The paper for the class gives you the opportunity to choose a theme or a topic that we have touched on in the course of the class and to expand on it through your own individual research (by research here we mean further reading, as in “library research”).

In developing the particular topic that your paper focuses upon, choose a central concept or a theme from the class (lectures and readings) and expand on it through your own further reading, research, and thinking. A number of topic possibilities have been discussed in the lectures but you are free to develop your own focus as long as you are able to discuss in your paper why and how a given topic contributes to our understanding of science, specifically from a cultural perspective. As sources for your research, use books accessible in the university library, and/or articles from academic journals (not popular magazines, newspapers, or websites—though you can make reference to these as well, beyond the academically grounded sources). In your paper, synthesize the information you have located from your reading and thinking into one narrative. One way to
organize such a narrative is by forming a question around the theme or a topic you are approaching.
As a whole, you need to locate 4-5 academic references beyond the class readings and have these organized as a bibliography at the end of your paper (follow the Chicago style of citations – examples at the end of this handout).

Length: The term paper should be approximately 3000 words long (roughly 6 pages) essay that demonstrates the capacity for independent thought, discussion and research in relation to some of the course themes.

Formatting: Use 10-12 point font and single spacing, with one space between each paragraph (similar to how this document itself is formatted).

The grading principles for the paper involve five main categories:
1) Overall structure (this means): That your paper is set up with structure that allows the reader to follow your main line(s) of thought. On a minimum, this involves having:
a) an introduction in which you explain what your paper centers on and what the key ideas are that you have chosen, including how these ideas fit into this particular course.
b) the main body of your paper (with further subheadings as needed – see the sample paper on Blackboard as a general model) in which you bring out the central ideas that you have located through your research, while discussing their main merits, limitations, and/or relationship to other scholarly ideas.
c) a conclusion in which you reflect on the overall importance or the nature of the ideas that you have presented in your paper. One way to conclude your paper is through a further question or an idea that this paper might lead you into investigating (or just thinking about) in the future. What are other kinds of questions that might be important to think about but are currently left out from your paper?

2) Grammar and syntax: that the paper is written well and coherently structured; that each sentence conveys something (avoid too much redundancy); that the paragraphs transition from each other in a logical fashion. Generally speaking, this category refers to the overall readability of your text: that you explain the ideas in standard English and that you structure (and format) your text so that it makes it easy for the reader to follow. Always proofread your own text (it’s very helpful to read it out loud) and also try to find someone else read it for you so that they can identify the sentences or moments in the text that are unclear and/or confusing.

3) Research and citations: that your paper meets the requirements for the use of academic (i.e. “peer-reviewed”) and published sources (remember, not “scientific”); that these sources are properly utilized and cited within the text (make sure that the ideas you cite are actually particular to the text you are reading, rather than commonsensical); that the sources are listed at the end of the paper as a bibliography that follows the Chicago style. You do not need to have any footnotes in your text, for references or otherwise (though if you want to have footnotes, you are free to do so).
Simply cite each source in the text in the following way: (Anderson 2014, 23) – the author’s last name, the year that this text was published, and the page number in which the particular idea that you are referring to is brought up. Then, make sure that for every reference you bring up in your text, the details of the publication are listed in your bibliography (see the examples at the end of this document).

4) Relevance: This category refers to a systematic demonstration of some of the key issues and concepts that we have developed in this course during this semester. This aspect is important for you to directly articulate either in the introduction or in the conclusion of your paper (again, view the sample paper for aspect in particular); if you think you are doing it, highlight it and make it part of your discussion. In essence, the main expectation here is that you have something to say about the way in which your topic fits into this specific course. You can do this by naming some of the main ideas that we have examined (i.e. science as a cultural practice/the historical emergence of science/the concept of race); then explain or discuss this idea a bit in your own words (why do you think we talked about this particular idea); and then explain how your specific topic expands on this basic idea or on the overall theme of the course. You might also highlight the specific aspects about science as a cultural practice did you research that we didn’t talk very much about during the lectures.

5) Insight: a degree of analysis or depth that you bring in by making particular connections or raising further applications, questions, or broader issues relevant to your chosen topic. In other words, if you do #4 (relevance) well, your paper will inevitably demonstrate a keen analytical approach and thereby portrays depth and insight. Basically, it shows that you have thought about the issues through and that you are able to articulate something about the richness of these concepts. As a general guideline, people who keep asking further questions tend to develop such skills of critical and analytical thinking quite naturally.

3->Bibliography example (“references”). Simply follow these examples in putting together the bibliography for your term paper.

[Here’s how to cite books]
Abram, David
2011 Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Random House.
1999 The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More‐than‐Human World. New York: Vintage.
Chen, Nancy
2003 Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China. Columbia University Press.
Suzuki, Tadashi
1986 Ekkyô suru Chikara. Translated from the Japanese by J. Thomas Rimer as The Way of
Acting: The Theatre Writings of Tadashi Suzuki. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc.

[Here’s how to cite book chapters]
Csordas, Thomas J.
1994 Introduction: The Body as Representations and Being-in-the World. In Thomas J. Csordas (ed) Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground for Culture and the Self,
pp. 1-24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Downey, Greg
2007 Seeing with a ‘Sideways Glance’: Visuomotor ‘Knowing” and the Plasticity of Perception.
In Mark Harris (ed.), Ways of Knowing: Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge, pp. 202 – 241. New York: Berghahn.

[Here’s how to cite academic articles]
Barnacle, Robin
2009 Gut Instinct: The Body and Learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory 41(1):22- 33.
Korsmeyer, Carolyn
2002 Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60(3):
217-225.

The paper for the class gives you the opportunity to choose a them...