FORMAT: The length of the report must be between 1,400 and 2,400 words in length (total
word count) and will vary
depending on how concise your writing is.
You will be graded on content, the quality of your analyses, and the
quality of your writing, including grammar and spelling. I reserve the right to return your paper
unread if you have not followed the proper format or if you have more than four
spelling or grammatical errors per page.
When you use the words of others,
use quotation marks and reference appropriately. These papers will be checked
by SafeAssign for plagiarism. You will lose points for plagiarism, either from
the original book or from other papers. Extreme cases of plagiarism may result
in an F on the paper and/or in the class. To be graded, reports must have an APA title page, abstract and reference
page (please see the example on Blackboard).
CONTENT: You will have four main
sections of your paper plus a references section. Below, I provide directions
on what to put in each section. Read
through this and the sample paper before you start your paper. I suggest
as you read the book, use Post-it® stickers or something similar to
mark the main points and analogies you find interesting. That way, you do not
have to go back through the novel when it comes time to write.
Title (Intro)
Describe
the content of the book in terms of the questions the author is trying to
answer in this part of the book. For
example, “Gaarder recounts the history of Western philosophy by telling the
story of a young girl who has questions about life and becomes involved in a
mystery she attempts to solve.” This
section should be no more than one or
two short paragraphs. The first and second book reports should have different
introductions.
Main Topics
Describe six main topics (philosopher, idea, or
theme) in the half of the book about which you are reporting (first paper
covers the first half, second paper covers the second half). Use one to three paragraphs for each main topic. Please
number each of the six and indicate the pages which the topic spans.
This section will be about the meat of the book, not the plot or mystery. Any
of the “six main topics” can be philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, Descartes,
Hegel), questions across time (e.g., Is knowledge innate or acquired?) and/or
historical trends (e.g., Hellenism). They can be in any combination (e.g., four
philosophers, one trend, and one question). Be sure to sample from across the chapters you read for each report. You
will lose points if you skip
over more than 50 pages of the text without addressing a topic from those pages.
****with 50 pages it’s every 3 chapters****
**** this essay is the second half of the book and will start from chapter SPINOZA and goes to THE BIG BANG ****
Anecdotes
Gaarder employs many anecdotes to explain the ideas he is
teaching in this book. Write about three
anecdotes (e.g., stories, illustrations, analogies, examples) you
especially enjoyed (for example, the cookie cutter or Legos stories). Please
use one paragraph per anecdote. First, make a statement of the principle to
illustrated and briefly (1 sentence) describe
then anecdote then explain why you like it. Please number each of these and
cite the page numbers which the anecdote spans.
Evaluation and Conclusion
Write a statement of how
this part of the book contributed to your knowledge of psychology and its
history. You can consider such things as
integration and/or explanation of principles, tracing the line of a particular
viewpoint, what the work contributes, what the work lacks, and so on. You may also include the philosophical
changes to your own world view that you may have undergone.