Political Science 335
Terrorism and Counterterrorism
Spring 2013
TTh 11:30am to 12:45pm
Dr. Samuel S. Stanton, Jr.
Office: HAL 303E
Office Hours: MWF 9-11:30am, TTh 10-11:15am, or by appt.
Phone: 724.458.3854
Email: SSStanton@gcc.edu
HAL301
http://www2.gcc.edu/dept/pols/faculty/stanton/
When the new wave of terrorism came on the modern world, which is the late 1960s,
early 1970s, I think we spent about a decade, the United States and our allies, trying to
figure out how to deal with it.
--Paul Bremer
And it is essential that in fighting terrorism, sacrifices should not be made on democracy.
--Bulent Ecevit
This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the
free and democratic world and terrorism.
--Tony Blair
Terrorism has once again shown it is prepared deliberately to stop at nothing in creating
human victims. An end must be put to this. As never before, it is vital to unite forces of
the entire world community against terror.
--Vladmir Putin
I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is
elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against
a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.
--Jurgen Habermas
Overview: The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of terrorism and
counterterrorism. This necessarily covers a very broad spectrum of socio-political
behaviors and a plethora of government and non-governmental responses to those
behaviors. What this means for this course is that from the outset we have a problem.
Primarily that problem is defining terrorism. But, you say, we have defined terrorism.
Well, you may have. Your favorite author or politician may have, but as an international
society of states, we have not defined terrorism. This is our starting point—what is
terrorism.
Part One of this course addresses terrorism. What is it, how can we define it, what does it
mean to people in the U.S. and the rest of the world? We will put terrorism in context
globally and nationally. We will examine types of terrorism and terrorists. We will also
consider causes and influences of terrorism and the commonalities between types of
terrorism/terrorists. We conclude this section with consideration of the means of funding
terrorism.
Part Two of the course considers counterterrorism. What is the appropriate strategy for
dealing with terrorism? Is there an appropriate strategy? What is more effective, hard or
soft power, when one deals with terrorism? What is the appropriate balance of security,
liberty and human rights? Finally, we consider preparation and prevention versus active
pursuit as proper means of engaging in counterterrorism.
Goals:
 To aid students in development of an understanding of terrorism and
counterterrorism.
 To help students examine the application of this knowledge to their futures.
 To assist students in living lives which glorify and honor God through the
advancement of knowledge.
Outcomes:
 Students will demonstrate the ability to explain terrorism and counterterrorism.
(Dept. Obj. 1,2, 5)
 Students will develop an understanding of critical issues affecting defining and
combating terrorism. (Dept. Obj. 1,2,5)
 Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze and critically critique required
readings. (Dept. Obj. 2, 4, 6, 7)
 Students will demonstrate the ability to conduct research to support critical
critique of readings. (Dept. Obj. 2, 4, 6, 7)
 Students will demonstrate the ability to engage in discussion of topics in the
classroom setting. (Dept. Obj. 2, 4, 6, 7)
General Objectives for Students Majoring in Political Science
1. Have acquired knowledge of the four major subject areas (American
Politics, Political Theory, International Relations, and Comparative
Politics) of political science
2. Be Competitive for graduate and professional school opportunities.
Political science majors with strong academic records will be competitive
for both master’s and Ph.D. programs in political science and other
professional programs and will be competitive for financial stipends.
3. Be familiar with entry level jobs suitable for political science majors.
4. Be competitive for entry level jobs suitable for political science majors.
5. Have the ability to read, comprehend, and evaluate content in professional
political science journals, scholarly books, and websites.
6. Show familiarity with, and the ability to critically evaluate, information
sources in the Social Sciences.
7. Demonstrate a mastery of research and writing skills in the field of
political science.
8. Develop and capacity to apply a Christian moral principles to issues and
topics within political science, including using a Christian perspective to
evaluate critically political ideas, public policies, and political figures.
Simply stated, our aim is that students will seek to understand the field of
politics as individuals who are committed to historic Christian thought.
Course Requirements: This course requires student participation. Students are required
to complete two (2) take home essay examinations and an in-class final examination.
Students are also required to participate in in-class topical debates. Finally, students are
also required to write a 15-20 page course paper.
Participation: You cannot participate if you are not present. Participation is more than
simply being in the room, participation is discussion, questioning, and answering. I
understand that emergencies do occur and that university sponsored events may require
students to miss class, please inform me one class prior to sanctioned absences and as
soon as possible in the case of emergencies. Participation represents 15% of the course
grade.
Examinations: You will be given two (2) take home examinations during the course of
this semester. Each exam will require you to answer 3 of 5 questions. Exam responses
will adhere to Dr. Stanton’s Rules for Writing attached to this syllabus. Each exam is
15% of the course grade. The final exam will be comprehensive and based on the
previous two examinations. It will be completed during the scheduled finals period. The
final exam is 10% of the course grade.
Course Paper: A course paper is required in this class. The required length is 15-20
pages. The paper will adhere to Dr. Stanton’s Rules for Writing attached to this syllabus.
Style and grammar do matter and will count 30 points toward the final grade. The paper
is 40% of the overall grade. Papers are due by 12pm on March 22nd. A hard copy is
required.
Paper Topic: A student may chose to write a research paper over a research question of
his or her own interest, but of course it must be a paper relevant to terrorism or
counterterrorism.
Final Exam: A comprehensive exam covering readings and debates. It will be short
answer and essay format. This exam is 10% of your grade.
Grades:
15% Participation
50% Exams (25% each)
25% Course Paper
10% Final Exam
Grading Scale:
90-100
A
80-89
B
70-79
C
60-69
D
Under 60
F
A +/- grade is give at the discretion of the instructor based on student performance. For
instance, a student with an 89.5 grade with poor attendance and without much quality
participation will receive a B, the same grade would merit a B+ or A- with quality and
quantity participation shown throughout the semester. The key to getting bumped up is
quality of participation. On the other end of the spectrum, a student with an 80 who had
poor participation will earn a B-.
Attendance and Behavior: You are adults in an upper division course, I feel no
compulsion to take role and keep tabs on your attendance. However, you cannot
participate if you are not in attendance. This course will center on discussion of the
literature as a pathway to learning critical thinking skills. Basically, follow the rules of
the university concerning building use and personal conduct and everyone will be just
fine.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious violation of moral and academic principles. It involves
claiming as one’s own original work the ideas, phrasing, or creative work of another person.
As such, plagiarism is a direct violation of the biblical commandments against stealing,
bearing false witness, and covetousness; thus, the Grove City College policy. We
encourage our students to think seriously about the demands of their Christian faith in
regards to this issue.
We remind students that plagiarism includes the following:
1) any direct quotation of another’s words, from simple phrasing to longer passages,
without using quotation marks and properly citing the source of those words;
2) any summary or paraphrase of another’s ideas without properly citing the source of
those ideas;
3) any information that is not common knowledge —including facts, statistics, graphics,
drawings—without proper citation of sources;
4) any cutting and pasting of verbal or graphic materials from another source—
including books, databases, web sites, journals, newspapers, etc.—without the
proper citation for each of the sources of those materials; this includes any
copyrighted artwork, graphics, or photography downloaded from the Internet
without proper citation;
5) any wholesale “borrowing,” theft, or purchasing of another’s work and presenting it
as one’s own, whether from the Internet or from another source;
6) any presentation of “ghost-written” papers—whether paid for or not—as one’s own
original work;
7) making one’s work available for copying by others, as well as copying work posted
on the Internet or otherwise made available by another.
The above statement is taken from the Grove City College Bulletin and The Crimson.
Plagiarism in written work in this course (Exams or the Research Paper) will result
in a grade of 0 being assigned for the course. This penalty will be reported to the
Academic Integrity Review Committee.
Communication: Things always change over the course of a semester, which
necessitates changing dates for assignments and the course outline. I will communicate
with you as much information as possible at the start of each class. As a backup to this, I
will create an email list for the class and will email all pertinent information to the
members of this class, so check your email.
Texts:
Dekmejian, R. Hrair. 2007. The Spectrum of Terror. CQ Press. 978-1-933116-90-7
Gottlieb, Stuart, Editor. 2010. Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism. CQ Press
978-0-87289-961-2
Guiroa, Amos N. 2007. Global Perspectives on Counterterrorism, Aspen Publishers
978-0-7355-6800-6
Nacos, Briggitte L. 2010. Terrorism and Counterterrorism, 3rd Edition. Pearson
Longman. 978-0-205-74327-8
Course Outline: This is not set in stone and will be changed as necessary.
24 Jan
Course Introduction
29-31 Jan
Terrorism Definitions and Contexts
--what is terrorism? (Nacos chp 1-2, Dekmejian chp 1, Guiora 1.1,
1.2)
--Global Context (N chp 3)
--U.S. Context (N chp 4)
5 Feb – 28 Feb
Types of Terrorism
--Religious (N chp 5, D chp 4, Gottlieb chp 4)
--Assassins (D chp 2)
--Transnational (D chp 6)
--State Sponsored (D chp 7-9 & N chp 7)
--Ethno-Nationalists and Global Terrorists (Guiora Chp 1.3)
EXAM 1 will be passed out on Feb 28 and is due at the beginning of class on Mar
5-7 Mar
Causes, Commonalities, Financing
--making terrorists (N chp 6, Gottlieb chp 2-3)
--common threads (N chp 8, G 1.4)
--organizations and financing (N chp 9)
12-14 Mar
Counterterrorism I
--Hard vs. Soft Power in Counterterrorism (N chp 11, Gottlieb chp
7-8)
19 Mar – 4 Apr
Counterterrorism II
--Security vs. Liberty (N chp 12, G chp 2, Gottlieb chp 11)
--International Law (G chp 3)
--Judicial Review (G chp 4)
--Legislation and Policy (G chp 6)
9-18 Apr
Counterterrorism III
--Homeland Security and Active Pursuit (N chp 13)
--Operational Counterterrorism (G chp 5)
--Intelligence Gathering (G chp 7)
23 Apr- 2 May
What to Do with the Terrorists You Catch?
--Interrogation (G chp 8)
--Rights of Terrorists? (N chp 12, G Chp 9)
--Trials for Terrorists (G chp 10)
7 May
Wrap-up
EXAM 2 will be passed out on 25 Apr and is due at the beginning of class on 2 May.
FINAL EXAM
7 pm, 14 May
GUIDE FOR WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS
A research paper should pose a question about some relevant event or behavior. This
question should be easily recognizable and found somewhere in the first page of your
paper. Included in the introduction of your paper should be a defense of why anyone
should care about finding an answer to your question. You must conduct a literature
review that critically evaluates how other scholarship has addressed the general area of
your question (or in some cases, how other scholarship has addressed your question
specifically). The literature review serves two purposes: One, it allows you to develop a
theoretical explanation of how events or behaviors occur. Two, it allows you to
determine and explain how your paper adds to our knowledge of the event or behavior
(strengthening your argument about why we should care to read your paper).
Your proposed answer to the research question is your hypothesis. The hypothesis
suggests factors that contribute to or impede the event or behavior in question.
Hypotheses infer something about events or behaviors based on interpretation of some
observation(s). What this means is that in political science we are in the business of
inferring causation, if you want to simply report what is, take a journalism class. The
hypothesis is a testable claim. By using quantitative or qualitative methods, you test the
hypothesis for strength and validity. This means specifying how you are measuring and
interpreting causal factors. It also means reaching findings (inferences) about whether or
not your hypothesis provides a quality answer to the research question.
Research papers end with a conclusion section that ties everything together. What do we
learn about the event or behavior from the research you have conducted? What does this
tell us about the world and its future?
Research relies on the evaluation of multiple sources. If you rely on one or two sources
for most or all of your research you have engaged in plagiarism. Papers that include
plagiarism earn an automatic 0. Popular media should generally be avoided as a source
of information (although use of sources such as the New York Times, London Times, etc.
for specificity of events and statements made by people is acceptable). Textbooks should
also generally be avoided as a source of information (if you have a question about
whether or not a book is a textbook, just ask your professor). Generally, for a paper of 20
pages in length you would desire about 15 quality sources of information.
Style and grammar do matter. Because grammar matters, proofread!!! Because grammar
matters do not use dangling modifiers, end sentences with prepositions, use sentence
fragments, etc. Because style matters, look at a style manual and use appropriate citation
style (not citing the source of information used in your paper is plagiarism), use
appropriate bibliography styles, and always number your pages appropriately.
STYLE GUIDE
In Political Science, two styles are prevalent in the scholarly literature—APSA, which is
a revised form of APA, and Turabian, also known as the Chicago Manual of Style (which
was originally edited by Katherine Turabian). I require use of APA/APSA. Since the
purpose of this course is in part to correctly train you in appropriate writing technique for
professional political science work, you will find provided for you in the space below,
examples of proper citation, and proper bibliographical citations. Consult a style manual
for issues of page numbering, sectioning and sub-sectioning a paper, etc.
IN-TEXT CITATION (APSA):
Olzak (1992) offers an ecological theory of ethnic conflict. The basis of the
theory is competition causes conflict. James (2002) refers to competition as the moral
equivalent of war. Competition is an embedded structure in humans and affects the
actions of individuals. When translated into group settings we see similarities to sports
teams athletic contests. The struggle becomes “us vs. them”, a struggle for glory,
reputation, and prestige. Competition is so ingrained it cannot be rooted out of the
behavioral patterns of people. As James notes, “our ancestors bred it into us.” (2002, 146)
Competition for resources and position are fuel for a greater dilemma. Any gain made by
a group will elicit a response from at least one other group in society, decreasing stability
and increasing the likelihood of the security dilemma.
NOTE: if you are using in-text citation, footnotes or endnotes are used solely for the
purpose of providing additional information that was not warranted as part of the actual
text.
NOTE: if you directly quote or use ideas directly from a source, it requires year and page
number as in the third citation in the example paragraph.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL:
Books:
Olzak, Susan. The Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict and Competition, Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1992.
Volkan, Vamik. Bloodlines, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
The World Almanac, 1985-1998, Mahwah, NJ: Funk and Wagnell.
NOTE: The last reference is for a book without an author. Note that items are singlespaced within and that a double-space is used between items. Also, items are not
numbered.
Chapter within an edited Volume:
Snyder, Jack and Robert Jervis. “Civil War and the Security Dilemma,” in Barbara
Walter and Jack Snyder, Eds., Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999, 15-37.
Journal Article:
Saideman, S., Lanoue, D., Campenni, M., and Stanton, S. “Democratization, Political
Institutions, and Ethnic Conflict: A Pooled Time Series Analysis, 1985-1998,”
Comparative Political Studies, 35, 1 (February 2002): 103-129.
Newspaper Article:
Cuff, Daniel F. “Forging a New Shape for Steel,” New York Times, 26 May 1985, sec. F.
(if in electronic format)
Loeb, Vernon, “Fallout from a CIA Affidavit,” Washington Post,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/A 1998-2000Apr23.html>
April 24, 2000.
NOTE: April 24, 2000 represents the day the article was accessed. This date must be
included. This is done because on-line availability changes regularly and this provides
readers with a point of reference to use in tracking down a copy of the item.
Other Electronically Accessed Resources:
Bennett, D. Scott, and Christian Davenport. 2003. MARGene v1.0. Software.
<http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar/margene.htm>. Accessed May 8, 2003.
Bhutan. Webdb International Programs 2003.
<http://webdb.iu.edu/internationalprograms/scripts/accesscoveragepage.cfm?
country=bhutan>. Accessed May 5, 2003.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AS A COHERENT WHOLE:
Bennett, D. Scott, and Christian Davenport. 2003. MARGene v1.0. Software.
<http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar/margene.htm>. Accessed May 8, 2003.
Bhutan. Webdb International Programs 2003.
<http://webdb.iu.edu/internationalprograms/scripts/accesscoveragepage.cfm?
country=bhutan>. Accessed May 5, 2003.
Cuff, Daniel F. “Forging a New Shape for Steel,” New York Times, 26 May 1985, sec. F.
Loeb, Vernon, “Fallout from a CIA Affidavit,” Washington Post,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/A 1998-2000Apr23.html>
April 24, 2000.
Olzak, Susan. The Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict and Competition, Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1992.
Saideman, S., Lanoue, D., Campenni, M., and Stanton, S. “Democratization, Political
Institutions, and Ethnic Conflict: A Pooled Time Series Analysis, 1985-1998,”
Comparative Political Studies, 35, 1 (February 2002): 103-129.
Snyder, Jack and Robert Jervis. “Civil War and the Security Dilemma,” in Barbara
Walter and Jack Snyder, Eds., Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999, 15-37.
Volkan, Vamik. Bloodlines, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
The World Almanac, 1985-1998, Mahwah, NJ: Funk and Wagnell.
Paper Grading:
30% Style and Composition (grammar anyone?)
70% Content (are your statements logical, do you discuss the major points, did you do an
analysis or a report?)
TWO IMPORTANT POINTS:
POINT 1:
When I grade a paper, I will make numerical marks that correspond to the “Rules for
Writing” that follow. If on any page I am forced to make more than 5 numerical
notations, I will quit reading the paper. This is not a grammar and composition course, if
you have problems writing, get help. I do not have the time when grading papers to
spend 2 to 3 hours on an individual paper because of poor writing quality. Poor writing
quality makes it impossible to understand the content, which means you not only lose the
style and composition points, but the content as well. If you follow the “Rules” and use
the appropriate style, 30% of your grade is, to be cliché, “in the bag”.
POINT 2:
Even if a paper is stylistically and grammatically correct, and even if you make logical
arguments, discuss major points, and actually do an analytical critique rather than a report,
you may still only earn a C or B on the assignment. Some arguments are simply better
than others. Well written papers make readers think and possibly raise arguments that a
reader might not have thought about before reading this paper. Do not confuse making
the reader baffled with making the reader think. At the end of the day, a paper meriting
an A has met all of the technical challenges of the assignment and has shown a high
degree of intellectual aptitude. A high degree of intellectual aptitude is displayed by
clarity, sharpness of wit and critique, and by how much it makes the reader think. In
short, A papers are special and rare.
Dr. Stanton’s Rules for Writing
Built upon the work of a long line of mentors and colleagues
Sentence Rules:
1. Do not begin sentences in any of the following ways: “There are/is…”, “This is…”,
“It is…,” etc.
2. Do not use “this,” “these,” “that,” “those,” “which,” or “it” unless the word has a
clear and unmistakable antecedent nearby. Never begin a sentence with “this” unless you
follow it immediately with a noun that re-identifies the idea to which you are referring.
3. Never publicly dangle a participle or misplace a modifier: write “Showing
unmistakable signs of ignorance, the student did not persuade his professor;” NOT> “The
student did not persuade his professor, showing unmistakable signs of ignorance.”
4. Never write an incomplete sentence (participles -- “ing” words -- cannot stand as
verbs). A verb must agree with its subject in person and number.
5. Know these three rules about commas:
a. Join independent clauses (clauses with a subject and a verb) either by using (1)
a comma with a conjunction (“Right-handers predominantly use the left side of
the brain, so left-handers are the only ones in their right minds.”) or (2) a
semicolon without a conjunction (“Right-handers predominantly use the left side
of the brain; left-handers are the only ones in their right minds.”)
b. Separate items in a series by using a comma after every item before the
conjunction (“The professor was arbitrary, arrogant, and heartless.”)
c. Never use a comma between the subject and the verb or between the verb and
its object (except for interrupting clauses that use two (2) commas).
6. Bury words like “however,” “furthermore,” “moreover,” “indeed,” etc. (conjunctive
adverbs) in the clause or sentence; do not put them at the beginning. (E.g. “The students,
however, learned something.”)
7. Be consistent when you have two or more parallel structures. With adjectives: “He
was pompous, picky, and terrorized freshmen” is wrong. “He was pompous, picky, and
fond of terrorizing freshmen” is right. With prepositions: “A student could count on his
bad temper and arbitrariness” is wrong. “A student could count on his bad temper and on
his arbitrariness” is right. With correlatives: “He graded a paper not only for content but
for style” is wrong. “He graded a paper not only for content but also for style” is right.
8. Do not end a sentence with a preposition.
9. Do not use the passive voice (“Careless students are failed by the ruthless professor”);
use the active voice (“The ruthless professor fails careless students”). Because the active
voice is direct and clear, this rule is the most important of style, but it has serious
consequences for your meaning as well. Politicians, administrators, and those foolishly
trying to avoid the consequences of their actions love the passive voice because it
protects them from facts and responsibility: “Mistakes were made.”
10. Adverbs should be adverbs. Do not do it different – if you know what I am saying.
11. Walker’s Rule for Pronouns: every pronoun should have a clear antecedent to which
it agrees in person, number, and gender.
Paragraph and Thesis Rules:
12. Each paragraph must stick to the subject introduced by its first sentence. Most
importantly, the first sentence of the first paragraph must establish the context of your
paper. “John Wayne first appears in Stagecoach with a rifle in his hand.” NOT> “Duke
has a gun.”
13. Do not use one or two sentences as a paragraph.
14. Make the transition between your sentences and your paragraphs clear and logical.
This task is the most difficult in writing, but, as you know, life is hard.
15. Give your paper a clear thesis sentence at the end of your first paragraph. If you can
remember only one rule, this rule is the one you must remember. The first paragraph
should also demonstrate how the rest of the paper is organized.
16. Avoid using quotations to begin or end a paragraph or a paper. Your own words are
most important in those places.
17. In longer papers remind the reader of your thesis throughout the body of your paper.
Rules concerning Argumentation:
18. Never just summarize or paraphrase. Assume your reader has read/seen it. I do not
want to know what happened. I want to know your ideas about what happened.
19. Support your assertions and ideas with concrete examples, with brief quotes from the
story, book, or film you are discussing, or with a short citation from some reliable
authority.
20. Do not hedge. Words like “maybe,” “seem,” “perhaps,” and “might” do not keep you
from being wrong; they merely alert the reader to the fact that you are worried about it.
21. Avoid vague generalizations: “as we all know,” “people say,” “since the beginning
of time,” etc. Obvious claims such as “mankind would not exist without the heart” are
equally lamentable.
22. Write about works of art in the present tense, since Hamlet will be stabbing Polonius
and Roy Hobbs will be knocking the lights out with his home runs long after your
grandchildren have forgotten your name.
23. Avoid rhetorical questions.
24. Delete the phrase “in the past” from your writing as well as any hint of chronological
snobbery. Chronological snobbery is the erroneous assumption that, with the passage of
time, mankind has gotten progressively wiser. In the past such a pedantic list of writing
rules would have been unnecessary for undergraduates.
25. When citing a dictionary refer to the Oxford English Dictionary whenever possible.
Diction Rules:
26. Do not misspell words. Misspelled words look dumb; do not look dumb. Use a
dictionary or a literate friend to check your spelling. On a word processor always use
spell-check, but do not trust it! Possessing a limited vocabulary and undiscerning
between right words spelled wrongly and wrong words spelled rightly, spell-check is no
substitute for proofreading. Spell out one and two digit numbers.
27. Never use contractions.
28. A possessive without an apostrophe is a misspelled word. One exception is the
possessive of “it”: “its.” “It is” contracts to “it’s.” Since you will not use contractions,
you will never write “it’s” on a paper.
29. Choose the best word for the context. Your papers should be a place “where every
word is at home, taking its place to support the others” (Eliot “Little Gidding,” V.217218). Beware of unintended irony: an N.C. State basketballer once explained his ability to
shoot with either hand, “yeah, I’m amphibious.” Suffice it to say this student-athlete, to
avoid drowning in his coursework, crawled out of school and into the NBA.
30. Also beware these other egregious violations of Rule Twenty-Nine (29): jargon (say
“library”; do not say “instructional media center”), cliche (say “the professor is a
conservative grouch”; do not say “the professor is an old fogey”), slang (say “the teacher
is foolish”; do not say “the teacher is a dork”), hyperbole (say “this man has too high a
regard for himself”; do not say “this man is the most arrogant jerk who ever lived”),
gobbledygook (say “now”; do not say “at this point in time”), and malapropism
(confusion of idioms; one former NFL player commented, “I really cleaned his bell; I
rang his clock”).
31. Use your smallest most Anglo-Saxon, most comfortable words; big words impress
only high school teachers and smell of the thesaurus.
32. Lose the word “very” and, like, you know, other gratuitous additives from, you know,
your written and spoken vocabulary.
33. Non-English words should be italicized. Foreign words and terms that are not
commonly used should be defined when initially used in the paper.
Format Rules:
34. Number your pages. Numbering begins on the first page of text, title pages are not
numbered.
35. Do not widow/orphan lines from lengthier quotes, single sentences from paragraphs,
sub-headings from first line of text in the section, labels of tables, charts, figures,
graphics from the table, chart, figure or graphic to which it refers.
36. Use APA/APSA Style for your papers. See examples attached to your syllabus.
37. Give your paper an informative title. The name of the work you are dealing with is
NOT the title of your paper. “Shakespeare’s Use of Time in Hamlet” is by a thoughtful
person; “It Takes a Broken Egghead to Make a Hamlet” is by a clown; Hamlet is by
Shakespeare.
38. Italicize all full-length films, plays, and books. Do likewise with magazine and
newspaper titles. Short stories, film shorts, one-act plays, and articles go in quotation
marks (“…”). Do not underline or put your own title in quotation marks.
39. On those extremely rare occasions when you quote more than two lines of text,
indent five spaces left and right and single space the quotation, and leave off the
quotation marks.
40. When you quote from or refer to a source, cite it appropriately and include a works
cited page of some kind.
41. When you borrow and idea or paraphrase statements from existing scholarship, give
appropriate citation.
42. The first citation within a paragraph must contain the author’s name, even if it is the
same author and item from the previous citation in the preceding paragraph. Likewise,
the first citation on any page must contain the author’s name and the year of publication,
even if the citation is for the same source as the last citation on the preceding page.
43. Print your paper out only on the front side of the pages.
44. Use 1” margins top, bottom, and right, use a 1 ½” margin on the left side of pages.
45. Use Times New Roman 12 point font.
46. If a header is used on page 1 to identify you, the course and the date, this material
should be single-spaced and have minimal spacing between it and the body of the paper
and it should be used only on the first page. Such header is not required if a title page is
used. Title pages are required for course research papers.
47. Before handing in your final copy, have an intelligent friend read your paper to you;
then fix it. Frequently save your file, and if possible keep a hard copy, and/or a version
on another drive.
48. Do not hand in a paper unless you have come to care about it. You believe in
goodness and truth; therefore, commit yourself to communicating your ideas well and
true.