hum101-102writingrequiremts09-102_1_

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THE SEARCH FOR VALUES

IN THE LIGHT OF

WESTERN HISTORY AND RELIGION

HUMANITIES 101-102

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE WRITING PORTFOLIO

2009-2010

A. Writing Portfolio: Purpose, Due Dates and Lengths 2

B. Fundamentals 3

C. Guidelines and Objectives for the Writing Assignments 3

D. Planning Well Ahead 5

E. General Format 5

F. Mechanics and Style 6

G. Citation and Plagiarism 6

H. Sample Title Page 14


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Because writing and the careful analysis of ideas are among the most importantelements of a liberal arts education, your writing assignments should meet the following

minimum requirements. Your colloquium leader will clarify additional requirements that he or

she may have and will explain the specifics of how your writing assignments will be graded.

A. Writing Portfolio

1. The Nature and Purpose of the Writing Portfolio

Students are required to maintain a Writing Portfolio across two semesters in order to

track the development of their writing skills in SEARCH

. Your instructor may ask youto keep a sturdy, physical portfolio with inner pockets or he/she may ask you to keep

your papers in a virtual, electronic portfolio. Submit and maintain all writing

assignments in the Portfolio folder; each assignment must be pledged in

conformity with the Rhodes College Honor Code.

The Writing Portfolio is to be maintained through Humanities 201 and students should

be sure to retrieve their assignments at the end of the semester or the beginning of the

next semester as they become available. The main benefit of a Writing Portfolio is that

it enables students to see the growth of their writing in their first year at Rhodes and

makes it possible to reflect upon how they can continue to develop as writers. The

Writing Portfolio is also an important part of SEARCH because: i) the writing intensive

nature of Humanities 102 means that students may be asked to reflect on previous

work; ii) students may change instructors and it would help the new instructor to be

familiar with your previous work; and iii) the portfolio is a part of decisions regarding

recognition of outstanding achievement in the first year of SEARCH.

2. Due Dates, Lengths, and Late Penalties

101 Assignments

Assignment One (400-600 words)Due Friday, September 4, in your colloquium. The assignment is in theReading

Guide on page 21.

Assignment Two (600-900 words):

See the course calendar for the due date for your section.

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Assignment Three (1200-1500 words):

See the course calendar for the due date for your section.

102 Assignments:

Due dates, lengths, and topics will be distributed by individual instructors inHumanities 102 (spring semester).

Late Penalties: There will be a penalty for assignments turned in late. Your

colloquium instructor will explain what the penalties will be in your section.

B. Fundamentals

Successful writing is a matter of defining key terms, ideas, and issues, and illustrating

them with pertinent examples to clarify their significance and connect them to a thesis.Accuracy and clarity are paramount in this process and require hard work. [Hint: Ask

friends to read what youve written aloud to you, being sure to mention the nature of their

contribution along with their names in your Acknowledgements section.]

This process should lead to insight and sophistication in your writing. Insight indicates

ability to see and to evaluate more than what is apparent upon an initial reading.

Insightful writing will avoid summary of points or ideas and concentrate on exploring

distinctions, deep meanings, and relationships among them. Attention to detail and

rhetoric is the basis of insight.

In this context, sophistication gives evidence of your learning and also of careful,

creative thinking, showing that you can identify main points, draw careful and relevant

distinctions, relate points together, foresee plausible consequences, and give proper credit

where it is due.

Note: Your writing assignments will be graded on the basis of accuracy, insight, and

sophistication, and on your ability to organize and structure your ideas, as well as

on mastery of the mechanics of writing. For guidance, please consult the Rhodes

College publication,A Guide to Effective Paper Writing (one of the required texts for

the course).

All of your work in SEARCH must conform to the Rhodes College Honor Code (see A

Guide to Effective Paper Writing, Section II, Intellectual Honesty).

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C. Guidelines and Objectives for the Writing Assignments

The writing assignments in the SEARCH program are intended to be venues in which

students can learn the skills ofclosereading (analysis, interpretation, and

contextualization) and argument(thesis development, citation of evidence, the dialectic

development of themes across points). Indeed, any close reading of a text requires thepresence of an arguable point.

1. Fall Semester

In the fall semester, students will cultivate the skills of reading by analyzing assigned

passages. They ought to be guided by the following types of question:

What is going on in the text that we are reading?

What is the significance of what is going on?

Does whats going on in the text conceal deeper meanings?

How might these deeper meanings be indicated in the text, and how can I convince a

reader that they are there?

What is strange about the text? How can this strangeness be related to the parts of the

text that seem clearer?

What does the text not say that it seemed to be preparing to say? Why this absence?

To deal aptly with questions of this sort will require the cultivation of the following

rhetorical skills:

1. Clearly identifying the passage to be considered, accurately citing the passage with a

clear locating reference (page number, section number, act number, line number,etc.).

2. Carefully contextualizing that passage, anchoring it in time and space: What? When?

Where? Who? How/Why?

3. Examining major terms and themes of the passage including key phrases and

concepts, metaphors, similes, and main themes.

4. Exploring issues raised by the passage, problems suggested by what the passage says

and does not say.

5. Connecting this passage to the main themes of this course and to your own search for

values.

6. Developing a thesis concerning your interpretation of the passage.

These writing assignments will require a close re-reading of a single text from our readings,

providing an opportunity for you to respond thoughtfully to the text. These assignments are

NOT research papers, plot summaries or synopses, or opinion pieces. They do NOT involve

secondary sources or web-based materials. They do call on you to reflect systematically and

intelligently on the import of a work we have read together, in light of our common study in

this course.

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2. Spring Semester

The problems posed by the spring semesters assignments will require more sophisticated

theses and more involved argumentation in support of them. Particularly when tackling a

complicated problem, writing will be an essential part of your thinking; you cannot figure outwhat you need to argue until you start to work through the particular points in some detail.

Because the best theses tend to emerge only after extensive writing, rethinking, reorganizing,

and revising, you should not try to develop afinal thesis before beginning to write.

Your ultimate aim in writing and rewriting should be to provide: a concise and specific thesis;

specific evidence from the text(s) that supports the thesis; sound reasoning about that textual

evidence and the arguments of the texts as a whole; and careful consideration of possible

alternative interpretations of the text as a whole and of specific passages.

D. Planning Well Ahead

Audience: In general, you should write as if you are trying to explain your ideas as clearly

as possible in polished English to an intelligent person who is interested in your topic but

not especially familiar with it. What do you need to say to convey the significance of your

topic and your insights to such a person?

Revisions: Allow time for revisions and more revisions. Often the thesis of your writing

assignment may not be clear to you until you have come to the end of your first or second

draft.

Proofread: Always proofread and edit your writing assignment carefully before handing it

in. Do not rely solely on a spell-checker since it will not catch every mistake. It is

sometimes easier to catch errors on a hard copy than on a computer screen.

Read Aloud: Read what youve written aloud or ask a friend to do so with you

(acknowledging the friends input as appropriate).

Keep Copies: Keep a copy of your writing assignments as originally submitted, both a

hard-copy and an electronic copy separate from your computer. If you try to complete or

print your assignment at the last minute, computer or printer problems are a real possibility

and NO excuse. Avoid late penalties by planning well ahead.

The Writing Center: The Writing Center is an invaluable resource to consult for

assistance. The Centers hours are available from the English Department or from your

colloquium instructor.Make use of the Centers Guide to Effective Paper Writing.

Late Penalties:Late assignments will be penalized as noted above on page three.

E. General Format

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Provide a title page which includes:

(1) an effectivetitle near the top of the page. Your title may appear in all upper-case

letters if you wish, but this title should notbe underlined or italicized or enclosed in

quotation marks.

(2) your name

(3) the name of your colloquium leader

(4) the date of submission

(5) word count

(6) a statement of the Honor Pledge accompanied by

(7) your signature to indicate that the writing assignment has been prepared in

accordance with the Honor Code of Rhodes College.

Be sure that your writing assignment is:

(1) legibly printed using a standard 12 point font (i.e., no fancy fonts),

(2) double-spaced throughout,

(3) with 1-inch margins (please note that some word-processing programs have

different default margins) and

(4) page numbers.

Attach a Works Cited section (sometimes called a bibliography) that includes sources

consulted as well as sources quoted (see examples below). You should also include an

Acknowledgements section, to recognize those who have helped you write the assignment, if

needed.

F. Mechanics and Style

Stylistically effective writing:

1. uses proper grammar and sentence structure.

2. avoids summaries of content and long quotations.3. avoids sweeping generalizations (e.g. throughout history, since the dawn of time,

as humans have always wondered, As I have always believed) and vague

abstractions (e.g. ancient peoples, religious people, the Church, in ancient

times).

4. avoids the passive voice (it is thought, it was decided, the people were struck

by). Active verbs express meaning more emphatically and more precisely:

Gilgamesh deliberated, Moses decided, the Israelites equivocated.

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5. avoids jargon, wordiness, and unnecessary repetition.

6. Avoids inappropriately exclusive language, such as variants of the term man

(including men, mankind, family of man, brotherhood, and compounds such as

chairman, clergyman, etc.) as generic identifiers, using instead inclusive terms (e.g.

human beings, humanity, humankind, people, minister, etc.) to designate

both individuals and groups. Note: Direct quotations shouldreproduce the quotedtext, inclusive or not, exactly as in the original.

G. Citation and Plagiarism

Citing ones sources is an absolute necessity for good writing and a matter of

intellectual honesty. Proper citation involves two considerations: when to cite and how to

cite.

Writers must alwaysacknowledge each of their debts to the authors of thewords or ideas they have used. Thorough and precise acknowledgement of any such

debt is required by the Honor Code, and failure to do so is a form of plagiarism.For

further guidance, seeA Guide to Effective Paper Writing, Section II, Intellectual Honesty.

Citations should allow the reader to trace the sources of your thoughts, and the

connections between your evidence and your arguments. Proper citation, therefore,

directs the reader as precisely as possible to the passage in question. The specific

information in the citation will be different for different works. In many cases, the

citation will be to the author and a page number: (Rousseau 25). When citing a play,

however, you will achieve greater accuracy by citing the act, scene, and line numbers.

Other works are broken up into books, sections, cantos, chapters, verses, etc. And in

some cases (for example, Plato and Aristotle) there are special numbering systems used

for all translations of that work. You should always use the most universal form of

citation. Specific examples are provided below.

In all cases, however, the citation must be keyed to the bibliographical

information in the Works Cited page. For example, the abbreviated reference in this

citation--(Rousseau 25)requires that the Works Cited entry for this work begin with

Rousseau, as in Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.

Below are some examples ofparenthetical documentation, the type of citationyou will use in these writing assignments. Each example employs a different manner of

referring to a text (short quotation, offset quotations, paraphrase) and the proper way to

format and punctuate each. Each parenthetical citation is followed by the appropriate

form of bibliographical citation for a Works Cited section.

1. NON-BIBLICAL EXAMPLES:

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EXAMPLE OF CITING THE SEARCH READING GUIDE

As the reading guide indicates, the Tower of Babel

should be compared to the ziggurat temples of the

ancient Mesopotamians (Baldwin et al. 36).

Baldwin, Christopher et al. The Search for Values

in the Light of Western History and Religion:

Reading Guide. 24th ed. Memphis, TN: Rhodes

College, 2008.

EXAMPLE OF CITING PLATO OR ARISTOTLE OR SENECA OR

AQUINAS

Socrates then poses the following question to the

young and overconfident Euthyphro: Is the pious

loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it

pious because it is loved by the gods? (Plato

10a).

Plato. Four Texts on Socrates. Trans. and Ed.

Thomas G. West/Grace Starry West. Rev. ed.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1998.

Aristotle opens the Nicomachean Ethics with the

observation that Every craft and every line of

inquiry, and likewise every action and decision,

seems to seek some good... (1094a1).

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. M. Ostwald.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1962.

M. Porcius Cato, sometimes called Cato the Younger,

is Senecas best example of a republican hero who

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chose to die rather than to live under tyranny

(Seneca, On Providence 2).

Seneca. The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca. Trans.

and Ed. Moses Hadas. New York: W. W. Norton,

1958.

Aquinas always first reviews the standing opinions

and subsequently provides his own response: I

answer that the existence of God can be proved in

five ways (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-I, qu. 2).

Aquinas, Thomas. On Politics and Ethics. Trans. and

Ed. Paul E. Sigmund. New York: W.W. Norton,

1988.

EXAMPLE OF LONG QUOTATIONS THAT ARE INDENTED

In a clear allusion to mystery religions, Plato,

through the character of Diotima, characterizes the

study of love as follows:

Even you, Socrates, could probably come to be

initiated into these rites of love. But as for

the purpose of these rites when they are done

correctlythat is the final and highest

mystery, and I dont know if you are capable

of it. I myself will tell you, she said, and

I wont stint any effort. And you must try to

follow if you can (210A).

Plato. Symposium. Trans. and Ed. A. Nehamas and P.

Woodruff. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989.

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According to Thucydides account of his funeral

oration, Pericles offered the following bitter

consolation to the parents of Athenians who died in

battle early in the Peloponnesian War:

You know your lives teem with all sorts of

calamities, and that it is good fortune for

anyone to draw a glorious end for his lot, as

these men have done. While your lot was

grief, theirs was a life that was happy as

long as it lasted. I know it is a hard matter

to dissuade you from sorrow, when you willoften be reminded by the good fortune of

others of the joys you once had; for sorrow is

not for the want of a good never tasted, but

for the loss of a good we have been used to

having. Yet those of you who are of an age to

have children may bear this loss in the hope

of having more (ii.44; Woodruff 45).

Thucydides. On Justice, Power, and Human Nature:

Selections from The History of the

Peloponnesian War. Trans. and Ed. Paul

Woodruff. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing

Co., 1993.

EXAMPLE OF ALTERED SYNTAX IN QUOTED MATERIALS AND OF

DOCUMENTATION FOR AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF A TABLET

INSCRIPTION:

The tavern-keeper advises the wanderer to let

[his] clothes be clean, let [his] head be washed

(Gilgamesh Sippar tablet 3.10-11).

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Anon. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Trans. A. George. New

York: Penguin, 1999.

EXAMPLE OF MULTIPLE CITATIONS FOR A WORK DIVIDED INTO

BOOKS AND LINE NUMBERS:

The list of names and armies in book tworeflects

better the political situation of the thirteenth

century BCE. Thus, Mycenae and Pylos are

designated as major powers (Iliad2.631-652, 2.672-

683).

Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo.

Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997.

EXAMPLE OF POETRY, OF A PLAY WITH LINE NUMBERS, AND OF A

WORK PUBLISHED AS PART OF A COLLECTION:

Sophocles shows Haemon rebutting his fathers

questions forcefully yet logically: There is no

city | possessed by one man only (Antigone 798-9).

Sophocles. Antigone. Sophocles I. Trans. D. Grene.

2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991.

EXAMPLE OF A WORK DIVIDED INTO BOOKS AND LINE NUMBERS:

The Virgilian underworld is a realm of gods of the

world below and of silent shades (Aeneid6.330).

Virgil. Aeneid. Trans. S. Lombardo. Indianapolis,

IN: Hackett, 2005.

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EXAMPLE OF SYNTACTIC ADJUSTMENT IN CITING A WORK DIVIDED

INTO BOOKS WITH SECTIONS:

Augustine exhibits a keen grasp of both human

existence and overarching abstractions when he

asserts that he was not yet in love, but [that

he] was enamored with the idea of love...

(Confessions 3.1).

Augustine. The Confessions. Trans. M. Boulding.

Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1997.

2. BIBLICAL EXAMPLES:

CHAPTER AND VERSE CITATIONS:

The psalmist depicts humans as a little lower

than God and crowned...with glory and honor

(Psalm 8.5, NRSV).

SCHOLARLY NOTES, INTRODUCTIONS, ESSAYS, MAPS:

Some scholars interpret Gods attempt to kill

Moses as addressing the need for adherence to the

covenant of Abraham and its obligations (NOAB, HB

89, note to verses 24-26).

The Introduction states that the different parts

of Genesis are united by a set of toledot

(descendants) headings that guide the readers

approach to the material (NOAB, HB 9).

When Jesus asks, Are you a teacher of Israel and

yet you do not understand these things? (John

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3.10), he may be discrediting the religious

aristocracy represented by Nicodemus (NOAB, NT

152, note to verse 10).

The essayist argues that most biblical

interpretation in the New Testament serves a

polemical or apologetic purpose (The New

Testament Interprets the Jewish Scriptures NOAB,

Essays 474).

Modern reconstructions of the exodus route

graphically attest its circuitous nature (e.g.,

NOAB, Map 2).

Coogan, Michael D., et al., eds. The New Oxford

Annotated Bible. 3rd rev. ed. New York: Oxford,

2007.

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H. Sample Title Page

Mixed Motives:

The Quest for Immortality in Gilgamesh

E. N. Kidu

Humanities 101

Prof. Loquax

September 4, 2009

Word Count: 551

I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment,

nor have I witnessed any such violation of the Honor Code.

_______________

(your signature)

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