INTRO TO CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

The OSU University Curriculum Committee has mandated that certain introductory courses must contain a writing assignment. GEOG 1113 is one such course, and therefore the writing assignment for the class is as follows:

A. Description of the assignment.

Each student is required to produce a research paper of five pages. Students will be assigned a region or country on which to focus their research, and will choose an issue in the region or country assigned on which to write. Issues must fall within the following four general categories, and should be specific:

1. Ethnic or religious conflict. (example: The Palestine/Israel Issue).

2. Migration. (example: Impacts of the Migration Policies of the European Union.).

3. Globalization. (example: The Cultural Impacts of Western Cultural Imperialism in the Far East).

4. International relations. (example: The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy)

The research paper will be constructed in three stages:

Title Clearance Form is due. Students must turn in this form by the 19 September 2019. No papers will be accepted from students who have not received approval of their topic from the course instructor!! The title should indicate clearly which of the four areas above you will be writing on—see the examples provided above! Failure to turn in the form by the required date will result in a 5-point penalty on the final paper grade for each day the form is late! Students are encouraged to complete the form and provide it to your instructor as soon as possible.

Abstract – an abstract is required to be turned in as both a hard copy before class and on Canvas before 5:00 p.m. The due date for both copies is 17 October 2019. An abstract is essentially a 150 to 250-word summation of the key points of your paper. In order to write the abstract, you will need to have created at least a rough draft of your paper. I require this abstract in order to ensure that you do not put off writing your paper until the last minute. It is worth 50 points, and more importantly – like the title clearance form – no papers will be accepted from students who have not turned in an abstract!! A 5-point penalty per-calendar-day will be assessed for late abstracts.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. Copying others’ work, published or otherwise, is considered plagiarism, as is the failure to properly acknowledge a source of information through standard forms of citation. See “Documentation” in “Requirements for the Research Paper” at the end of this syllabus, In addition, each student is expected to visit the following website and consult the resources listed there: http://www.library.okstate.edu/access/ils/plagiarism.htm. Any student who is guilty of plagiarism will be given a grade of “F” on the paper and “F!” in the course, and reported to the appropriate administration officials. The “F!” will appear on the transcript, and specifically indicates course failure due to cheating. It is the student’s responsibility to be aware of what constitutes plagiarism—ignorance is not an acceptable excuse! If the student is in doubt concerning the proper use of source material or documentation, he/she is expected to consult with the instructor prior to turning in the assignment.

B. Requirements for the Research Paper.

Students MUST follow these guidelines when writing their research paper. Failure to do so will result in a failing score on the paper!

ALL ASSIGNMENTS RELATED TO THE PAPER ARE DUE ON THE DATE INDICATED IN THE SCHEDULE, AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS. NO LATE FINAL PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED!
19 September – Title Clearance Form due.
17 October – The Abstract is due (Canvas).
14 November – The Final Paper is due.

Note: All papers must be turned in to the student’s Canvas drop box, as well as a hardcopy of the paper. Papers WILL NOT be accepted as e-mail attachments!! SEE THE DISCUSSION REGARDING PLAGIARISM UNDER “DOCUMENTATION” BELOW, AS WELL AS IN SECTION A OF THIS ASSIGNMENT.

DO NOT turn in a file formatted for Apple!!! MS Word is the only format I will accept!

Assistance: I will be available to assist students with this project on an “as-needed” basis—you will need to make an appointment with me for assistance if you need help finding sources. We (the grader or myself) will not read preliminary drafts of papers—if you wish to have a “rough draft” reviewed and critiqued, you may visit the OSU Writing Center, 104 Morrill Hall, Tel: 744-6671; www.writing.okstate.edu–This is a FREE service for students.

For questions concerning style and documentation, you should refer to Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 7th edition or later. There are several useful websites on “Turabian style” documentation, i.e., endnotes, available on the Internet. For guides to endnote documentation, see http://rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/reading-writing/on-line/endnote.html and http://library.tamu.edu/help/help-yourself/citing-sources/files/Using%20Endnotes%20in%20Turabian%20Documentation.pdf. A scholarly journal that uses endnote documentation style is the Journal of Third World Studies (may be accessed via the Low Library web site).

Length

The paper must reach the minimum required length – 5 FULL pages of text. Number all pages, beginning with the second page of text (do not number a separate title page, or the first page containing text). ALL ANCILLARIES (PHOTOS, MAPS, CHARTS, GRAPHS, etc.), are to be placed at the end of the paper in an appendix—DO NOT insert these in the text of the paper. The title of the paper and author’s name should appear centered on a separate title page. The title page, reference pages, and any appendices DO NOT count toward the page total for the paper.

Structure

Your paper should have an Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. These sections are not necessarily labeled as such, but it should be clear to the reader where one section ends and the next begins. The Body may be further subdivided, highlighting the focus or topic of that particular section, although it is unnecessary. The Introduction should contain at some point a clearly articulated thesis statement. The thesis statement indicates what issue or problem you are researching, why it is important, and (at least sometimes) how you intend to go about investigating the problem. The thesis statement should be closely related to the topic you are assigned. This work is to be a research paper. I am not interested in a “book report” which simply regurgitates information you have culled from the sources. Your paper should contain an analysis of the issue/problem addressed in the paper—papers lacking this element will not receive high marks.

Mechanics

The paper must be typed, using one inch margins at the top, bottom, and sides of the page. Use 12-point font, Calibri or Garamond. DO NOT INSERT BLANK SPACES BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS! IF USING SUBHEADINGS IN YOUR PAPER, LEAVE ONLY TWO BLANK LINES (ONE DOUBLE-SPACE) BETWEEN THE SUBHEADING AND THE TEXT ABOVE IT, AND BEGIN THE NEW SECTION ONE DOUBLE-SPACE AFTER THE SUBHEADING.

Quotations

Quotations from sources are to be kept to a minimum—as a general rule of thumb, no more than ten percent of your research paper should consist of directly-quoted material. Any quotation than is longer than four lines of text must be blocked—consult Turabian for the proper form and structure of block quotations.

Documentation

1. Incorrect or insufficient documentation of source materials will be considered plagiarism! Students should consult the previous heading regarding plagiarism and its consequences. Perhaps at some point in your educational experience, someone told you that only direct quotes need to be cited—this is not accurate! Any information which is not commonly known, in particular detailed historical accounts, statistical information, and in general, any information you obtained from another source must be documented. It IS NOT adequate simply to place a note at the conclusion of each paragraph. Failure to properly and/or adequately document your work is a MAJOR flaw, and will result in a failing mark on your paper.

2. ANY SOURCE IN YOUR PAPERS, MUST BE CITE PROPERLY!
References: Use Chicago/Turabian style, author-date system for citing sources in your paper. Refer to this website:
http://library.williams.edu/citing/styles/chicago2.php for the proper way to cite your references.

Reference list: You must include a reference list to cite any sources. Use the same website above for the proper way to format a reference list. The reference list is not included as part of the 5 page

Grammar

It should be obvious that at this level we expect students to employ proper grammar and spelling—use your spell-check program to save yourself time and mistakes!! Papers that are not essentially free of grammatical and spelling errors, as well as run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and other related problems will receive a low mark. PROOF-READ YOUR PAPER BEFORE TURNING IT IN!!

Sources
Your paper should have a minimum of 8 scholarly sources; most papers will have more. Newspapers and news magazines, (i.e., The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, etc.), encyclopedia entries, and websites DO NOT qualify as scholarly. A scholarly source is an academic book; a chapter in such a book, typically edited by another individual; an article in a peer-reviewed (refereed) academic journal; or a primary source such as a government document or a report collecting and using original data or information from a governmental source, NGO, or independent agency. You should employ scholarly books, journals, government documents, and similar publications as your major sources. The fastest and easiest method of finding sources is to do an electronic search of the databases offered by the OSU library. On-line scholarly journals may be employed as sources, and you will be able to perform an exclusive search of the library data bases for peer-reviewed journals. Another good search engine is www.googlescholar.com

Title Clearance Form
Writing Assignment for GEOG 2253
FALL 2013

This form must be completed and turned in by September ! Failure to do so will result in a five point per day penalty.

Professor/Instructor and section number:

Student Name (PRINT):

Assigned Country:

Title of Research Paper: