First Paper

First Paper
For the First Paper you will write summaries and critiques of two articles. Then you will
write a short paper (500 to 1000 words) about Creating Knowledge. Your paper must use
some material from the two source articles. The two articles are:
1) Amundson “The Hundredth Monkey Debunked”
2) Westrum “The Blind Eye of Science”
For Each Article: After several careful readings summarize the essay by stating its thesis and
major supporting points in your own phrasing. Your summary must be brief–300 words or less.
It must be complete, clearly stating all of the major points of the essay. It must be objective,
containing no analysis or anything other than a summary of the essay. It must be entirely in your
own phrasing: Do not use quotations in your summary, and be careful not to plagiarize! It must
also be more readable than choppy, ready, in a word, to be used in a referenced paper. After the
summary, write a critique of the essay (around 200 words). The critique must clearly identify
the author’s purpose in writing the essay and then evaluate how well the essay has achieved the
author’s purpose by reviewing several specific points. Also, identify any underlying assumptions
in the essay with which you might disagree. Make your critique as explicit as possible;
remember that your purpose is to make the material more useful to you for a referenced paper.
The final draft of each sum/crit must be typed on a word processor, doubled-spaced, in the
following format: your name, bibliographic entry in either MLA or APA style, the summary
(labeled Sum:), the critique (labeled Crit:). Clearly separate the summary and critique sections–
do not mix them together.
For the short paper write two to four pages (500 to 1000 words) in which you discuss creating
knowledge through research. It must have a short introduction to the topic, a clear thesis, and
several paragraphs of argument making the case for your thesis. You must use material from our
two source articles, carefully controlling the voices in your text so that any reader will know
when you are using source material. You are not required to use any other source material (and
probably shouldn’t), but if you do, please include bibliographic entries for any additional source
material.
This project is due on Thursday on Week 5. You must submit your work through the
proper SafeAssign link on the Blackboard site. Remember the syllabus rule: “Major Paper
grades will be reduced 10% for each day late, and no paper will be accepted more than two days
(48 hours) late.”