Infrequently Asked Questions
Below are questions that I wish students would ask more frequently. If you are asking yourself any of these questions, please give yourself a pat on the back for doing so, and then look to the answers below. If you don't yet have any questions, I hope this list will give you some ideas regarding what you should be thinking about as you go through the course.
What format do you expect for written assignments? Are there any stylistic requirements particular to this class?
-
All portions of your guided reflection worksheet & final product should be written using a word processor. The downloadable GRW (as well as the extra credit reading analysis form) is availabe in Microsoft Word, the widely popular software supported on all campus computers, as well as in PDF format from which you can cut and paste if you are using a different word processing program. Please help save trees by deleting unused spaces after filling in the your answers on these forms.
In all your written work, furthermore, BEWARE OF THE AUTO-CORRECT FEATURE that is a standard feature of word processing software, which may substitute the wrong word in an attempt to correct your spelling. I strongly recommend that you disable this function; in MS Word, un-check "replace as you type" under "Autocorrect" in the "Tools" menu.
-
As strange as this will seem at first, do NOT put your name on any of your typed pages; it should appear only on the back of the last page only. On the reports (NOT needed for the worksheet), please DO PUT
- date
- course number
- name of assignment
- my name
at the top of your first page. (Please help save trees by NOT INCLUDING A COVER PAGE.) Also number all your pages (but not with a header that includes your name!)
-
When describing a practice mentioned in the readings, you must give parenthetical page references not only for quoting directly, but also for any paraphrased description you present. Use MLA in-text citation format if you cite (the optional source) Asian Art: ([author’s last name] [page no.])--e.g., (La Plante 28); but when you cite from the anthologies or textbook, please use the title abbreviation (MOO, RAP, or IAR) instead of the author's last name.
-
A parenthetical citation should be just before the period or semicolon which concludes the relevant quote or paraphrase (unless you are citing a single-spaced, indented block quote--see the next comment--in which case it should follow after the period); in no case should the parentheses and their content be within citation marks, since they are not part of what you are quoting.
-
If at any point you choose to quote three or more lines of text, please offset the quote by an extra blank line before and after; and then indent and single-space the text. Note, though, that you may be better off using paraphrase rather than extensive quoting in your reflections, given the word limit you should be observing.
- Although writing bibliographies is a valuable and necessary skill for academic work, this class does not make use of that skill. Since the items in the reflection should draw entirely on class readings, you do not need to include a list of sources in standard bibliographic form.
[Occasional statements throughout this document are derived, with permission,
from a similar document written by my colleague Peter Fosl, Associate Professor
and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Transylvania University.]