International Relations Paper Assignment Assignment Students will write an 8€œ10 page paper on how international relations affects some area of interest to you. One way to approach this is to write about your proposed course of study, major or future career. For example, if you are a business major you can examine how international trade rules affect a certain branch of business; if you are a pre-med major you can examine international conflict over drugs derived from Third World plants or the actions of the influential non-governmental organization €œDoctors without Borders.€ You are strongly urged to consult with one of the TAs on what is an acceptable topic for the paper. Length. 8-10 pages using a standard 12 point font, double-spaced, and 1 inch margins. Due date. Papers are due at 2:00 pm on November 27. Submission time is determined by the D2L Dropbox timestamp (see Submission Procedure below). The penalty for late papers is two points (out of 46) per weekday. Permission is not required for late papers, the 2 point per day penalty automatically applies. A paper submitted prior to 2:00 pm on November 28 is one day late; after 2:00 pm it is two days late. Plagiarism. University rules on plagiarism will be strictly enforced. Anytime you use someone else’s words you must use direct quotes or paraphrase those words. Either way, you must attribute it to the author. Anything that is not attributed is claimed to be your original phrasing. If you are unsure about what constitutes plagiarism ask a TA or your instructor, or see the official University policy at Sources. Any format for your citations is acceptable€MLA, APA, APSR, etc. Which ever you choose, be consistent. Use in text citations or footnotes, and include a works cited page at the end. A good rule of thumb: have as many sources as number of pages. At least half of your sources should be print sources, even if you access them online. This includes books, peer-reviewed journals, etc. As long as it exists in print somewhere, it counts as a print source. Dot.com websites are generally not a good source to use. Wikipedia is not acceptable as a source. You may use official government websites for the UN, EU, CIA, etc. if it€„¢s relevant to your paper. Don€„¢t overuse news sources (if all your sources are CNN, NY Times, etc., you will lose points on the citations grade). Grading criteria. Papers will be graded on content, organization, research and grammar. See the €œPaper Checklist€ in the €œContent€ tab of the D2L page. Submission procedure. Papers will be submitted electronically. No €œhard€ copies will be accepted. An electronic copy must be uploaded to the €œPaper€ folder in the D2L €œDropbox€ in order to check for on-time submission and originality with TurnItIn. Papers POL 202: International Relations Page 2 must be submitted in one of the following formats: +MS Word (.doc, .docx) +WordPerfect (.wpd) +PostScript (.eps) +Portable Document Format (.pdf) +HTML (.htm) +Rich Text (.rtf) +Plain Text (.txt) Writing tips. 1. Have a clear thesis statement. If we cannot figure out what your thesis statement is, you have a problem. 2. Outline your essay. Make sure your essay is organized and clearly relates back to your thesis. Don€„¢t get most of the way done, then realize you need to somehow get another 3 pages in there, and start going off on random tangents until you hit the page limit. a. On a related note, try to have clear topic sentences€I should be able to read the first sentence of the paragraph and know what the main point of that paragraph is. b. Likewise, really long paragraphs are typically not a good idea. 3. Make sure your arguments are well researched. a. Try not to say €œthey probably have€ or €œthere likely is€¦Ã¢‚¬ This tends to mean that you didn€„¢t do your research! It is better to write the facts and conditions behind your arguments/statements, rather than simply guessing. 4. Do your citations correctly€there is no need to get points off for avoidable mistakes. a. Also, please don€„¢t quote the dictionary, and do NOT cite Wikipedia. b. Somewhat related€please introduce quotes. 5. Edit your paper! Again, there is no need to get points off for avoidable mistakes. Some things to double check: a. Use punctuation correctly! This goes for apostrophes, colons, semi-colons (my pet peeve), commas, periods, etc. (A thing on how to use apostrophes, with pictures: b. Also, the €œif you learned it in the fourth grade rule:€ If you learned something in the fourth grade, you should still know it now! This goes for correctly using words (to, too, two; their, there, they€„¢re), correctly using punctuation (see above), and the like. c. Also, try not to use €œa lot,€ and contractions are generally a bad idea (e.g., won€„¢t, can€„¢t, don€„¢t).