Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

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Purpose and Audience.

Throughout the course, you have been focusing on one of the philosophies about happiness as represented in one or more of our classical texts (Boethius, Aristotle, Aquinas) and as represented in another work of art(novel, poem, play, movie, album, painting, etc) of your own choosing. Your current goal is to argue for a particular insight about the work of art’s representation of the philosophy as compared with its representation in the classical text, to support your argument with analysis of textual evidence from both of these primary texts, and to engage in conversation with scholarly articles or books (secondary texts).

This project is a thoroughly researched, thesis-driven, argumentative essay that demonstrates competence in both research and composition. The audience is our class —a diverse group of people who may be neutral or slightly skeptical regarding your position. In other words, you will need to persuade your readers.

Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

Topic

At this point, you are committed to the topic you discussed during your individual conferences. You must be able to conduct research about your topic in scholarly books and peer-reviewed journals. The topic should also be limited to a manageable focus so that the paper can adequately discuss every major aspect of the issue in detail and fairly consider the major opinions on the topic within a coherent essay. Finally, your topic must be approved by your instructor.

Content

This essay must be a thesis-driven argument. The essay should have an identifiable introduction, body, and conclusion. Include an interesting and informative title. §The Introduction should grab the reader’s attention and provide necessary background information on the topic, provide a focus for the paper, and state a clear and precise thesis. §The Body of the essay should offer a clear argument driven by textual proof and your own argumentation as well as clear engagement with the critical sources. Your essay should employ sound reasoning as it defends the thesis through logical argumentation and presentation of sound evidence. It should contain no material that is not directly relevant to the thesis.Explanations should be detailed and coherent and should avoid vague or generalized assertions.

Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

Examples, illustrations, and supporting detail should be used frequently and appropriately to demonstrate the validity of the thesis. The essay should also present criticisms of the thesis (i.e., counterarguments) fairly, and it should address such criticisms rationally and appropriately. You may integrate any relevant portion of your previous essays and/or parts of your annotated bibliography into this essay if you revise them for this new rhetorical purpose. §The Conclusion should bring adequate closure to the paper. While it should reemphasize the thesis, it should also avoid excessive repetition of previous points. It should also address the reasons the overarching implications of the topic on the reading audience. Why does this issue matter?

Organization

This essay can be organized in a number of ways, but it should be organized in a manner that best fits the essay’s content. Regardless of the particular organizational pattern chosen, the essay should employ logical organization and progression of thought, clear and smooth transitions, and coherent and developed paragraphs. At some point, the essay must address possible objections to its thesis, but the exact place of such rebuttal in the essay will depend on the organizational pattern chosen.

Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

Sources

This essay must use and cite a minimum of eight sources. It must use at least six scholarly sources (books, peer-reviewed journal articles, etc.) and two primary sources (your work of art and your classical text). In addition, the essay may cite sources from other credible media such as newspaper articles, popular periodicals, government documents, published interviews and speeches, studies, surveys, etc. However, you should avoid on dictionaries or encyclopedias unless they provide information not available elsewhere, which is a highly unlikely situation. Do not rely on only one or two sources for the majority of your information. All quotations must be quoted exactly and attributed to the proper source. Quotations should be smoothly integrated into the paper and should also be explained adequately. The essay may not use more than four block quotations (quotations four lines or longer) and may not use more than 750 total words (about two and a half, double-spaced pages) of quoted material.

Documentation

MLA citation must be used correctly and consistently throughout the essay and the works cited page. In-text citations should be used whenever you are using a quotation, a paraphrase, or even a summary of an idea from a source. You can find the guidelines for the MLA 8 format in the course textbook or at www.purdue.edu/owl. The works cited page must be arranged alphabetically by the authors’ last names and must give full, accurate bibliographic information for each source. The works cited page should list only those works that are actually cited in the text, and every citation in the text must clearly refer to a citation on the works cited page. Lastly, remember to evenly double-space your works cited page and indent every line after the first by ½”.

Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

Technicalities

This essay must be at least eight full pages long, but should not exceed 12 pages. Papers shorter than eight full pages will receive grade deductions. The paper should be double-spaced in 12-pt. Times New Roman font with 1” margins. Do not use a title page. Further Directions and Warnings

Mainly, this paper should combine your own thinking and argumentation with that of outside sources. The thesis should be your own, and sources should be used to support the thesis. You should use sources primarily to provide factual information or to offer a unique viewpoints and profound statements from specific authors. In no case should you use sources as “padding” to make the essay longer. If the essay demonstrates noticeable ignorance of important aspects of the topic, this will substantially lower the grade. Therefore, you should not procrastinate in doing research for this project, as you will need to be familiar with all important aspects of the topic. Finally, please note, I will not accept your research paper if I have not approved your topic and seen your work in progress (i.e., an annotated bibliography, an outline, and rough drafts in process). You must produce an acceptable research paper in order to pass this course.

A Final Reminder

I cannot stress this enough: SAVE everything that you do on at least two different storage devices (flash drive, Box, etc.) and at the end of every work session, email what you have completed to yourself. An excuse such as “my computer won’t read my flash drive” is not acceptable when it comes to your research essay. Must use the prince and nicomachean ethics

Philosophies of Happiness represented by Boethius

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