Syllabus Supplement

Term Paper Guide

The Term Paper must meet the following requirements. I will not read or grade the paper unless it meets these requirements.

  Minimum length is 3,000 words.

  For History of Philosophy (Ancient and Medieval or Modern) the topic should be a philosopher or philosophical position from among those that we discuss in the course. You can research aspects of the philosopher's life, or thought.

  A minimum of three references should be used for research. The textbook can be one of the references. If web sites are used as references they can be included as links in the paper. Avoid plagiarism! Plagiarized papers will receive an F which would mean the best possible grade that could be earned for the course would be a C.

  Graphics can be included but do not change the minimum word length.

  The paper must be turned in via e-mail. This is necessary since I check each paper for plagiarism.

  The paper can emailed either as a Word attachment or pasted into your email message itself. Note that if you are using an email system such as hotmail the entire paper might not be sent in the text of an email message if there is a limit on the size of the message that can be sent. There is no requirement concerning the mechanics of the paper. You are encouraged to use your imagination! If you are interested in suggested ways to reference materials on line you can look at this MLA guide. However, I prefer to have a "live" link myself. Using the web for research is still so new that conventions do not seem adequately established. They may never be!