Final Essays: Guidelines and Due-Date

Your final essays are due by May 11th at 3:30PM. Since I will be traveling, you should submit these to me by email. If you do not receive a response confirming receipt of the essay within 24 hours, please try to get in touch by other means to make sure it came through.

These essays should be somewhat more significant than your first (2,000–3,000 words for undergraduates, 3,000–5,000 words for graduates) and should involve (in a non-trivial way) at least five peer-reviewed sources (including at least three that were not assigned in class).

I'll be using the same rubric as I used to mark the first essays. If you have any questions about what you need to do to get into the right-most column, please don't hesitate to ask. Following my writing advice (and attending to the associated links) will help. Make sure you've got a clearly articulated, specific, focused thesis to argue for. Make sure that you're actually arguing for it, rather than just repeating the claim in slightly different words (keep asking yourself, "How might Slater — or some other moderately intelligent and skeptical reader — object here? How would I respond to those objections?"). And of course you should follow the formatting guide as an easy source of points: you may have your own nifty personal convention, but I'd rather see you consistently put into play a commonly-employed style of citing work, formatting essays, &c.

As usual, I'll be happy to look at drafts, but my ability to do so declines as the deadline gets closer and more people ask me to.

Comments about First Essay

I have distributed the graded first essays. Many of you would have benefited greatly from submitting something early and revising. Hopefully you will take into account my comments and seek help if you need it before tackling your final essay. If you weren't in class today, you can pick up your essay from me in my office during regular office hours or find me at another time.

Some of you seem rather at sea with regard to how to handle citations/references. For the final essay, please follow this formatting guide that describes a standard way of handling in-text citations. It's but one way, yes, but good practice to master it. I will include your successfully following it in the first row of the rubric on the final essay. Please ask if anything is unclear.

Here's how I see the scores on the rubric translating into rough grades: The A range runs from 22-28, B: 16-22, C: 10-16, D: 4-6, F: <4. But don't focus on the grade: focus on what you need to do to improve. Almost all of you needed to drastically increase the focus and specificity of your thesis. This, as I've been saying, sets the terms of a successful essay. It's much easier to argue well for a specific thesis. Please come visit with me sometime if you're not sure how to improve your work for the final essay. I'll be happy to read a draft or outline, talk about your thesis and argument, and help you structure your essay and tighten up your writing.

More Suggested Essay Topics

Here are some further topic ideas you might think about for your first essays. Note that you should not simply think of yourself as answering these questions: you should develop a specific thesis and argue for it carefully, in depth. I am also happy to direct you to further readings on your chosen topic (the Sober collection is generally a good place to start, as is the Sterelny and Griffiths book).

• Examine the merits of evolutionary psychology. Clearly, some of its proponents go too far; does it ever provide us with genuine illumination about certain features of our society or psychology?
• Are Buller and Haufe's criticisms completely fair or is there some way for evolutionary psychologists to respond?
• Does Neander succeed at making room for teleology (proper functions) in a mechanistic world? Evaluate her case.
• Paul Davies argues that the systemic capacity theory of functions actually subsumes selected effects functions — does he succeed?
• Are “malfunctions” impossible? Davies claims so in his paper “Malfunctions” [PDF] (the argument is also sketched in his “The Nature of Natural Norms”). Evaluate this claim.
• Dupré and Kitcher suggest that we ought to be pluralists about natural kinds. Evaluate their arguments.
• What are the prospects for natural kinds essentialism? Does Devitt make a compelling case for recognize at least partly intrinsic essences?

First Half Essay

Remember: I will be recording your first essay score for your best essay I receive by March 11th (in about two and a half weeks!). Remember: you can write as many as you like (and up to two versions of the same essay) and I will only count your best. I strongly recommend you take advantage of this golden opportunity, as I'll be holding you to the high standard expected of a 400/500-level course (according to your specific affiliation).

Specifically, I will be using this rubric to mark your essays. Worry about the tiles of the columns, not the numbers (which will not correspond in the usual way to grades): to get an 'A', you should expect to have most marks in the 'excellent' / 'very good' columns. A 'B' paper will be more centered around the 'very good' column; with 'C', 'D', 'F', as you'd expect. . . . I'll curve numerical scores to reflect this. Bear in mind, however, that as time approaches (if I'm getting lots of submissions at the same time, my ability to turn around the paper quickly for you to revise or rewrite completely will decrease; the sooner you get me something, the more likely it is that you'll be able to revise it into something better)

I highly recommend going through multiple drafts before submitting something. Take account of the writing advice on my website along with the associated links. I can't recommend the "Bennett Rules" — see Bennett and Gorovitz’s essay on “Teaching Academic Writing” — highly enough. Ask yourself honestly whether the paper is as clear and precise as it can be. Write not only so that you can be understood, but so you cannot be misunderstood.