Walkup's Way Home Ethics Paper
 
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. F. Bacon
 
 

Requirements

  • A 6-page, double-spaced paper examining one ethical issue. Paper must conform to MLA or APA research paper guidelines.
    • Note: six full pages of writing [ not 5 pages and 2 lines], excluding the works cited page
    • Font Size:  maximum of 12.
    • Should you choose to work with a partner, the writing   requirements are doubled
    • You must submit a question with your paper that can be included on the third test. Students will know the answer because of your oral report.
    • Sample student papers are here ( http://www.walkupsway.com/studentwork2.htm).  A paper that conforms nicely to my requirements is   Polygamy written  by Leah  in 2006 ,
  • Should you want to exercise your creative faculties & do something different from the traditional 6-page double-spaced paper, get my OK first.   In previous ethics classes, instructors have offered  alternatives to the 6-page paper. Feel free to look at these.

Depending on the nature/topic of your paper, most papers should

  • Clearly state the controversial issue you are discussing
    • Provide background information on the issue to place it in a proper context ( when did this issue first arise; what brought it to the fore; and the current status of this issue)
  • Explain what the conflicts/problems are. If your paper involves specialized terms, define/explain these.
  • Describe various solutions and their consequences based on various ethical perspectives we have studied in class.
  • Conclude stating which arguments/solution you find the most convincing & why. Your voice shines through. Use the word "I" in your conclusion because the conclusion is your point of view.

Optional ideas 

If you would like a break from the  traditional, formal, documented paper, I am offering you the opportunity to explore other writing assignments that would be fun and of  benefit to others.

(1)  You may submit photos and  information to be published on Student Web Page, similar to the following pages:  English class http://community.tncc.edu/faculty/dollieslager/masterlearner.html  or   First Year Experience class   http://www.walkupsway.com/FYEStudentWork.htm .. You may do this on your own or as part of a group project.

(2)  You may want to create "handout/brochures/booklets" on ethical theories; making ethical ideas; big names in ethics; ethical theories; ethical issues....     Create handouts as a series so that they have a similar look.  These could be placed for distribution in the college and published on our web page too!

(3) You may want to get involved in an ethical issue/service learning project , write a reflective paper about your involvement, and present an oral report to the class

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try an alternate assignment
Celebrate your creativity & success

Enjoy!!!!

Read 2 articles on Web assignments:
(1)   On Course
(2)  Virginia Community Colleges
   

Oral Presentation Requirement

  • An oral presentation accompanies the written work.  Generally, these are about 4 minutes long.  Because my classes generally are full to capacity, we do not have time for lengthy reports.  Presentation should conform to and will be graded according to the published Grading Rubric.
  • Each oral presentation must include a question that will be considered for inclusion in the final exam.
  • See the Student Critique Form for the presentation.
  • Power Points
    •  Instructions for creating a PowerPoint presentation can be found at http://www.walkupsway.com/fyepowerpointcrreate.htm      Note: You need not have a PowerPoint
    •  For PowerPoint presentations it is always a good idea to include a Works Cited page should your audience want to read more about this topic.
    • Email PowerPoints to me, so I can place them on my classroom computer desktop to save time. (It takes too long for each student to log on to access their personal I drives.)
    • Sample student PowerPoints can be found here
  •  Oral Presentation: Tips on oral presentations can be found  at http://www.walkupsway.com/studentwork2.htm

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My Goal:

Three Rivers is committed to improving students' critical thinking, researching, writing, and speaking skills.  This assignment will develop all of these skills.

I also want you to learn more about a subject you are interested in and  share the knowledge you've learned with others.  Stephen Covey's book, The 8th Habit reminds us that being educated involves a responsibility: sharing what we know with others.  This will provide you with an opportunity to do so.  Additionally, studies indicate the best way to learn something is to teach it. (See the learning pyramid.).

Thank you

I thank Three River's librarian, Mona Florea for her assistance in developing the research component of this assignment and for volunteering to to provide a lecture to my ethics students on research  resources and strategies for ethics papers. 
                                                                                                  Louise N. Walkup

_

[Documentation and Format Guide  from Mona Florea, Librarian

Mona Florea  created style guides for both MLA and APA. These are particularly useful because she created examples that reflect research from Three Rivers databases.  These are available in the Learning Resource Center.  Two sample entries are below:

MLA Online Database Article

Elements of an online database article:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Title of the Periodical volume number.issue number (Date of
      publication): starting page number- . Name of Database. Name of Service. Name, City, and State Abbreviation of
      Library Accessed. Date.

Expanded Academic ASAP

Austin, Linda M. “Children of Childhood: Nostalgia and the Romantic Legacy.” Studies in Romanticism

42.1 (2003): 75- . Expanded Academic ASAP. InfoTrac. Three Rivers Community College Learning

Resource Center, Norwich, CT. 8 Jan. 2004.

 
APA Online Database Article

Online Database Article

Pace, B. (2000, June). Generalized anxiety disorder. JAMA, 283(23), 3156. Retrieved

             February 19, 2003, from Expanded Academic ASAP database.

 

Documentation Guide from Hacker's online handbook for  writing/grammar 

The writing center suggests  Hacker's handbook for  writing/grammar     and format/documentation help/examples. Hacker provides instructions & examples for   56 Works Cited entries.  See example # 31 below.

31. WORK FROM A SERVICE SUCH AS INFOTRAC For sources retrieved from a library's subscription database service, give as much of the following information as is available: publication information for the source (see items 20–26); the name of the database, underlined; the name of the service; the name and location of the library where you retrieved the source; your date of access; and the URL of the service.

Johnson, Kirk. "The Mountain Lions of Michigan." Endangered Species
Update 19.2 (2002): 27+. Expanded Academic Index. InfoTrac.
U of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor. 26 Nov. 2002 <http://
infotrac.galegroup.com>.

 

Writing Center Help

The  phone number for the Writing Center desk is 892-5773 (for appointments, general information, hours, etc...)

Also, Jon Brammer, Writing Center Coordinator, can be reached at 860-892-5769 or jbrammer@trcc.commnet.edu .   

Students can also  get help from the Center after hours by sending their draft papers either as  MS Word attachments or by cutting and pasting them into  regular e-mails and submitting to: TRWritingCenter@trcc.commnet.edu  . 

Visit the Writing Center's web site http://www.trcc.commnet.edu/Ed_Resources/writing_center/

Documentation: Additional Links
 Three Rivers MLA Citation Style Guide
Three Rivers APA Citation Style Guide
Turabian Citation Style Guide (Northwest Missouri State University)
ASA Citation Style Guide (California State University - Los Angeles)
 Purdue:  Purdue MLA     Purdue APA   
APA Research Style Crib Sheet Georgia Southern University
 Hacker's  format/documentation
 Library of Congress - Electronic Documentation Guide 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Comments Regarding Library Instruction: 

 

I really enjoyed the presentation by Mona. I have been attending Three Rivers for 6 years and this was the first time that someone has explained all the resources that are available at our library.  I was truly impressed.  I will definitely use the library resources while I continue my studies.  Thank you. Wilma

 

I thought it was a great idea to have a speaker introduce the basics to getting credible information on the computer. It will help me a lot to find sources.  I also think it was a good idea to use the computers after the lecture so we could get a feel for the websites and databases.

 

Mona was a great librarian. She gave us the information we needed to find the different topics. It was great to know that information is available to us to write our research paper. I don’t have to depend on the public libraries or the different search engines.  I have been 4 years and NO ONE has taken the time to inform me about this wonderful resource.  I could have written better papers had I known about this in the past.  I am very grateful for M. Walkup inviting her and her taking the time to see and share the information. Thanks, Lydia

 

 

The library experience was great. I learned some new and very interesting facts about doing research through the library from my home. I’m sure these will be very useful for years to come.

 

I really enjoyed Mona Florea’s excellent presentation. She was very interesting and she conveyed some useful, pertinent info that I can use in many other classes. Thank you for including this in our class. Kathleen

 

I thought the library lecture given by Ms. Mona Florea was very helpful.  It is always important to know where to look for pertinent information, and as stated, accurate information… This should be included in future classes.

 

 

I felt the library presentation was very helpful. I enjoyed Mona’s insights into locating pertinent information about various topics. Thank you!

 

I found the librarian to be very helpful. Although I’ve been coming to Three Rivers for some time now, she informed me of sources I wasn’t aware of. Yolanda

 

I have been in several lectures with Mona Florea and all the time I see her I always learn something new. I must say I will do a much better research this year than I did last year.  I think every class should have a traditional introduction to research and benefits of our library.  Virginia

 

The trip to the library was of value to learn what is available for us to create a better paper than standard research. Of course, we do learn better by actually doing what we learn.

 

Excellent introduction to college library. Should be a requirement for first year students. Thank you.  Thomas

 

Mona’s presentation was very benefiting. I recommend that you ask her to do that for future classes. I learned plenty of ways to research for assignments. Nicole

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to teach us about the vase information that is available on the computer and in the library.  I appreciate all that you did.   Patrick

 

Library info was helpful and informative. It really helped to actually to go to the library and see where everything is.

 

 

 

I think the speaker that came in was a great help. I feel much more confident in finding materials. I believe you should do this for all your classes. Jason

 

I think that the librarian coming into class was very helpful, as I didn’t know that there were so many helpful resources available from home, as well as at school.  Mona was very informative, and I thoroughly enjoyed her helpful lecture. Amy

 

I found the presentation on library resources extremely helpful. Thank you   Joseph

 

I believe that having the librarian come will prove to be very effective on all of our papers if the information she provided is utilized correctly.  Thank you for taking time out of class to do this activity.

 

I think that the library presentation was excellent. It was exactly like what I had in high school and even though it is stuff that I know about, it is nice to get acquainted with this specific library. Also I would encourage you to really urge students to go to the writing center. Although some of us know how to write a paper of this nature, many people are not recent high school graduates with the expertise in modern writing format. Sincerely, Robert

 

Going to the library and also having Miss Florea teach us how to retrieve the information I need will help me in the future. It’s a great program to teach people how to obtain things from the library.

 

In-Class Activity

1. Write the title of two articles that intrigue you in the CQ Researcher which is   in the Reference section (also note the date so that you can find this article again)
2. Write the title of two articles that intrigue you in the  Congressional Digest and CQ Weekly found in the periodical section (one for each publication) (also make note of the date)
3.  Since we are too large a class for individual computers, get together with a partner & write down the titles of  two articles (one for you and one for your partner) that you find interesting from Facts.com  or from another of our proprietary databases.
 
Attach this in-class activity sheet to your paper.

 

Grading Standards
A An essay graded A is excellent in style and content. it is carefully organized around a clear central thesis, which is consistently supported. It contains interesting and original ideas. Its paragraphs are unified, coherent, and well-developed, and transitions are graceful and easily followed. Its sentences are varied in structure and consistently correct. Its vocabulary is mature and well-suited to the topic. The A paper is perfect or nearly perfect in grammar, spelling and punctuation. (A- 90-93 points; A 94-100 points)
B An essay graded B displays many of the characteristics of the A paper, but to a lesser degree. It satisfies the requirements of the assignment, but not in an exemplary way. It is competent but not quite as original and insightful. Its writing, though correct and clear, may be somewhat less graceful and vivid. Some paragraphs may be lacking in proper development. It contains very few errors in the mechanics of writing. Highly original and clever essays, marred by careless errors, may receive a B. There may be slight errors in documentation. (B- 80-82; B 830-86; B+ 87-89)
C The C essay is generally organized according to a recognizable plan, but transitions from point to point are less graceful than those found in A or B papers. The thesis may not be forcefully expressed. The introduction and conclusion lack the vitality of an A or B essay. Paragraphs are lacking in development. Grammatical errors may hinder the communication of ideas. Documentation might be done incorrectly. The paper might not conform to directions given. (C- 70-71; C 73-76; C+ 77-79)
D The D essay may be lacking in organization, communication of ideas, or sentence structure. Paragraphs may need a clearer topic sentence, stronger development, and unity. Poor organization, development, or grammar seriously hampers the communication of ideas. The paper may be incomplete in terms of meeting specified requirements. (D 63-66; D+ 67-69)
F An essay graded F fails to meet even minimally the requirements of the assignment. it may be unclear, undeveloped and hard to follow. It may lack a plan or central idea. paragraphs are undeveloped and lack in organization. Paper may contain fragments and run-together sentences. Paper may not have been written according to the required format and directions. Numerous errors seriously hamper the communication of ideas.
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- Study Questions from Oral