FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR

mechanical details

The paper should be typed double-spaced.

The paper should be between 3 and 5 pages in length. . (And . . . one-inch margins, 10 or 12-point type, no weird fonts, etc.).

Give references for any sources you use, including the class texts. Citations of specific ideas or arguments should include page numbers (so I can look them up easily).

Due dates:

• First Short Paper: Draft due to Cory by Friday, February 5. Final draft due to me by Wednesday, February 10.
• Second Short Paper: Final draft due Wednesday, March 3. Rough draft encouraged but not required.
• Third Short Paper: Final draft due Wednesday, March 31. Rough draft encouraged but not required.

evaluation

1. The paper should have a thesis or main point. You should take a stand on one of the issues we have discussed so far, and use the paper to defend that stand. Possible theses might include: It is/isn't morally acceptable to make available information about how to obtain unauthorized access to computer systems. (Plenty of room here for further precision: make available how? Books, magazines, online bulletin boards, web sites? What kind of information? Lists of frequently used passwords? Software for guessing passwords? Specific information about security weaknesses at specific sites? Etc.) Or: Kevin Mitnick should/shouldn't be freed. Or: it should/shouldn't be possible to obtain patents on algorithms. Or: the appropriate way to keep children from blowing themselves up is . . . (parental control; restricted access to sites or publications with such information; a prohibition on making such information available at all; etc). (Then you would want to explain why the specific level of protection you recommend is the right level, i.e. why not more or less.) Etc!

2. Argument. Your paper needs to be more than an autobiographical account of your experience in reading the material. You need to offer reasons for your position or against the one you are attacking. One very good strategy students often do not use enough is to think of possible objections to your view and respond to them. In addition, if you are criticizing someone else's work, it is a very good idea to discuss how you think the writer would defend his or her position against your criticisms. This helps to deepen your argument. Contrary to what some students fear, it also makes your argument more persuasive. People sometimes worry that raising objections to their own view, or supplying responses an opponent might make, just needlessly makes trouble for their thesis. But a sophisticated reader will be thinking of objections to your view while reading your paper; such a reader will be helped if you show how you would deal with these objections. (It may also help to keep in mind that the goal of these papers is to work out a position as carefully and completely as you can; it is more a search for the truth than an attempt to persuade. The more objections you consider and respond to, and the more fair you are to your opposition, the more cogent and thoughtful your own view is likely to be.)

3. Clarity is vitally important: you need to write carefully and organize your paper very explicitly. If necessary, you should ruthlessly sacrifice elegance of style in favor of glaringly obvious signposting: for example, "The second objection to making security information available is that the potential costs are very great." That's not a great sentence, but it gets the point across clearly.

4. It is a requirement for the paper that it include some use of the reading material for the course. You might criticize one or more arguments found in the reading, or defend such an argument against a possible objection, or adjudicate a dispute between two pieces we have read. But there needs to be some sort of response to the reading.

remarks on writing the paper

1. Important point about secondary sources: keep in mind that what is of interest is not the views they hold but rather the arguments they offer for them. Appeals to authority carry no weight at all. That Perry says information ought to be free is, by itself, of no interest; what is interesting and may be worth discussing are the reasons he offers for this view.

2. It's a good idea to jot down ideas, questions, and criticisms of the readings we are studying as you go. This will help you master the material, will help you understand and contribute to class discussion, and (the reason I mention it here) will give you a good starting point for the paper. The very first draft of the paper can be fairly impressionistic and stream-of-consciousness; sometimes it is helpful in getting started to just sit down and start writing, even if you have no very clear idea of where the paper is going. BUT, by the time you turn in the official first draft of the paper, it should be well-organized and clearly presented; it should be clear from the outset where the paper is going and how it will get there. This means that the official "first draft" should really be at least a second draft. The better the draft you turn in, the more valuable the feedback you get will be, since your commentator will not need to waste time making points you should have thought of yourself.

3. Academic integrity is taken very seriously at Trinity (as elsewhere). Be very careful not to plagiarize, not to treat someone else's words or ideas as your own. Make sure you don't inadvertently violate Trinity's policy. Copying an entire paper of course is plagiarism--but so is copying or closely paraphrasing a single sentence. If someone else makes a point in a particularly elegant or entertaining way it is all right to make use of their words, but only if you enclose them in quotation marks and give a complete reference indicating where they came from. If I discover that a paper has been plagiarized in whole or part, I must, according to University policy, either give the paper a failing grade, reduce the course grade by one letter grade, or give the student a failing grade in the course. I must notify the student in writing, and send copies of this notification to my chairman, the Dean of Humanities and Arts, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs.