PAPER ASSIGNMENT:

The paper is due no later than Tuesday, December 14, 5:00 P.M. Please leave it with me at my office or in my mailbox in the History Department. You must keep a second copy.

SUBSTANCE: Pick two or three authors from our syllabus, and using their actual arguments to confront the actual arguments of Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, write their separate reviews of Ayn Rand's work for them. Focus above all on premises, principles, assumptions, conclusions, and values, avoiding ad hominem, stylistic, and rhetorical criticisms (and avoiding jokes or even deep comments about the reviewers being dead).

FORM (please take all of these instructions literally): Your reviewers' main argument should be stated clearly and concisely in an early paragraph, and then articulated and defended at length. Avoid excessive use of direct quotation; paraphrase is much better. You may footnote formally (at the bottom of the page or in endnotes) or informally (in parentheses after any citation or paraphrase), as long as you are consistent and as long as you let me know what sections of the authors' works, in your opinion, support the views that you assign to them. If any argument seems problematic to you, present it as such: there is nothing wrong, to say the least, with showing how someone might view a text in more than one way. Provide a cover (title) page, and number your pages. Your paper must be in final form, proofread and corrected, with proper spelling, punctuation, syntax, and grammar. (When in doubt, use a dictionary and consult a manual of style.) Leave enough time to deal with any contingencies relating to computers and printers. Back up your work constantly. I do not give incompletes except for attested medical or personal emergencies. Do not take the class if that condition is intolerable to you. I am available throughout the semester if you want help with framing your papers or improving your prose.