08Jan 2022 by
For your first assignment please make sure you’ve read the essay and listened to the full lecture. In at least two full pages please provide a complete summary of the reading. Your summary should at least accomplish these three things. 1. Provide the definition of rationality given in the reading and explain it. 2. Discuss how rationality leads to the good life as explained in the lecture. 3. Pick one of the techniques of rationality that you feel would help you the most in making better decisions. Explain why that technique would help you most and what you can do now to develop it. You may quote single words or phrases, but please don’t quote entire sentences or passages. Your summary essay should be in your own language.
Rubric: You’ll be graded on the length of your paper (it’s ok to go over), the quality of your answer, and how well your answer draws from the assigned reading and lecture. Everything in your answer should come from the reading and the lecture following these directions. Do not reference other materials as I am testing you on your understanding of the assigned reading primarily. Sometimes I also find that people talk about themselves and their personal history to excess. Again, this doesn’t allow me to assess your understanding of the material. If you give me one paragraph about the reading and five paragraphs about yourself, then you didn’t actually write a summary of the reading.
Advice: Pay attention to page length. Two full pages does not mean 1 and ½ pages. Typically people lose the most points for failing to write out a legitimate two pages. Also, make sure to engage with the reading completely. This assignment is testing your understanding of the reading. If you express ideas that didn’t come from the reading then you’re not doing the assignment correctly. Format correctly. As a general note, if ½ of your first page is filled with titles, dates, spacing, and other filler, then you haven’t written two full pages. Read your essay. Your essay should be grammatically sound. Don’t hand in work that is poorly written and hard to understand.
Formatting: Your essay should be in times new roman, 12-point font, one-inch margins, and it should be double-spaced. Detailed instructions on how to format papers can be found in the video located in the syllabus folder. Post your papers as either a word or pdf file (no .pages files). I cannot accept other formats, since blackboard cannot read them.
To upload your essay click “Essay I” in the heading. This is a required assignment for attendance. You must successfully complete this assignment to avoid being withdrawn from this class.
