FINAL CORE PAPER
Due Thursday December 8, by one pm in my office, Stevenson 280 (I’ll be there from 10 am through one pm).
ASSIGNMENT
Write a memorandum to yourself when you are 50. Tell yourself at age 50 what you hope to have learned about life by then. Identify philosophies and arguments from texts from this class that you think may or may not help you with this task. You may integrate writings from your three previous essays into this essay.
Like your previous papers, this essay should have a very clear argument outlined in the first paragraph. The paper should be a minimum of five pages long, but go no longer than six pages. No passive verbs such as “is,” “was,” “were,” or “are” should appear in the opening paragraph or the concluding paragraph.
TOOLS
The texts, your roadmap of the texts, free-writing, daydreaming, class discussion, Writing Assistants, office hours with instructor. Since this is not a research paper, there is no call to use outside sources. Feel free to use personal pronouns.
AUDIENCE
An intelligent person who has not read the texts but might like to hear what you have to say about them.
FORMAT
Use a plain, serif font (like Times New Roman or Palatino), 12 pt., double-spaced, with 1” margins all around. Use this cover sheet for your paper. Use parenthetical citations for all textual quotes (eg, Sartre, 357). Please do not place extra line spaces between paragraphs. Please staple your paper.
CHECKLIST:
Have you . . .
- Begun and finished your essay with clear introductory and concluding paragraphs?
- Started your essay with an interesting and original first sentence?
- Proofed your paper for common grammatical and spelling errors?
- Inserted page numbers?
- Referenced all quotes?
- Added a short bibliography at the end of the document?
- Made an effort not to over-rely on verbs like “is,” “was,” “are,” and “were”?
- Tried to avoid cliches?
- Avoided plagiarism?
See my guidelines for writing core papers.