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Death Penalty in America,
Legal Studies 485, Spring 2003 |
Final Essay
Due: Monday, May 19, 2003, by 5 PM in the Legal Studies office. Late papers will be marked down unless you get permission before May 19.
Topic: The final essay is an opportunity for you to present your position on
the death penalty and your justification for that position. You don’t need to do any new reading for
this; you should have plenty of material from what you’ve already done. Feel free to make use of your previous
essays. There are no right or wrong
answers here; you will be graded on the quality of your presentation and
strength of your argument not on whether I happen to agree with you.
Length: Your paper should be 6-8
pages. I will stop reading after
that. I’m imposing a strict page
limitation because it forces you to really focus your argument.
Organizing your paper: Your introductory paragraph should state
your thesis. Not doing this is one of the most common mistakes students make.
In an essay, your reader should know what your position is from the beginning.
By the end of your introductory paragraph, the reader should know whether you
support the death penalty or not.
After you have set out your "thesis" in the introduction, then you want to "prove" it. This is the body of your essay. A common mistake students make is not to be specific enough. Be sure to give examples to support your arguments. Your mastery of the facts is where you have the opportunity to show how much you have learned about the death penalty. Feel free to use the material from Bedau’s Death Penalty in America, Prejean’s Dead Man Walking, the Course Packet and Course Website, and any of the other websites. You must credit all sources; failure to do so is plagiarism. I expect to see properly formatted footnotes or endnotes. Anything you get from the web must be credited.
Each paragraph should discuss one idea. Begin the paragraph with a topic sentence to let your reader know where you are going. The paragraphs should flow nicely, from one to the next. In your conclusion, you want to return to your thesis and restate it.
Evaluation: In evaluating your essays, I will be looking for the following:
1. Do you state your thesis clearly?
2. Do you support your position with well reasoned analysis?
3. Do you present evidence and give specific examples to support your argument?
4. Do you understand the complexities of the death penalty debate?
5. Do you demonstrate a good grasp of the assigned readings?
6. Do you show original thinking and analysis?
7. Is your essay well written and easy to follow?
8. Are footnotes/endnotes cited correctly?