Ten students in this class may do a paper (satisfying Writing Requirement I or II, see attached statement).  If you are one of those students, you will be graded on three different aspects of work.  First, you will be graded on presence, preparedness and participation in class room discussion.  Second, you yourself will become a presenter taking over the presentation of a discrete topic (provided that this can be accommodated within our general reading schedule) or simply taking charge of effectively doing an hour of class work.

    Third, is the paper itself.  As you can see from the attachment to Additional Syllabus, a paper has four distinct phases: Choice of topic and preliminary research, production of an outline of the paper, production of a draft paper and, based on comments on the draft, production of a final paper for grading purposes.

The dates for these four stages are as follows:

I.  An acceptable topic must be chosen by the end of the third week of class, that is, by the close of business on Tuesday, February 2.  Notify my of your topic by leaving a written statement with my secretary; the statement should give me a general idea of the subject matter and approach you are planning.
II.  Two weeks after the topic is chosen, that is, on Tuesday, February 16, you will leave with my secretary a reasonably detailed outline that indicates the material you will be covering, the points you will be making and the problems you will be trying to deal with.  The outline may, but is not required to, have an attached bibliography.
III.  You will leave a substantial draft of your paper with my secretary on April 6.  A substantial draft is one which, to your own thinking, does an adequate job of covering the material and is formally complete or substantially complete.  Formal completeness means that the paper is written in acceptable prose, with grammatical errors, infelicities and typos removed as far as possible.  The draft will also be correctly footnoted (or endnoted).
IV.  I will communicate my comments to you either in an interview or by e-mail.  After you receive my comments, re-work your paper and make it the best that you can do.  In addition to all other formal elements, you should now append a complete bibliography.  The final paper must be left with my secretary no later than the last day of class.

 You may sit with me and discuss the work that you are doing or any problems that you find difficult to handle.   As a matter of fact, you are urged to do so.  A list of suggested topics will follow shortly.