Currency and Culture (research paper)

For this paper, you will select a specific group of people with a common currency, who shares a set of traits such as shared beliefs, historical time, governmental structure and/or geography. You will construct a thesis paper which explores how the currency affects and is influenced by the people's culture. This will require you to elaborate on the research you did for your oral presentation, and, in addition, do more research on the culture itself.

This paper should be based on solid facts drawn from your own research, so be sure to read Lunsford's discussion of a research paper in chapters 10-13, including 12g and 13c on citing sources. Choose the quantity and quality of your sources carefully. If you include too few good sources, you'll be uninformed; if you choose too many, you risk writing a paper consisting mostly of other people's ideas rather than your own ideas. Unless your topic is unusual, your sources should mostly include published sources, and not merely unpublished web sources.

You should formulate your paper around a single, interesting, focused thesis, which you will support using hard evidence. An interesting thesis usually will connect two ideas that aren't usually connected. Less commonly, a thesis is interesting simply because it's controversial. While your thesis should easily be discerned after one reading of your paper, I ask that you identify your thesis statement with a highlighter.

Your paper should be about 1200-2100 words (4-7 pages). The research paper constitutes 35% of your course grade, 10% for the first draft, 25% for the final draft. Both will be graded according to the same criteria listed below.

Citations and bibligraphy

In your bibliography, in addition to Lunsford's guidelines, add one sentence to each reference which explains to the reader why the source is (or isn't) reputable.

Be sure to document (i.e., provide citations for) any evidence you provide. Beware of making assertions based on hearsay rather than research. In addition, be sure to document information about your chosen culture as well as information about their currency.

Grading guidelines

• The F paper is rare. This grade is usually reserved for cases of plagiarism and excessive lateness. However, exceptional failure to comply with the terms of an assignment may also result in an F.

• The D paper, in some significant way, doesn't answer the question that was asked. It lacks a thesis or an argument, or it has a thesis which is inappropriate to the assignment. A D paper which does answer the question is filled with mechanical faults (errors in grammar and/or spelling). Paragraphs do not hold together; ideas do not develop from sentence to sentence. This paper usually repeats the same thoughts over and over, perhaps in slightly different language but often in the same words. It is usually rambling and directionless. Sometime a D paper makes an argument, but uses no evidence at all and relies entirely on unsupported personal opinion.

• The C paper has a thesis which is vague and broad, or which answers only part of the question(s) asked; or it may make a good argument without first offering a thesis statement (usually in the introduction). The C paper rarely uses evidence well. Even with a clear and interesting thesis, a paper with insufficient supporting evidence is a C paper. Sometimes a C paper has a good deal of evidence, but it is not part of a coherent argument and the reader can only make sense of it with great difficulty (if at all); thus, the evidence is ineffective.

• The B paper makes sense throughout. It has a thesis that is appropriate, complete and worth arguing. (To be appropriate, the thesis relates a people's culture to its currency.) The paper does not digress, and it ends by keeping the promise it made to the reader in the beginning. The reader always knows where the paper is going and what the author wants to say. The paper presents interesting ideas, supported with sound evidence which is both to the point and well documented.

  The paper is well organized and although some sentences may not be elegant, the ideas in them flow well and thought naturally follows on thought. The paragraphs may be unwieldy now and then, but they are organized around one main idea. The reader does not have to read a paragraph two or three times to figure out what the writer is trying to convey.

  The B paper is, for the most part, mechanically correct. There may be occasional spelling and grammar errors, but these are few in number and do not prevent the reader from following the ideas in the paper.

• The A paper is rare. It has all the qualities of a B paper, but in addition it is lively, well paced, interesting, even exciting. Everything in it seems to fit the thesis exactly. The paper has style. Reading this paper, the reader feels a mind at work. The sure mark of an A paper is that the reader continues to think about it after reading it, even wanting to tell others about it.

  This paper may have a proofreading error or two, even occasional misspelled words or a minor error in grammar, but these errors are the consequence of the normal accidents all good writers encounter.

Don't forget...

• Write and sign the honor pledge.
• Add one sentence to each bibliography entry assessing its repute.
• Highlight (or underline) your thesis which should usually appear in the body of your paper.