Writing Assignment Submission Guidelines
1) Your writing assignment must be saved as a Word document or as a PDF in order to be uploaded correctly to Canvas. PDFs cause the least problems.
2) You must use standard formatting, which means that your paper must be double spaced, with 12pt font, and standard margins. In addition, if you justify the margins it will make your paper look more professional. (Please note that footnotes are automatically inserted at 10pt font and single spaced, which is fine. This is standard.)
3) Your name and the date must appear somewhere at the top of the paper.
4) Always insert page numbers somewhere in the header or footer, especially if your paper is more than one-page long.
5) Be sure to answer every part of the question if it has multiple parts. This is not a research paper, so you do not need to incorporate additional sources, aside from the assigned scholarly readings. Your response should remain focused on answering each part of the question as directly and explicitly as possible. No parts of the question should remain unanswered. Explain your rationale and elaborate your responses as you answer each question. Try to do this systematically.
6) You must cite the assigned scholarly readings (and not just the shorter media articles) for every paper. You only need to cite the scholarly readings assigned in the current or previous Module, and perhaps occasionally the media sources when it appropriate. You should not be citing anything else in these assignments, unless explicitly instructed to do so.
7) All citations must appear as footnotes and follow the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), which is available online. A link is provided under the “Study Resources & Guides” heading in the Course Community Module in Canvas. You should probably have around 1-3 footnotes per page, depending on what you are saying. This is a rough guideline in terms of establishing expectations.
8) If you choose to include direct quotations in your paper, then you must cite them appropriately as footnotes. Otherwise, it is plagiarism. See #6 and #5 above.
9) Explain where the information comes from and attribute it to its source, rather than simply making assertions that you have not verified. For example, explain that “the journalist reports that… … …such and such thing happened,” or “… … …such and such thing is the case.” Similarly, explain that a particular scholar from the assigned scholarly readings expressed a certain opinion or made a certain argument. Then, you can explain your thoughts about it, irrespective of what they are.
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10) Answer the questions in the first person, since you are the one who is analyzing the text. This will allow you to distinguish your views from the views of someone else, such as the journalist that you are responding to or the author of the scholarly readings. It will also make it easier for you to formulate an argument coherently.
11) Before you submit your work, review your draft and think about how your response answers the questions. If it needs to be revised in light of the questions asked, then make the necessary changes before you submit. Rephrase wordy sentences so that you say things simply. Move things around as needed to provide better organization and structure.
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