Final Exam

Students, please bring your copy of The Things They Carried with you to class. You will need it in order to take your exam.

Thanks
Mr. Tompkins

Questions for In-class Essay

In-Class essay

You will write an ethical argument essay of approximately 350-400 words for or against one of the practices below.

                        

·      Regularly eating beef.          

·      Eating farmed salmon.

·      Consuming conventionally produced dairy products. 

You should base your ethical argument on both principles AND consequences. Your essay should draw on evidence from The Ethics of What We Eat; no other research is necessary. For your argument to be persuasive, you will need to identify and address likely objections to your position. 

In developing consequences for your position, you are encouraged to consider all parties affected by the practice, including individual consumers, food producers (corporations, family farmers, workers, etc.), food retailers, transportation systems, neighborhoods and environments affected by food production, and society at large.

Remember to define a clear thesis in your introduction that (1) identifies the practice you are analyzing and (2) expresses your position for or against the ethics of the practice.

Support your analysis with logical reasoning, explanation of your principles and consequences, and specific examples from the text of The Ethics of What We Eat.

If you have one, please bring a blue book in which to write your essay and include your notes with your essay. Alternatively, you may bring a laptop to use to write your essay. You may NOT bring a finished essay into class, handwritten or on your laptop.

Sample Outline for Research Paper.

Students, I'm posting this to give you and idea of the level of detail needed in the outline for your research paper. The most important thing to notice is how you use citations so that your outline will show the quality of your research. Your outline will be much longer than the one posted below, this is the kind of outline I expect to see. 

Email if you have questions

I.               A. Restate prompt (not word for word). The oil industry is accused of buying influence with mass media outlets in order to shape public opinion on the causes of global warming..

B. Thesis statement: Man-made pollution is the primary cause of global warming, and people must expose the lies they have been fed.

C. The Paris Climate Change conference show that there is  now worldwide concern on this important issue.(NY Times, p. 85)

D. First they denied it was happening, and then, losing that fight, denied fossil fuels contribute. (Redmond, p. 3)

II.             Topic Sentence: Serious scientists believe that greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of global warming.

B. Study by MIT about melting glaciers shows relation between melt and automobile usage (Jones, p. 323) 

- give details

C. Study by govt. task force shows  steady curve…(Survaint p. 421) 

    -(give details)

III.           Topic sentence: Rising sea levels threaten low lying coastal areas

B. Maldives sea levels have forced thousands to relocate inland. (Fredrick, p 310)  give details about what’s happened, impact on survival

C. Florida Key’s are losing area, impacting tourism. (Smithsonian study, p 43) -Even though Florida politicians have made it against the law to use the word climate change. (Rogers, p 4)                                                                              -Dim future for tourism, according to State study of vacation patterns (JSTOR, p 8)

        IV. Conclusion etc, come back to the prompt as you are summing your argument up

Presenting Tonight

Agenda (and assignments), Dec. 3

Students,

1.                       A. For tomorrow’s class please arrive with three “good sources” relating to the Pentagon Papers – sources that you could or will use for your research paper, should you so choose. Two must be from "Scholarly Journals." The third must be from a newspaper or magazine. Write a citation using MLA style.

For each source, please provide a map of the steps you went through to find the source, including (for example) lahc.edu - academics - library – library databases – All Ebsco databases – Academic Search Premier (Those were all links). Then put in search terms and settings such as Pentagon Papers, civil disobedience, treason, supreme court (possible terms) setting like full text, scholarly journal, dates, publication types etc.

You will arrive with this info and in class we will share your results by turning over the computer to you and projecting your search efforts on to the screen.

PLEASE BRING AVAILABLE SMART PHONES IPADS LAPTOPS ETC SO WE CAN USE THEM IN CLASS

B.  Write a one-paragraph description of what in the world of academic writing and researching constitutes a "good source."

 C. Prepare for reading presentations and discussion of The Ethics of What We Eat.

Thursday, November 19: LIBRARY TONIGHT, 7 PM

Be at the library by 7 pm tonight, for a research tutorial, focusing on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, the subject of your final paper.

See you there.

Prompt Research Paper: The Pentagon Papers

Prompt Research Paper: The Pentagon Papers

In June 1971, the New York Times began publishing material from what came to be known as “The Pentagon Papers.” The material was part of a 47-volume study by the Department of Defense that was labeled Top Secret, and related to American’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The papers were given to the newspaper by a man named Daniel Ellsberg, who had as a civilian employee of the DoD had worked on the research for the study in 1967, when it was compiled.

Ellsberg said his expose was a matter of conscience; that he could no longer know about the lies and not do something about the situation. The impact on the country of Ellsberg’s leak was sensational. The nation was tired and injured by the war. Thousands of Americans had been killed and millions of Vietnamese lives had been sacrificed. Billions of dollars had been poured into the fight. The Papers showed that most of the stated reasons for US involvement were lies.

The Papers revealed that the U.S. had expanded its war with bombing of Cambodia and Laos and made unauthorized coastal raids on North Vietnam. None of this had been acknowledged by the government or reported by media in the US. The most damaging revelations in the papers revealed that four administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions regarding Vietnam. The U.S. wanted to exploit Southeast Asian resources, and to contain China and Russia from influencing the region. The administration challenged the publication of the papers. Eventually a US Senator opposed to the war read 4,100 pages into the Congressional Record to make sure they could not be missed, and Times went ahead with publication.

After a government challenge was defeated by the Supreme Court - a crucial victory for freedom of the press - the Times went public. As a result, Ellsberg was charged with espionage, conspiracy, and theft, and faced 115 years in jail if convicted. In 1973, after the government’s lies were thoroughly exposed, the charges against Ellsberg were dropped.

In this paper, you must research the Pentagon Papers. What were they? Discover what they exposed, and why was the information so controversial. Then, based on what your research tells you, decide if you think Ellsberg did the right thing. You must base your opinion on your research.Keep in mind that recently an NSA contractor named Edward Snowden did essentially the same thing with respect to government spying on citizens around the world and at home. He is currently in exile in Russia, because he'll be arrested and tried if he comes home to the U.S.

Facts about your research paper:

1. This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.   You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.  
2. You need to research and cite from at least five sources.  You must use at least 3 different types of sources.  At least one source must be from a library database. At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook. At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
3. The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
4. This paper will be approximately 2000 words in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required.  (use the word count function to check the length) The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.  
5. You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
6. You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.  
7. You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
8. our paper must be logically organized and focused.