Part One: The
Topic
If, you
had to take a position one way or the other, would you argue that religion
is—on balance—a positive thing or a negative thing? (“On balance” here means: accepting that there
are both good and bad points about it.)
In
other words, you could argue that, although it clearly has its bad points,
religion is—if you had to decide one
way or the other—a good thing. Or you could say the opposite…that, although
it clearly has its good points, religion is—on balance—a bad thing.
You
could take a position on this question in relation to some aspect or aspects of
society or the individual–or both–and you can do it with reference to a religion/religions
or particular issues/examples that you find most interesting or compelling in
some way. You can also focus more on the
present day or on the past, as you prefer.
But you must take and argue a position on the question, and this must be
the focus of the essay.
Part Two: The
Structure
There
are many ways to construct an argumentative essay, and this one will be
organized in one of the classic formats.
Here is a paragraph-by-paragraph guide:
Your
first paragraph will be an introduction.
This will need three things:
a)
a written
“hook” of some kind, to engage the reader (e.g. “it has been said that both
rationalism and revelation have been foundation stones of western
civilization…in other words, both Athens and Jerusalem.”)
b)
a “road map,”
or preview of what you will be doing in the essay
c)
a thesis
statement, taking a position on the question asked in the assignment
Your
second paragraph will explain and develop a point/argument in favour of your
position on the question. Your third paragraph will explain and develop
a different point/argument, again in favour of your position on the question. So…you will have explained two well-developed
“supports” for your thesis, after you’ve finished these two paragraphs.
Your
fourth paragraph will articulate a point or argument that goes against your position… in other words, an argument
from “the other side.” For example, if
your thesis is that religion is—on balance—good, you will need in this
paragraph to explain an argument on the side of “religion is, on balance,
bad.” Then… crucially… you must then, in
that same paragraph, refute/rebut/answer that argument or point, so that
you have “beaten” it, in a sense. The point of this paragraph is that, by
identifying and answering/rebutting/refuting a counter-argument, your overall
argument becomes stronger, since it going beyond simply articulating supports
for your position (as it did in paragraphs two and three).
Your
final, fifth, paragraph will be a conclusion, which must do two things:
a)
restate/recap
and tie together the main points/arguments that you’ve made in paragraphs two,
three, and four
b)
reach some
kind of conclusion about the topic of your essay.
(cont’d on
next page…)
Part Three:
Sources
The
minimum number of sources that you must use for this essay is three. A source does not count unless it is cited at
least once in the essay. The good news
is that you already have a set of resources available to you through the Readings
and Videos folder. For almost every week
in the course, I’ve provided sources, some of which are lengthy and cover quite
a bit of ground beyond what we take up in either the class or the assigned
questions in the weekly activity sheets.
These can be very good resources for you, and I encourage you to use
them for this essay more deeply than has been possible so far in the course. Some of them cover religion broadly, and
others focus on particular religions, as you know… but all can potentially be
useful in a paper like this.
Please
note that least one of your three sources must be from outside the list in
the Readings and Videos folder. In
other words, you must find it yourself, and it must be a credible source.
(cont’d on
next page…)
Part Four:
Other Guidelines
You
must also be attentive to writing quality (grammar, spelling, style,
etc.) and clarity. And your in-text
citations and your reference page (both of which you must have) must be in APA
format.
Font size and
spacing: 12-point font,
double-spaced
Length: Approximately 1000 words… Part of the assignment is
staying within the required length. If
your essay is less than 900 or more than 1200 words, you will be subject to
penalties.
Late
penalties: 5% (of the total marks
possible for the essay) per day; in other words, if the essay is marked out of
50, the late deduction will be 2.5 points per day.
Best
of luck, and please contact me if you have any questions.