Natural Resources 220
People, Values, and Natural
Resources
TERM PAPER
GUIDELINES—Spring 2006
All papers must relate in
some significant way to the subject matter of the course as reflected in the
course title and syllabus, but this leaves you with a good deal of
latitude. Papers should generally
reflect the courseÕs primary focus on the humanistic disciplines of history,
philosophy, literature, art, etc. Papers on exclusively technical or scientific
topics are generally not
appropriate.
A term paper proposal was
due on or before Friday, March 31.
Ideally you would already have gotten some preliminary feedback from the
instructor and/or the T.A. on your chosen topic prior to writing your proposal,
and by now you should be well into the necessary reading for your paper. I reserve the right to hand back ungraded
any paper on a topic that has not been approved by me in advance.
Completed papers are due on
Monday, May 1, at 10:10 a.m. sharp.
We will make every effort to grade and return papers handed in on time
on May 1 by the time of the final exam on May 17. There will be grade penalties
for late papers as follows:
Paper handed in later in the
day Monday May 1: one-third letter
grade off
Paper handed in by Wednesday
May 3: two-thirds letter grade off
Paper handed in by Friday
May 5: one full letter grade off
Paper handed in by Monday
May 8: one and one-third letter
grade off
Paper handed in by Wednesday
May 10: one and two-thirds letter grade off
Paper handed in by Friday
May 12: two full letter grades off
No papers accepted after May
12. Late papers may receive
somewhat less attention from the graders and may or may not be graded by the
time of the final exam on May 17.
III. Required to hand in:
Please hand in two (2) hard
copies of your term paper, one for me to read and keep, the other for the T.A.s
to comment on and to hand back to you.
In addition, please also submit electronic copies of your paper as a
Word or .rtf attachment to jat4@cornell.edu,
sp287@cornell.edu, and geh23@cornell.edu
. Please title your electronic copy as Òlastname_paper.docÓ; Prof. TantilloÕs
for example would thus be Òtantillo_paper.docÓ.
A. Length: 3,000 words (approximately 10-12 pages if you use
standard margins, 25 lines per page, etc.), exclusive of title page, notes, and
bibliography.
B. Each page
(with the possible exception of page one) should be numbered.
C. Double-spaced (25 lines per page minimum), laser
printed, on clean paper. Do not
print on the back side of previously printed pages—I will hand such
papers back ungraded.
D. Margins: One
inch top and bottom, and on each side.
E. Documentation:
All papers must conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, either ÒChicago AÓ (footnotes or endnotes) or
ÒChicago BÓ (author-date-page). This means at a minimum that author, date, and
page information must be included.
You may choose to employ informational footnotes or endnotes as
well. I reserve the right to
return ungraded any paper not meeting the minimum standard for page reference
documentation.
Consult The Chicago
Manual of Style (or Kate TurabianÕs A Manual for Writers of
Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations)
for the specific citation formats for monographs, anthologies, journal
articles, etc. If you use
author/date/page documentation format, you will need a Òworks citedÓ section. If you use footnotes or endnotes, you
also may want to include a properly formatted bibliography, although this is
not required.
F. Grammar, spelling, proper sentence structure, proper form
of footnotes or endnotes, etc.: all are important and will substantially affect
your grade.
G. Style and content: Try to make your paper interesting as
well as informative. Good content
is essential, but an engaging style will help capture your reader's attention
and make reading your paper more enjoyable. The paper must stand on its own as a piece of writing!
A. In general, it is best to avoid "procedural
language" (e.g., "In this paper I shall present convincing evidence
that ground water contamination in the United States poses a greater threat to
human health than air pollution").
Rather than explaining what you want to do and then doing it, simply do
it so clearly that your reader knows what you are attempting. Occasionally, this will not be
possible, in which case you may need to include some kind of prefatory comments
in your introduction that explain what you plan to do, your method, how your
paper relates to the course, etc.
B. Make sure your ideas and arguments are clear and follow a
meaningful sequence in
their development. Major books consulted should be
identified and where appropriate discussed and evaluated in relationship to
your thesis.
C. Some kind of concluding section and/or summary is
generally appropriate.
You are expected to be familiar
with University regulations regarding plagiarism and other violations of the
academic integrity code: see http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html.
For instance, it is not permissible to turn in work for this course that has
been or is being used for credit in another course or from high school. (In some cases you may be building
upon work previously done for another course, but this then should be approved
by the instructor well in advance of the due date.) You may consult with other students and help each other
refine ideas, style, grammar, etc., but the basic ideas and writing of the
paper must be your own. Remember
that academic integrity is fundamental to the entire university enterprise, and
penalties for violating academic integrity can be severe.
Jim Tantillo, Instructor
Natural Resources 220
April 17, 2006