• Oral/Visual Reports, one a group report on a weekly assignment, the other an individual report on the term paper project.

 

• Weekly Moodle postings (one original of 100 to 150 words, another 50 to 100-word response to someone else’s post).

 

• A two-staged research project culminating in a researched and fully-cited term paper (see writing and documentation guidelines above, listed with the course readings):

 

Stage One: a Term Paper Announcement (see below^) consisting of a Working Title, a one-sentence Thesis Statement (one sentence only, though the sentence can be long and multi-claused and may use one semicolon), a detailed, step-by-step Description of your future paper’s Writing Strategy (i.e. how you will prove your thesis, not a summary of what will be in your paper), and a Bibliography (in MLA format--see the link to documentation guides above) of at least three secondary sources, one of which must be a hard-copy source (for the purposes of this assignment assigned readings, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and textbooks will not be considered as counting toward the requisite minimum number of secondary sources, although they can be used in your term paper project); 

 

Stage Two: a 1500 to 3000-word, fully-documented, original and critical, discursive, polemical (please look up this word if you don't really know what it means) and otherwise argumentative essay that must include at least some detailed analysis of the artifacts being discussed (see below^^), along with a bibliography of all sources (the bibliography will not be considered part of word count). The term paper topic is open (though the topic must have something to do with the subject of this course) but must be approved ahead of time by the instructor.

 

The Term Paper is credited when preceded by the Term Paper Announcement.

 

• Final examination, comprehensive, essay in format, open-book.

 

Failure to submit the final exam will result in the papers that are part of the term paper project being disqualified.

 

N.B.: Papers must be word processed using a 12’ font, double-spaced with one inch margins, spell-checked, and to the best of one's ability grammar-checked. Papers must be submitted as Word files; under no circumstances should a paper be submitted as a pdf.

    Weekly Moodle posts should be single-spaced but otherwise must also be spell-checked and to the best of one's ability grammar-checked, and must be in standard English and adhere to standard formal writing protocols.

     As regards all writing submitted in  this course, please keep the following in mind. If on occasion use is made of the ideas or words of someone else in one's writing, then the source(s) of those ideas and/or words must be cited; that is, when appropriate, papers must be fully documented  in MLA format (you must cite sources--using footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical documentation, which include specific page numbers keyed to particular passages in your text, and complete bibliographical information). WRITTEN TEXTS NOT MEETING ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE READ AND WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT. 

    Students are expected to abide by the NJIT Honor Code. (You may wish to see NJIT's Academic Integrity web site that contains much information about strategies to avoid plagiarism: http://integrity.njit.edu/index.html.) 

    Papers must be submitted to the instructor via Moodle, as Word for Windows (preferably Word 2003) attachments, using a proper identifying subject line.

 

N.B.: Failure to participate in class discussions (especially online) at a minimally acceptable level will result in disqualification of end-of-term assignments such as the term paper and final exam; such disqualification must inevitably spell failure in the course. In order to pass this course a student must be consistently active in weekly class work starting from the beginning of the course term. Furthermore, only three unexcused absences will be allowed; more than these will mean automatic course failure.

 

^Term Paper Announcement: 
Consists of 1) a descriptive paper title, and a subtitle to show focus and specificity, 2) a one-sentence thesis statement that includes the point of your argument, the breadth of that argument, and the argument’s significant concepts and details, 3) a detailed, step-by-step description of the writing or argumentative strategy to be employed in your paper, 4) a bibliography  of all sources both primary and secondary in MLA format and alphabetized. For the purposes of this assignment, use must be made of at least three secondary research sources (one of them hard copy) excluding assigned readings, textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries.  

A description and samples of the Term Paper Announcement are available from the course Moodle page.

^^Term Paper: 
Consists of: 1) a descriptive paper title, and a subtitle to show focus and specificity, 2) a full-length essay, 3) a bibliography in MLA format and alphabetized. For the purposes of this assignment, use must be made of at least three secondary research sources (one of them hard copy) excluding assigned readings, textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries. 
    N.B.: While one research paper source must be hard copy--and there is no substitute for physically going to a library to do research--a downloaded article from one of the NJIT Library's databases can be considered as a hard copy source (it is best to check with the instructor about the suitability of such an article)

Samples of the Term Paper are available from the course Moodle page.