Visit and research paper

Dr. Deena M. Lin

Phil 502: World Religions

Visit & Research Paper Requirements

Each student will be expected to complete a five-page, double-spaced research paper that consists of both an argument as well as a visit to a Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, or Islamic site of worship. This link provides some possibilities for you to visit (although the parks included are not sufficient for this assignment). It is completely acceptable for you to find an alternative to the sites listed, but just make sure they are part of one of the major traditions we are studying for the course. You are always welcome to see me to ensure you are visiting an acceptable site.

Papers must be turned in on December 7th in class, and should be taken very seriously, as it is worth 20% of your overall grade in the course. Please don’t rush through this assignment. Give yourself enough time to complete it well before the date it is due, because this is much more than a long opinion piece.

Students must turn in a working outline of your paper on November 9th, a month prior to the due date of the paper. The outline will serve as a means for you to organize your thoughts and how you will approach your argument on the topic you’ve chosen. It is worth 5% of your grade, and it is highly recommended that students discuss their topic with the instructor prior to composing their outline. Students must also conduct research on their topic, reading articles that have been written to see if it is viable for them to adequately defend their thesis.

Your paper must be typed using double-spacing, Times New Roman, 12pt. font, with 1” margins all around. Use the attached template for proper formatting. Points will be lost if your paper fails to meet these parameters. I will only accept these assignments late or via email in the most extreme of circumstances. Should your late work be accepted, you will be docked one letter grade per day it is late.

Please follow these steps to complete your assignment:

1. Come up with an area of interest or question that interests you about a religious tradition outside your own, which we cover in this course.

2. Research a site of worship within that faith tradition, and note the service date and time. If you choose a Buddhist temple, please incorporate a dharma talk in your visit. Call ahead to ensure visitors are welcome, as well as if there are rules regarding dress attire.

3. Visit the site, and take detailed notes which you will incorporate into the observation portion of your paper.

4. After your visit, think about what revelations you gained from your visit in terms of the initial interests and concerns you had from the beginning. Now, come up with a claim that you will argue in your paper. To get clearer, you may want to start searching the web to assist you with learning more about the topic and the question you’re focused on.

5. Contact me either via email or during my office hour to ensure your topic would be a reasonable one to address in your paper. You should create your thesis prior to contacting me, but if you need assistance I can help you with this during my office hour.

6. Research your topic, and focus on finding materials that support your position and strengthen your argument.

7. Construct an outline of your argument. This is a philosophy paper, so the thesis needs to be defended through presenting solid research that gives credence to your view. Your visit to the site provides further evidence, but to substantiate your case you must include academic research in either book or journal article form that helps support your view. You must submit a working outline by November 9th.

8. Compose your paper. Please use the following format:

I. Introduction.

Your intro. should present your topic, as well as your thesis, and how you will argue your position. To achieve this briefly introduce the topic, state your thesis, follow this with a paper map (where you briefly state how you will construct your argument), and lastly state its relevance for the reader (i.e., why should I care?).

II. Provide an exegesis of the relevant material that will support your position.

A. Address the basic elements on the topic you have chosen.

-Define the terms that are relevant to what you will be discussing in your argument.

-Explain these terms to show how they are relevant to your position in your own words.

-Include quotes from the primary source material (and cite them properly).

B. Offer an overview of your position in your words.

This section is very difficult because it could require that you summarize a large text in a very short amount of time. It can also be hard to balance the details with the main idea. Therefore, it is helpful to provide the details in the main summary then end this section with a general narrative of the position in your own words. Try to tie-up all the loose pieces of the summary in this final paragraph.

III. Define your position and defend it.

     A. State your position.    -Remind the reader of the main idea behind the position.

   B. Defend this position.    -Explain why you have chosen this position.

It is not enough to explain that you agree with it, you must also explain why you agree with it. Provide examples. Show what details attracted you to the position. Provide evidence as to how history, current events, or your own experiences conform to this position. This is where you should incorporate your observations and insights from your visit. Through supporting your claim with a first-person perspective, it should make your claim more credible.

IV: Conclusion: Briefly bring together all the aspects discussed in your paper.

    A. Briefly restate the purpose of the paper.

    B. BRIEFLY address the main background material relevant to support your position.

    C. Briefly restate your position.

    D. Wrap up any loose ends and write a future goal (i.e. why are your thoughts on this topic’s relevance?).

    The conclusion cannot contain any new information. It can only restate or reorganize that which has already been said. It is still useful because it reminds the reader of what they read and of what you have concluded. Don't underestimate the importance of the conclusion, but, at the same time, keep it short. A couple of paragraphs should be fine.     Your last paragraph should identify a future problem. Are there any unresolved issues that you have not solved? Are there any dangling questions that are essential to deal with in the future? You need not answer all these questions, but you must acknowledge them. It is very common to end papers with an open question that shows the reader that you are still thinking about certain issues, and that they should continue to think about them as well.

9. Important things to note while doing this project:

A. You should provide the thoughts and feelings that arose during your visit in this paper, and include your reflections on the relevant sacred text(s), doctrines, rituals, ethics, religious (emotional) experiences, important material objects, concepts of the sacred or holy, and social institutions of the religion.

B. In addition to documenting your observations during your time at the site, you are also required to make this a scholarly essay. To achieve this, please incorporate some further critical reflection on themes we cover in this course. As an academic exercise, I will be looking for whether your work demonstrates that you have been educated on the tradition you write about.

C. This is also a library-based assignment, so it is imperative that you utilize at least two scholarly sources, which can be in the form of journal articles or out of a book (as long as it is not our course text).

D. Because additional research is required, you must properly cite your work. It is not enough that you cite additional work, but you must show me how it is incorporated into your essay by making proper references to them in your paper (whether directly quoted or not). See the following cites for more instructions on how to properly cite in MLA format: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/ and

http://www.citationmachine.net/mla7/cite-a-website/manual

E. You must proofread, and check your grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Should you incorporate long paragraphs, run-on sentences, capitalization errors, etc., any of these types of mistakes will have a negative effect on your grade.

F. Your paper must be turned in on December 7th in class, and should be taken very seriously, as it is worth 20% of your overall grade in the course. Please don’t rush through this assignment. Give yourself enough time to complete it well before the date it is due, because this is much more than a long opinion piece.

G. You must type your paper using the template included in the following page. Points will be lost if your paper fails to meet these parameters. I will only accept these assignments late or via email in the most extreme of circumstances. Should your late work be accepted, you will be docked one letter grade per day it is late.

<Student Name>

<Course Name>

<Date>

<Paper Title>

Start text here. Indent all paragraphs, and be sure to use proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. Your introductory paragraph should include a brief intro. to the subject matter, as well as a clear thesis with a paper map to follow. The thesis is the aim of your paper. Such as “in this paper I will argue that …”. The paper map tells your reader how it is you will be conducting your argument. Essentially this is a brief description of how you will go about achieving your aim in the paper. It can be as easy as stating “first I will discuss the author’s position on this issue, and then I will introduce the shortcomings found in the supplementary author’s position throughout their text.”

Please remember that any time you refer to another person’s work, you must use proper MLA citation. This must be done whether you are directly quoting their work or whether you are referring to the ideas expressed in their argument. To properly cite their work, please use in-text citations as delineated on this website: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/. You should cite the text by way of the author you are writing about, as opposed to the editors of the textbook we are using. For instance, if you are discussing an essay by William James, you should cite him like this: (James 263). Should you mention James’s name prior to quoting or mentioning his idea, you needn’t include his name in the parenthetical, you can simply include the page number by itself.

Please do not include headers in your paper. These take up space, and are unnecessary. You can include page numbers at the footer of each page, but just include the page number only. At the end of the paper you should include a Works Cited page that is separate from the rest of your paper. Here you will provide corresponding information to supplement your shorter in-text citations. A proper citation to accompany the James text mentioned above appear as follows:

Works Cited

James, William. “The Will to Believe.” Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 7th Ed., edited by Louis Pojman and Michael Rea, Cengage Learning, 2015, 578-587.

For more information on how to make citations on the Works Cited page, please see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/.