Research AssignmentDirections: Produce an original, cogent argument on A3below. The first half of your paper isreserved for describing the main argument advanced by the author(s) in the article (locate all your research in thissection) indicated; the second half is reserved for your critical evaluation of something –whether concept, claim,or argument –already mentioned in the descriptive half of your work.How to find the articles-Leddy Library homepage-Journal articles and research tools-Philosophy-JSTOR-search by titleA3. Montaigne. G. Edelman, “The Therapeutic Skepticism of Michel de Montaigne,”Review of Metaphysics 68:4 (June 2015) 781 –801Length: 4 –6 double-spaced pagesResearch:a. Primary source is determined by your choice of A1 –A4; two to three direct (= word-for-word) citations arerequired from it.b. Secondary sources: three to five (see Rule 2); exactly one direct citation is required from each.c. Method of citation: MLA styleThe Rules1. General. Develop an original, informed, and philosophical (vs. literary, historical, scientific, religious, etc.)response to any ONE of the choicesindicated above. Your ‘assessment’(see Rule 4a) should take theform of a cogent or sound argument. FYI, the premises in a sound argument aim to guarantee the truth oftheir conclusion, but in a cogent one they aim to establish only that their conclusionis likely. Note: Youare permitted to narrow the question, but not to broaden it.2. Evidence. Two sorts are required: primary (= the author(s) and reading(s) indicated in the question) andsecondary (= articles in related research journal literature). Dictionaries, encyclopedias, webpages (eventhose by university professors), newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, book reviews, and the like areprohibited because they carry little to no weight, at least when compared to peer-reviewed articles writtenby experts in the particular field of research –and that’s why you’ll lose marks if you include them. Yourresearch assignment constitutes a task whose leeway while considerable does not extend so far as topermit you to include in your supporting evidence what has here been categorically defined as out ofbounds, or to exclude what has here been required. It’sa big part of our job to make scholarly demandsof you and an even bigger part of yours to do everything you can to fulfil them. This rule in no wayprecludes you from surprisingus with your inventiveness in fulfilling those expectations.3. Length. For 1000-level courses, the ‘body’is four to six double-spaced pages in a standard font (e.g. TimesNew Roman 12 and 1″ margins all around); for 2000-level, the page count is six to eight (see illustrationin Rule 4c).4. Format. (a) First half of paper = analysis, description; all your research is to be confined to this half, includingexplanations and/or examples of points expressed in the primary material; note that secondary sourcescan often be quite helpful for this purpose (give it the subtitle ‘Research’if you can’t think of
anythingelse). Second half of paper = assessment, evaluation; your own argument is restricted to this half (give itthe subtitle ‘Assessment’if you can’t think of anything else). Because ‘your own argument’= your pointplus your reasons, if you agree with A’s argument then it falls to you to say why you think A’s reasonsare such good ones. If the reporter’s job is to describe things accurately but the editor’s is to express awell-reasoned opinion about something that’s already been reported, then be a reporter in the first halfand an editor in the second.(b) Small but significant tweak. Expropriate a bit of space from the first half of your paper for a vitallyimportant sub-section: the ‘Abstract’. Divide its 50-word limit into no more than two sentences, oneexpressing the point you wish to make and the other expressing your main supporting reason(s). Theabstract is a summary of your own argument (= your intellectual results) rather than about what you’ll bedoing in the paper. (If you don’t know what an argument is, find out before you lose lots of marks underthe ‘quality of argument’parameter just because you didn’t.) In this way, the abstract –in effect a‘report’on your argument –naturally belongs in the first half of your paper. Note that MLA formatreserves some space for name, course, title, etc. on the first page of the body; for our purposes, move thatinformation to your title page and use the resulting freed-up space for your abstract. Any paper lackingthis two-sentence abstract as its initial paragraph will not earn a grade higher than B+ no matter howexcellent it otherwise is; I know it’s hard work, but once you actually do it you’llsee why it was worthlearning how to do.See the following for the primary source:
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