For students enrolled in PHYS or PHIL 419 only. 419 obtains ACP credit and requires a term paper; 420 students are not required to submit any element of the term paper.
For 419, the term paper is worth 30% of your grade. Further instructions will be provided on April 2nd (when your topic is due).
Your topic
Your final paper should be on a topic covered in class or in one of the textbooks. Please have your final paper topic approved by Professor Weaver by April 2nd. To acquire approval of your topic, please email him with the subject heading "Final Paper Topic for Approval", then, in the body of your email, state the thesis that you intend to argue for. Your thesis statement should be a completion of the following phrase:
"I will argue that...".
The document
The rough and final drafts of your term paper should be 3,000 to 5,000 words. Documents should be single-spaced, justified, and in 12-point Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins. Please: no title pages and do not include course information. Papers should be paginated and documented in the University of Chicago Manual of Style (click on the "Author-Date" tab in the middle of the webpage for instructions on how to cite in the style). It should include a bibliography; your bibliography may not be used to fulfill the length requirement and is not a works cited page.
Students are required to submit both a rough and final draft of their term paper. All term paper drafts are due in PDF format on Compass -- the rough draft by 11a on April 22nd (comments will be returned on Compass by May 3rd) and the final draft by 6p on May 12th. A late final draft will receive a one-point reduction every hour it is late (e.g., if your paper is 70 minutes late, your final paper grade will receive a one-point reduction). All students who submit a rough draft will receive comments on their rough drafts and will be expected to make revisions in light of those comments; the revised version of your paper will constitute the final draft. Final paper grades will be posted on Compass within two weeks of final draft paper submission.
Help
If you need help with your paper, Prof. Weaver is available to meet with you during office hours, or you can email him to set up an appointment. You can also email or arrange meetings with Charles, Dmitry, or Nikhil. Please also consider utilizing the Writers Workshop, an invaluable resource for writing help.