INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

Writing

[essays] [film evaluations] [discussion forum postings] [informal writing] [writing tips]

Essays

You will need to write two brief essays (about 600-800 words) that discuss the philosophical aspect of a film (drawn from a list found on ANGEL). You may write a third essay for extra credit, if you wish (this third essay is due on the last class day).

Please submit each essay into the appropriate “drop box” (Essay #1 and Essay #2) found on the ANGEL site (“Course Materials/Essays”) by midnight of the assignment date.

You may type your essay directly into the window of the drop box in ANGEL, but I would advise you first to type the essays in MS Word (or a comparable word processor), and then to copy and paste the entry into the drop box window; doing this will ensure that you always have a saved copy, should you temporarily lose your internet connection or some other technological mishap occurs.

See the grading rubric.

Each essay should be from 600-800 words, and should include the following: Introduce the film (director, when was it made, the relevant characters, the basic plot, perhaps the intended audience, if that seems important), introduce those aspects or parts of the film that seem philosophically relevant to you, and then discuss each of these. A strong essay will typically draw on readings and other films seen in class (but don’t do this unless it helps clarify the ideas explored in the film).

Film Evaluations [top]

You will need to fill-out an evaluation form for six of the nine films that we watch as a class (you choose the films to evaluate). These responses should be brief (about 150-200 words total for each form), but carefully written. See the grading rubric.

A template is available on ANGEL ("Course Materials/Film Evaluations"); copy and paste this template into the appropriate drop-box and type in your response. To protect yourself from system failures, however, you might want to paste the template into your word processor, and save the completed file to your computer before pasting it into the drop box).

Discussion Forum postings [top]

Full credit in the course will require writing five postings and commenting on ten postings written by others (so, for each forum, you will write one posting and comment on two postings by other students). The questions/topics for the five forums are given in ANGEL ("Course Materials/Discussion Forums"); due dates are also indicated on the assignment schedule.

Each discussion forum posting should be from 400-600 words and is worth up to 6 points; the comments should be from 100-150 words, and each is worth up to 2 points (see the rubric).

Regarding your comments: You should feel welcome to comment as often as you wish on the discussion forum posts; for any given post, I'll grade only the first two substantial comments (that appear to be 100 words or more), but shorter comments are also welcome, and can add immeasurably to the conversation.

Informal Writing [top]

There will be occasional, brief, in-class writing assignments, including a daily one-paragraph writing assignment on the “quote of the day” (rubric).

Writing Tips [top]

Please carefully proofread these writing submissions. You need to use complete sentences, proper punctuation, and correct spelling. Both in college and after you graduate you will be judged, in part, by how well you write. Typos, mispellings, poor grammar — in short, sloppy writing — is like so much stink coming from the bottom of your shoes. It won’t matter how nicely your hair is combed or your shirt is pressed if you can’t write a decent paragraph.

I hope it never comes to this, but my comments on your writing might make use of some of the following abbreviations:

awk: awkward. This is a sentence problem; the sentence should be re-written for greater clarity.

frag: sentence fragment. Another sentence problem; your sentence is lacking something vital. Like a subject. Or a verb. Don’t fall into the trap of writting essays that sound like advertising copy. We all can do better than that!

wc: word choice. You might find a better word to suit your sentence. Consult your dictionary for a more accurate meaning.

sp: spelling. Consult your dictionary!

?: Huh? You’ve lost your reader.

TS?: Topic sentence? This is a paragraph problem. There needs to be a topic sentence (normally, the lead sentence of the paragraph) that indicates what the paragraph is all about (what you are hoping to do in the paragaph; or it’s the claim for which the paragraph will now offer support, or an observation for which the paragraph will now offer some elaboration, etc.).

CO?: Cohere? Another paragraph problem; the sentences in this paragraph don’t fit together very well. Try re-arranging the,. Ask yourself: (a) What goal am I trying to acheive with this paragraph? and (b) Is each sentence working towards this goal?

Q?: Quotation? Quotations should be used only when a paraphrase will not do the job as effectively. Common problems include failing to properly introduce a quotation, failing to properly cite a quotation, quoting more than is helpful, and using a quotation when a paraphrase would be better.

Manchester College // Registrar // Department of Religion and Philosophy // Last updated: 8 Jan 2010