Thought Paper Guidelines
This assignment is meant to engage with major themes and concepts
presented throughout the course through the readings. It is also intended to help
you develop an argument in an academic way. Most effective arguments have a
beginning, which states your major point, a middle, which develops this point,
and an end, which summarizes your argument and points to future directions of
inquiry, research, or new questions, etc. The first section should also contain a
summary of the major argument of the reading related to each question. The
second, or middle section, should be devoted to a discussion of your reactions to
the argument, whether you think it is valid or not, whether it is supported by
evidence, whether you think it represents ‘reality’ well or not, whether it is logical
or not, etc. The conclusion usually summarizes your argument and points to
future directions and could also contain other original thoughts and ideas.