English 1010-025 Fall 2009 Formal Essay Assignment 3:

The Big Paper. Yeah, That One.

Objective: Successful completion of this essay assignment will result in 8-12 typed, double-spaced, well-thought-out pages of text that meet the requirements listed below. Do keep in mind that this paper will be graded, not marked pass/fail, which means that you may earn some, none, or all of the 30% of your grade that this is worth.

General Requirements: The paper must have a unique and appropriate title, one that fits the paper’s particular content and begins to point the reader in the direction the paper will go. An essay introduction that lacks some indication of the paper’s purpose, scope, and structure (see Swales) will significantly impact the grade the paper receives. An essay without suitable and substantial and carefully analyzed quotations from the text(s) you discuss will surely fail. Transitions between paragraphs should exist in some form as well. The conclusion should not repeat the intro, but point out what has been accomplished and perhaps what has not—and if you can think of any, suggestions for future research make for a nice closing point. Lastly, please be sure to number your pages.

KEY ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENT: You will also have to quote from and cite at least one scholarly secondary source such as an academic journal article, essay, or book. Note one option requires more than just one of these sources. Many such sources can be readily found online via some of the general purpose academic databases, some of which are identified and explained via the library's website at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/instruction/articles.html

Crafting the Essay: A few prompts are provided here to get you thinking about the paper. Please be sure to specify which option you select in the heading for your paper. Optionally, if you have an idea of your own for a paper, feel free to propose it to me.

Option 1, Amusing Ourselves to Death; Or, Gotta Go Some Way, So Are We Better Off Going Ignorant?

Tricky stuff. This option basically asks you to seriously consider something probably at least some of us have been thinking over the course of all the readings up to this point in this class: based on the arguments mounted by our authors thus far, are we better off (and you will have to carefully define what you mean by “better off”—and probably define “we” too) leaving as much as we can of politics and “the real world” alone? Is “true” democracy (or some attempt to get close to it) worth the price? Do one or more of these authors give us evidence, even unintentionally, that we ought to just let things run their course? Essentially, this is the potentially super-pessimistic/super-misanthropic/super-apathetic option. You will need to discuss at least two of the authors we have read this semester.

Option 2, 1010-25 as Introduction to Moral Theology

Begin by taking up Postman’s notion of “moral theology” as outlined in the first essay of Conscientious Objections. Then apply this notion to at least two other authors we’ve read this semester (not counting Postman himself, though you may choose to include Postman as a third). Are these authors doing moral theology, as Postman characterizes it? What, if any, are the differences between their respective moral theologies, in terms of content or delivery? From Postman’s perspective, is our course really a course in moral theology? In specific theologies, or the idea of moral theology?

Option 3, Research Review: Modernizing Lippmann

Step one: find at least three contemporary scholarly articles that talk about or refer to, at some length, the work of Walter Lippmann (ideally each would include specific reference to Public Opinion, the book from which we read selections, but this is not mandatory). Step two: read them. Step three: write an essay that serves as a review of these articles. Note that a research review is not merely summarizing what each has to say about Lippmann. Your intro, not to mention the body of the paper, should articulate some understanding you have developed as to how Lippmann is being used and understood by contemporary writers. In brief, you need to not only present the role/relevance of Lippmann in each article, but you need to make connections between the Lippmann content across the articles. Example questions to ask yourself: do all three use Lippmann the same way? Do they all concur on some aspect of his work? Do they generally favor Lippmann’s arguments? Do they suggest Lippmann is still relevant today?

General Warning: keep in mind as you construct a draft that your paper is in trouble is if the body of your paper reads like two or three separate essays, i.e. you talk about each author or article or topic you discuss entirely independently of the material that comes before it. This will also usually mean you have bad transitions on top of it.