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Instructor: Alan T. Wood Office: UW1 #248 TEL: (425) 352-5226; FAX: (425) 352-5335; e-mail: awood@u.washington.edu Office hours: before class & by appointment Classroom/time: UW1 #202/MW 5:45-7:50 Requirements of the course: There will be one mid-term exam and a final exam (not cumulative), a short quiz each week, and two three-page papers on the readings. For students majoring in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the papers should be included in your portfolio of written work that you accumulate while a student at UWB. The course will consist of lectures, discussions, and occasional films. Examinations will consist of essay questions that have been used as the basis for discussion in class. The final grade will be based in roughly equal increments on the two exams and the two papers. I will keep the quizzes and use them if a student appears to be teetering precipitously between two grades. For example, if a student consistently did well in the quizzes, he or she will get the benefit of the doubt. Conversely, if a student was consistently absent or did badly in the quizzes, he or she will not get the benefit of the doubt. I also reserve a few percentage points for students who contribute to class discussion or whose grades have improved through the quarter. If you do significantly better on the final exam, in other words, I will give more weight to the final exam than to the mid-term. These discretionary points are used only to augment a student's grade, never to lower it. Review the rules governing plagiarism if you are confused about the meaning of the term. A paper containing plagiarized material will be given a grade of "F." A letter indicating that the student has submitted plagiarized material will be filed with the Chancellor's Office. If a second infraction is reported to the Chancellor's Office, disciplinary action will be taken that could include academic probation. A third infraction will precipitate further disciplinary action that could include suspension or expulsion from the University. According to University policy, incompletes can be given only if the student has completed coursework up to the last two weeks of class. Textbooks: Stearns, Peter N. World History in Brief. 4th edition. New York: Longman, 2002. Riley, Philip F., et. al. The Global Experience: Readings in World History to 1550. 4th edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002. Reading assignments: October 1 Introduction to course 3 Stearns, "From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations." Riley, readings 1-5. 4 Stearns, "Classical Civilization: China." 10 Riley, readings 10, 14, 25-27. 15 Stearns, "Classical Civilization: India." 17 Riley, readings 17-20, 23-24. 22 Stearns, "Classical Civilization in the Mediterranean: Greece and Rome." 24 Riley, readings 15-16, 28-35. Paper #1 due. 29 Greece and Rome. Review 31 Mid-term examination November 5 Stearns, "The Classical Period: Directions, Diversities, and Declines by AD 500." 7 Riley, readings 36-46. 12 Holiday (Veterans Day) 14 Stearns, "The Rise of Islam: Civilization in the Middle East." Riley, readings 47-51. 19 Stearns, "India and Southeast Asia Under the Impact of Islam." 21 Wood, "India and the Indian Ocean as Highway of World Trade (500-1200)." "A Taste of Adventure: The History of Spices is the history of trade," Economist (12/19/98). 26 Stearns, "Africa and Islam." 28 Riley, readings 62-63. Film on Africa. Paper #2 due. December 3 Stearns, "The Spread of East Asian Civilization." 5 Riley, readings 56-57, 73-76. 10 Stearns, "East European Civilization: Byzantium and Russia." 12 Riley, readings 58-61, 64-65, 85-87. 17 Final examination
Considerations in writing a paper Every good essay has five parts: a title, a statement of the problem, a statement of the thesis (your resolution of the problem), an argument support-ed by evidence, and a conclusion answering the question "so what?" Consult the Heath Handbook, especially the Checklist and the Correction Symbols on the inside back cover. 1. TITLE Does the title help the reader understand what the focus of the paper will be? 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. Is there a clear statement of the problem to be dealt with in the essay? Avoid vagueness and overly abstract introductions, but try to put your subject in the context of a wider perspective. Approach the subject as you approach a landing site in a helicopter, so you see how the subject relates to the surrounding terrain. 3. STATEMENT OF THE THESIS. Is there a clear statement of the thesis, that is, your resolution of the problem? Remember that a thesis statement is something that has to be defended. If you have written a thesis statement that nobody would ever disagree with, e.g., "women are different from men," then you need to think about it more. If you have a thesis statement which asserts that "women are better than men," then you've got yourself something which has to be defended by logical argument and evidence. 4. ARGUMENT SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. Does the argument support the thesis? Is there a logical sequence in the evidence which is presented? Do you make clear at all times how each paragraph contributes to the overall purpose of the paper (are the parts related to the whole)? Do you anticipate and answer the reader's questions? Do you anticipate and take into account evidence which is contrary to your thesis? Is there sufficient evidence and explanation for each idea? Does the argument flow smoothly from paragraph to paragraph? Have you paid attention to transition from sentence to sentence, from idea to idea, from paragraph to paragraph? Make your reader's trip through your essay as smooth as possible. If you make your reader work too hard, he will lose interest. Are difficult points illustrated by example, analogy, contrast, or statistics? Is there a balance between the general and the specific? Have you paid attention to clarity of prose, length of sentences (too long or too short), complexity of sentences (too simple or too involved), variety, rhythm? What about diction: accuracy, conciseness, specificity, freshness? Have you used active verbs and not passive verbs? Have you corrected all spelling and punctuation errors? If you haven't, you not only interrupt the reader's train of thought, you have undermined your credibility (most readers will conclude that a writer who is sloppy in form will be sloppy in content as well). 5. CONCLUSION Does your essay arrive at a conclusion which tries to put the point of the paper into a larger perspective, to discuss the wider significance, or in other words, to answer the question "so what"? Considerations in writing a book review 1. Introduce the review in the same way you would any other essay, by first putting the subject of the review in the larger context of the subject dealt with by the author. Then move on to identify the specific thesis of the book, i.e., how the author resolves the problem. What has the author set out to do? 2. At some point early on in the essay, identify the author, giving some idea of his or her personal background, and competence and authority to write on the subject of the book. You should be very brief. 3. Identify the sources used in the book: are they accurate; does the author use them persuasively; does the author give evidence and argument that represent only one side of the issue? 4. Evaluate the book. This is the body of the review, and should consist not merely of a description of the content of the work, but a judgment on the merit of the treatment, backed up by argument which is supported by evidence from the text. What fundamental issues does the author raise, and how does he or she treat them? What are the author's conclusions? How has the work changed your own understanding of the period or the issues covered? If it was interesting, show why; if it was boring, show why, etc. Would you recommend it to someone else trying to understand the subject? Why? Example of introduction to the subject, statement of the problem, statement of the thesis, and identification of the author: "As modern weapons get more and more lethal, and more and more leaders of questionable judgment get their hands on those weapons, the likelihood of a new round of destructive warfare seems to come closer with every passing day. Not to worry, says Professor Feelgood of Harvard University's Institute for Irrelevant Studies. All we have to do, in his estimation, is visualize peace and it will happen. In his book, I am Really Smart, he argues. . . ." Considerations in writing essay examinations 1. Read the question carefully and make sure you understand it. 2. Make an outline of your response. The outline should consist of several parts, each of which contains a separate idea or thought to be expressed. Simple outlines are easier to make and follow, but be sure your outline deals directly with all aspects of the question. 3. Write the essay. Essays consist of discrete paragraphs, each of which contains a separate thought or outline point. The body of each paragraph should contain specific facts--concepts, names, dates, examples--which support the principal idea expressed in the topic sentence of the paragraph. All of the evidence you use should have a direct bearing on the question. Draw in material from the readings and class sessions. A good essay goes beyond a simple presentation of facts to include generalizations, interpretations, analyses, and evaluations. Considerations in citing sources 1. Avoid plagiarism, defined by the Heath Handbook as "passing off the language or ideas of someone else as your own work" (p. 393). Consult the handbook for more details if you are not sure what plagiarism is. A paper which plagiarizes will be given a failing grade. 2. I prefer the MLA form of documentation over the APA (see chapters 21-22 in the Heath Handbook). However, if you prefer the APA system, use it. Another system in common use is Kate Turabian's Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Incidentally, for some reason the Heath Handbook prefers endnotes to footnotes. If you have a computer program which handles footnotes easily, go ahead and use them, since it is an aid to the reader to have the citation on the same page. Considerations in assigning grades There is a degree of subjectivity in assigning grades which cannot be eliminated. Nevertheless, there are also standards which can be stated explicitly. First of all I should stress the indivisibility of form and content. By that I mean that it is not possible to separate entirely what you mean from how you say it. In many cases, in fact, you actually discover what you mean by figuring out how to say it. If a sentence is confusing, your meaning is not clear. 1. Beyond that mysterious melting together of form and content, there are two other reasons why it is important to pay attention to form, and to avoid committing errors in basic English grammar and punctuation. For one thing, they are distracting to your reader, so that he is thrown off the track of your argument. Second, they undermine your credibility with the reader, who is likely to conclude that if you don't even know the basic rules of English, your understanding of the subject matter will be open to question. 2. There are some errors which I see all the time, and which take very little time to learn if you just pause to acquaint yourself with the rules. Papers that contain frequent errors in grammar and punctuation will be lowered one grade. All the errors mentioned below are explained in detail, with examples, in the Heath Handbook or any other manual of style and grammar. a. Comma splice. b. Misuse of quotation marks. Quotation marks always go outside commas and periods, according to American (but not British or Canadian) usage. c. Sentence fragment. d. Misspelling. e. Split infinitives. f. Lack of agreement between pronouns and antecedents. g. Phrases not parallel. h. Transition. i. Misuse of "it's." The form "it's" means "it is." It is not the possessive form. j. Inconsistent use of dash. A dash consists of two hyphens, connecting words without spaces between them--like this. 3. Above all, be simple and direct. Avoid big words and long sentences. For an example of consistently good writing, read the weekly Economist. |
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