TOPIC: essay needs to involve platos apology and philosophical view with the meaning of life.

Method Guidelines

In this assignment you will write an argument paper. In an argument paper you will asset a thesis. In your thesis you will take a stance either in favor of a position or against a position. You will support your position based in the readings of the course or readings that are directly related to readings and topics covered in the course.  You may defend you thesis in the following ways:

1. provide a comparative examination of two or three different possible responses to your thesis and an explanation of why you have chosen to defend one position over the other 

2. provide a critical analysis of your own position which identifies potential weaknesses in the position and explains what makes that position nevertheless superior in some ways to the others considered; and

3. apply your thesis to an everyday situation, work of fiction or film to demonstrate the merit of your position.

Style Guidelines

1. The paper must be 5 pages long, typed, double-spaced, in an 11- or 12-point font with reasonable margins.

2. The paper must be written in accord with the conventions of Standard Written English. Your paper will be evaluated in part in terms of spelling, grammar, and overall structure.

3. You must use direct quotations from the readings assigned in class to support your claims about what the philosophers say and/or believe. Citations should be in either the MLA or Chicago Manual of Style formats (information on both of which is available on the UHD Library website, under the heading, Citing Sources), and as such must give full bibliographical information for your sources in either a works cited (MLA) or bibliographical footnotes (Chicago). Quotations should be set off from the rest of the paper (typically by quotation marks), and you must cite the page numbers in the relevant text where the quoted passage appears.

4. Do not assume that the reader of your paper is familiar with what has been read or discussed in this class. Think of your reader as an educated person who, although they may be familiar with philosophy in general, is not necessarily knowledgeable of the texts (or topics) you are discussing in the paper. As such, you should make every effort to explain the ideas you discuss and the quotations you use in straightforward language that generally conveys meaning to your reader.

5. You are responsible for ensuring that your paper is free of plagiarism. If you do not know what constitutes plagiarism, please consult the syllabus for this class, the UHD Student Handbook, the Academic Honesty Policy of the University of Houston-Downtown, and/or the UHD Library website (Plagiarism: Understand and Avoid It! in the section, Citing Sources) . If you are still uncertain, please contact the instructor with any specific questions you might have.