L 383 Humanities I: Evil and Good    - ESSAY  ASSIGNMENT    

Course objectives include • defining ethical terms and concepts, • identifying values embedded in your own positions, and • understanding and developing your sense of personal worth and moral agency. 

Essay:  Your essay will be an identification, description and explanation, with examples, of your own conceptual paradigm of evil and good.  The essay should include the assumptions, principles, laws, norms and/or revelations upon which you base your judgments and the reasoning, feeling, meditative, dialogical or other process(es) you use or experience in confronting questions of evil and good.   The essay will tell the reader “what I believe, why these beliefs make sense to me, and how I make ethical decisions.” The examples you use in the essay must include (a) a larger political-economic issue which involves the expenditure of public funds, and (b) an issue related to your chosen profession (see outline below).  The essay must include a glossary of all your important values. In addition, you must find two or more academic resources (at least one book and one article), e.g., books or journal articles in which there is evidence and/or reasoning which support one or more of the positions that you take in your paper.  These sources must be referred to and/or quoted, and properly documented in your paper. 
Please see additional details below. 

Context:  The purpose of the paper is to help you clarify your views.  Your position may use aspects of, or be different from,  any of the positions we study.

Audience:  You must write this for a  friend or person who is not taking this course.  He/she should be able to read it and understand what you believe and feel.  You may point out that as you grow older and have more experience and time for reflection your views may change. You do not need to show it to the person. 

Step 1:  From the beginning of the semester keep a log or journal in which (after the discussion of each set of readings, e.g., those on African religion) you write down precisely those values, norms, principles, and processes for making judgments with which you agree.  Also write a few sentences explaining why you agree. If it occurs to you, you may write down an example of how you could apply the value or practice in you own life.  Step 1 will not be turned in to the professor but will be used in class discussions so bring it to class.

Step 2:  Make a list (of no more than a two - three sentence explanation) of any of your values, principles or beliefs related to evil and good which are not found in your journal entries in step 1.

Step 3:  Review the material from the first two steps.  See if you find any contradictions in logic or values.  See if you can resolve them or bring them to class for assistance from your colleagues.

Step 4:  Synthesize (bring together in a new way) the values, beliefs, processes etc. from steps 1-3. List and define in a glossary of your most important principles, values, beliefs, etc. Also construct and outline of your paper.  Turn in on the assigned date, a one page typed outline & 1-2 page typed glossary - Check Syllabus for due date.  Now begin to write an essay which describes and explains, with examples, the material in your outline and glossary.  A generic outline is included on the back of this sheet.

      The papers should be 6-8 pages in length, plus the glossary.  The usual criteria that apply to written work apply to these papers, i.e., they should be clear, shows signs of some logical development, be free of logical contradictions, have a consistent theme, be readable and intelligible. They should not be burdened by mechanical errors.  Papers should have introductory and summary paragraphs.  Be careful to use plural pronouns with plural nouns and singular pronouns with singular nouns.  Papers should (unless you have an approved exception) follow the generic outline below (including the two required examples!), be typed, preferably on a word processor, follow good essay form and be properly footnoted and pagenated.  You should always keep a copy of the paper. Please,  no plastic covers or blank pages.
Step 5:  Have a friend or someone in the Learning Center  read and critique your paper in terms of the assignment and the criteria for evaluating essay assignments. 

Step 6:  Turn in typed Draft of Essay Assignment,  - Check Syllabus for due date.
            The glossary is an important part of your paper. It must be attached to draft and final paper.

Step 7:  Turn in essay Assignment - Check Syllabus for due date.

            The outline & first draft will be turned in with the final draft.           

The Learning Center offers professional assistance  and peer tutoring . . . 
 including writing tutorial sessions.  
The Learning Center is located in Haggar Hall.       

Generic  Essay  Outline

[somehow these aspects need to be covered in a coherent manner]

I.       Introduction:

         A.     What I am going to do in this paper
         B.      To whom I am writing this paper (audience)
         C.     A brief history or introduction of myself . . . is OK 

II.      What and Why. . . I believe, . . . my essential beliefs and/or principles and/or values and/or rules, and an explanation to the reader why the beliefs, values etc., make sense to me, i.e., why   I now take ownership of them, why they make sense to me.
A. 
B. 
C.           [With Definitions & Examples.  Must contain a value for making decisions socially,
D.                                                                       e.g., democracy, monarchy, . . .]  

III.    How . . . I make decisions . . . the process, method or steps I go through when making a decision, taking a position, e.g.,
A.     I review my principles,
B.      I collect all relevant data/facts
C.     I reason through how my principles/values apply to the facts
D.     First example . . . (an issue related to your chosen profession [not why you chose your profession, unless it was for ethical reasons])
E.      Second example  . . .(a larger political-economic issue which involves the expenditure of public funds, e.g., full employment, universal health care, or environmental protection)      

IV.    Conclusion / summary of what I have written and where I expect to go from here 

V.     Glossary:  Paragraph definitions of your key principles, concepts, values.  All glossary terms must be defined and explained in the text of the paper.  

VI.    Works Cited.                                                    

Guidelines for Outside Resources: At least two outside resources will be required, including, at least one book from Gutman Library, or obtained from another academic (college) library, and at least  one magazine or journal article, obtained from one or more Proquest databases.  Scholarly, academic resources are preferred over popular publications. If you have any questions concerning the appropriateness of a particular publication, please see the instructor.

A book from Gutman Library, or obtained from another academic (college) library.

·        You can locate books in other libraries in different ways. One way is to use the individual catalogs of other area libraries. Gutman Library has links to these catalogs from the Library homepage, under the “Other Area Libraries” link. With the exception of Villanova, you may also borrow directly from the libraries listed under the TCLC (Tri-State College Library Cooperative) Member Libraries.

·        Another way to locate books in other libraries is to search several library catalogs at once, using WorldCAT, one of the FirstSearch databases. To obtain books from other libraries, you can place an Interlibrary Loan Request, using the online form.  The form can be accesed from the Library’s homepage, under the link for Interlibrary Loan.  

A magazine or journal article, obtained from one or more Proquest databases.

·        Articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed publications are preferred, but not required

·        Articles from newspapers are not acceptable.  Therefore, exclude the Proquest Newspaper database from the Collections you search.

·        Click on the plus (+) sign next to the Proquest General Reference grouping, to see the individual databases included there.

·        Click on the “View Titles” link to see the names of the publications included in each database. This can help you decide which database to select. If you can not locate suitable articles using Proquest, please see the instructor.

Locating Full-text Using a Citation:

·        Articles that are not available in full-text from a Proquest database might be available in another database: use JournalList to determine the online availability of an article.

·        Use the online catalog (PhilaFIND) to determine if Gutman Library holds a print subscription to the journal

·        After checking JournalList and PhilaFIND, place an interlibrary loan request for the article.  You will need the full citation information of the article, and a library barcode sticker on your school ID

Citation and Documentation

·        Please use MLA format. The Learning Center’s Documentation Guidelines can be viewed at http://wwww.philau.edu/learning/  under the link in the left frame entitled “Documentation Info.” (Hint: Proquest is an “Online Database,” not a website).  Please remember to include in-text citations, where applicable.

·        Gutman Library owns a copy of the MLA Handbook.  It is shelved in the Reference section.

·        The bookstore sells the Pocket Guide, which includes the MLA style of documentation.

Ethics Papers Formatting Check Sheet 

●   _____      The introductory paragraph must tell the reader what will happen in the paper. 

●   _____      Identify your audience in your introduction. 

●   _____      If you do not have democracy in your glossary, put in theocracy, monarchy, anarchy, or some structure or process by which you believe society should be governed. 

●   _____      If you have political democracy but not economic democracy in your glossary, in the text of your paper you must explain in detail why you believe in one type of democracy and not the other. 

●   _____      If you have neutral freedom and not positive freedom in your glossary, in the text of your paper you must explain in detail why you believe in one type of freedom and not the other. 

●   _____      Include at least two outside scholarly sources (one journal and one book) in draft and final paper. 

●   _____      Sources must be properly documented in the text and bibliography using MLA style. 

●   _____      Include the two required examples / ethical dilemmas (one professional & one political-social-economic).  These must include a clear statement of what positions you believe you ought to take these issues, and be explicitly defended by values in your glossary. 

●   _____      Glossary must be part of the paper and included all three times you hand in material. 

●   _____      Use single pronouns with single nouns.

●   _____      Use one-inch margins all around, and Times New Roman font, size 12.

●   _____      Single space the glossary. 

●   _____      Double space after the end of a sentence. 

●   _____      Number your pages.

●   _____      Please, no plastic covers or blank pages.  Save paper, begin Glossary 3 spaces after end of text, and begin Works Cited 3 spaces after end of glossary.

●   _____      The usual criteria that apply to written work apply to these papers, i.e., they should be clear, shows signs of some logical development, be free of logical contradictions, have a consistent theme, be readable and intelligible. They should not be burdened by mechanical errors. 

●   _____      Papers must have summary paragraph. 

●     _____    Papers must (unless you have approved exception) follow the generic outline, &  be typed.

                        You should always keep a copy of the paper.