quality. You just have to push yourself, to consult, to try to get others to read your work.
Thanks! I appreciate knowing that. I was thinking we had to narrow the topic further, so knowing that we are looking at the topic as a whole makes a paper anywhere between 15-25 pages seem much easier to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteSo if we are in honors, you are expecting at least 20 pages? Any ideas or tips about how to start this? I have started research, but I'm scared that I won't have enough and that it will not be "honors quality".
ReplyDeleteProfessor,
ReplyDeleteIn class you have mentioned several times how both the Sunni's and Shi'ites were trying to produce a "doctrinally coherent" version of their beliefs. What exactly do you mean by this statement and can you expand a bit on its importance?
are we supposed to use the sources you gave us on the syllabus as primary sources, or just a reference to gain a basic understanding and knowledge of the topic?
ReplyDeleteQuick responses: Honor's papers, yes, 20 ought to do it, you might get by with less or need to do more. The first thing to do is get a sense of the field by scanning through the assigned readings, noting scholarship that is frequently cited. You will then track down their work and see what they have to say. Once you have collected enough, that's to say you think you have collected the most highly regarded scholarship, or the worst if you want a whipping boy, make an appointment.
ReplyDeleteDoctrinally coherent, good question: this is where Hellenistic logic and rhetoric came to play a role, ironing out apparent logical contradictions, producing "statements of faith" intended to be unassailable, developing an explicit theology that could stand up to debate-minded adversaries from other religions and sects. The intersection of religions based on revelation with a theologies based on reason was a necessary but painful stage that the three monotheistic religions went through at various times of their development. Another way of putting it is "theologically grounded".
For the suggested paper topics you have everything you need. If you are writing a paper for honors you will need more. Thanks for asking, others will have found themselves in the same position.
I have a bunch of books on the area I'm considering writing on. They're a little more accessible.. popular history type books. My mom got them for me for Christmas one year from Barns and Noble. Is there anything wrong with using that type of source or should I try to stick to highbrow serious academia?
ReplyDeleteYou will definitely want to stick to professional scholarship. Not only because it is much more reliable, but the assessment of scholarship is a good part of what your paper should be about. I don't want to denigrate popular history or to claim that only those with Ph.D's in the field should be permitted to write about the past. But in an advanced class such as this one you should be exposed to the best scholarship available and given some suggestions as to how to assess it.
ReplyDelete