NOTE:
What
you need to have prepared by each of these mileposts is laid out more fully
in the "Writing Assignments" Web page. This
page merely refers to the mileposts (deadlines) by which they need to be
submitted. (The reason for the 11:30 a.m. deadlines is that my assistant
only works half time, 8:00 a.m. until noon, each day.)
The first two weeks -- from
the time you first see this Web page until January 25, are the most important
and demanding period for your seminar paper. This is the time during which
you should be doing a substantial amount of "pre-research" each day, exploring
on the Internet and elsewhere the range of possible topics, discussing
your options with me (in person or by e-mail), perhaps changing or refining
your choice, and ultimately settling on your actual topic. Clearly it is
not something that can be done the night before it is due.
Wednesday, January 25, at
11:30 a.m. is the final deadline to conclude the topic selection
process, including your conferences or other exchanges with the instructor,
your final selection and revisions in your description. By the 25th you
are to have settled on a sufficiently narrowed topic, and turn it in to
my assistant before she leaves that day -- a topic that you and I have
already tentatively agreed upon. Once I have formally approved and signed
off on your topic . . .
The next two weeks –
January 26-Febrary 8 – is a period during which you should do enough research
that you are able to hold a conference with me during the week of February
13th to discuss how your topic is holding up and your research is coming
along. See "Conferences" for more
insight as to what that involves.
The outline. (See
"Outlines.") This will then give you
three
weeks to put together either (1) a detailed (at least three-level)
outline of how you propose to organize your paper, or (if your hatred
of outlines is so severe that it interferes with your doing your best work),
(2) with my prior permission, a rough draft of your paper [with the possibility
of a – very limited – option of indicating, within brackets, what
will be inserted where there are brief omissions]. The outlining option
is very highly recommended.
Note the relative
amounts of time allocated for outlining (three weeks) and "writing" (10
days to three weeks). This is premised on the assumption that you will
have completed something like 80 percent of the tasks of "writing" in your
process of "outlining" -- if the latter includes much-to-most of your research,
thought and analysis, organizing and re-organizing your structure and flow,
and even some early stabs at writing some of the sub-sections of the paper.
Based on past experience If you don't take the outlining seriously, and
give it this kind of time and attention, you will find it very difficult
to turn out a quality paper in the time allocated for "writing."
Outlines are due March 1st
by 11:30 a.m. This will give us some additional time for our
. . .
Conferences March 2-3 and
6 are designed to enable you to get me committed to the approach you
are taking, as represented in your detailed outline.
Spring break is March
13-17.
First final draft preparation,
additional research. You will then have from March 20th (or from March
7th if you choose to use spring break week that way) until March 31st
to
do the additional research and writing necessary to prepare your formal
"first final draft." Hopefully, most of the work is already behind you
as a result of your detailed outline. Thus, the "writing" is little more
than a "fill in the blanks in your outline" exercise -- plus re-writing,
and re-writing again, polishing your prose, checking citations and Blue
Book form, and so forth. Recall that a "first final draft" is a final,
not a "rough," draft. It should be the best work of which
you are capable, something you would be proud to show a potential
future employer. This draft is solely your work product, and it is, therefore,
the major part of the research paper process for purposes of assigning
a grade. (Subsequent drafts may include such direct input from me as you
may find useful, and are, therefore, less representative of work uniquely
yours.) If you've done your research early, and have a sufficiently detailed
outline, writing your first final draft should be the fun part: putting
into prose what you've already thought through and organized, revising
and rewriting as you go, tweaking here and there with your words the way
a potter does with her clay. First final drafts are due March 31st by
11:30 a.m.
Final final draft preparation,
additional research and writing. On the assumption I can get the editing
done March 31-April 3, we can hold one-on-one conferences the week of
April 3rd to discuss the necessary additional research, writing, organization,
proof reading, and rewriting on your papers. This will leave you a little
over a week to do that work. (It will also leave you the final week of
the semester, beginning April 17th, free of obligations for this seminar.)
The
deadline for the “final final draft” will be April 14th at 11:30 a.m.
Oral presentations of participants'
papers, as detailed elsewhere, will be scheduled for March 29, April
5 and 12. (Grading of the presentations takes into account that those presenting
on March 29 will be presenting before having held a conference on their
first final draft -- and perhaps even two days before turning it in.)