POLI
369
US
National Security
Research
Paper and Role-playing simulation
This
is big and has very important information in it. For that reason, I’ve created a Table of
Contents (linked to sections below) for you to use to find information you’re
looking for. You should read this entire
assignment, however. I guarantee you
will wind up with a better grade if you do.
The Paper Topic and Role Assignments
Numbering Endnotes or Footnotes (in this paper, only endnotes)
Nitpicks and Style Issue (or Helpful hints)
Over
two class periods at the end of the term the class will simulate the national
security decision making process. Each
of you will be assigned the role of a US governmental official with
responsibilities for some aspect of US national security (officials in the
Defense Department or National Security Council Staff or Intelligence
Community, for example) You will be
given a national security problem to solve and guidance about what perspective
you should focus upon. For example, the
problem this semester is the civil war in Syria and intelligence that suggests
Iran is about to intervene to keep President Assad in power (fictional, but
based on real possibilities).
You
will write a 1-2 page executive summary presenting options for how to deal with
the issue (from the perspective of the role you have been assigned; for example,
if you are the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations,
you will focus on multilateral options for solving the problem; if you are the
Director of CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis, your research will focus on the
counterterrorism implications of any US options to an Iranian intervention – if
the US were to bomb Iran, how would Hezbollah react…).
You
will be required to hand in a rough
draft of the summary (at a date indicated on the syllabus) and a final version
(at a date indicated on the syllabus).
The rough draft is intended to give me an opportunity to help you out
with the style of an executive summary and give you an opportunity to rewrite
the executive summary based on my comments.
Your final draft should also be emailed to me so I can make it available
to all students in the class. These
final papers are the equivalents of department or agency reports that are
disseminated to all decision makers before an interagency meeting.
The
paper is your work alone, but the role-playing simulation is a group exercise.
Once the research is done and I have made comments on both drafts of your
paper, we’ll begin the role-playing simulation: a two day in class exercise
where you will develop a draft Presidential Directive spelling out the options
for US policy in case of an Iranian intervention in Syria. I will prepare a detailed agenda for these
sessions. Essentially, you will first
meet with the other members of your department or agency then you will meet
within the interagency committee to which you’ve been assigned. In these interagency committees you’ll
negotiate to come up with a draft Presidential Directive that includes all your
perspectives, evaluates the pros and cons of various US options, develops a
government-wide consensus, or spells out where consensus could not be achieved
and why.
Every
aspect of this exercise (your research and the role-playing simulation) will be
guided by a draft Presidential Review Directive where I will spell out what
questions I want answered in the Presidential Directive (and in your
papers). For samples of actual
Presidential Directives, follow this link.
After
you graduate, you will take a job, maybe in the government, maybe in the
private sector. Either way, you will
probably not be the CEO. You will be
working for someone else and your job will probably be based on your ability to
help your boss do a good job. There will
be two key elements to that: information and communication. Your ability to provide your boss with high
quality and high reliability information will be one key challenge. Your ability to communicate that information
to your boss in an easy to digest form will be the other key. Think of it this way: Assume that I am the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. I have to report to the Undersecretary of
Defense for Political Affairs on threats to US national security (everything
from Chinese cruise missile development to the impact of Pakistani public
education on radicalization among urban youth in Karachi). I can’t read a book
on each one of these subjects. Also, I
have eight zillion other responsibilities.
I can devote about five minutes to any specific issue, so I need for you
(my chief deputy) to give me the information I need in a very short report that
will tell me everything I need to know about the issue in under five
minutes. That’s the life of a busy
public or private sector executive. You,
as the deputy, have to provide your boss with what he/she needs: one to two
pages that tell him/her what he/she needs to know. You’re the expert and you need to provide
that expertise in a format that is succinct, clear, and informative.
The Elements of
an Executive Summary
There
are many ways to think about an executive summary, but here is what I think is
the best way. How you break this down into paragraphs is up to you, but
suggestions are made below.
The
following are links to examples from Rand Corporation documents. These are on line executive summaries of
larger documents, which are also on line.
If you go to Rand’s main web site (www.rand.org) and look
under publications, you will find summaries of almost all their documents
included with the documents themselves.
Rand is funded mostly by the US government, so most of what they publish
is available on line for free to the good taxpayers of the US. Most of these
summaries are longer than yours has to be, but the papers they are summarizing
are also longer than your hypothetical paper.
These links will take you to the document where you can click in the
full document or the summary.
·
Brian A. Jackson, David R. Frelinger, Emerging
Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide What Hypothetical Threats
to Worry About? (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP256/
·
The assigned reading for this class Global Trends
2035, also has an executive summary that will help you understand the format.
See National Intelligence Council, Office of the Director of
National Intelligence. Global Trends
2035: Paradoxes of Progress, January 2017. https://www.dni.gov/files/images/globalTrends/documents/GT-Full-Report.pdf
I will be adding a sample executive summary that
will be linked to this assignment here. Here is a link to the bibliography for the sample executive summary.
This is an executive summary based on a role that is not assigned in the
class (Chairman of the State Department Policy Planning Council) and a research
question that is different from the ones you are being asked to research. When you see the endnotes and bibliography,
don’t worry. Your paper doesn’t need to have that many sources or
endnotes. You are required to have 10
sources and at least 10 endnotes. I have
a huge number of sources and my endnotes are all contain multiple sources. That is not required of you. This executive summary is based in part off
of a larger article I wrote several years ago.
You can access that larger article through scholar.google.com. This is
the citation: Newmann, William W. "Hegemonic disruption:
the asymmetric challenge to US leadership." Strategic
Studies Quarterly 5, no. 3 (2011): 67-102. You’ll get an idea of how
something over 30 pages becomes only two pages.
Each
of you will be assigned a role for the role-playing simulation. This role will also define your paper
topic. For example, as mentioned above,
if you are the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations,
you will focus on multilateral options for solving the problem; if you are the
Director of CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis, your research will focus on the
counterterrorism implications of any US options to an Iranian intervention – if
the US were to bomb Iran, how would Hezbollah react…).
You
will be given a chance to state a preference for your role in the first few
weeks of class. We’ll be having a map
quiz and on the back of the map quiz will be the list of roles for the
role-playing simulation. You will
identify your first, second, and third choices and I’ll do my best to get
everyone a role they are interested in.
Each role has a bit of a perspective and I will give a brief summary of
that perspective for each role. More
detail will be provided in the Presidential Review Directive that I will
provide during the first few weeks of the semester. This PRD will assign tasks for each specific
role and provide the questions the President needs answered by you, the
experts. The PRD will also identify the
interagency committee assignments for everyone.
Read the PRD before you decide what role you’d like to play. Since the
PRD will spell out the research assignment for each role, you’ll be able to
decide what research assignment you want, within limits. The limits are that we
have 40-55 people in the class. On the
day of the map quiz you will have a chance to tell me what are your first,
second, and third choices for your role? I’ll try to give everyone one of their
top three choices, but that doesn’t always work out. Also, consider the
simulation days. Everyone will participate, but if you’re a little bit shy in
large groups, you may not want to be Secretary of State or National Security
Advisor, roles that require you to play one of the larger roles.
When
finished, the PRD will be linked here
The
Roles (some of this may change when assignments are given out (depending on how
many people are enrolled in the class).
You’ll also note that these roles are listed by hierarchy in the
department/agency, but that will not mean that you’ll have less to do or a less
important role if you are an Assistant Secretary rather than a Deputy
Secretary. Your role will be equally
important to the outcome of the role-playing simulation.
The
importance of the specific roles is to illustrate that different people in
different departments/agencies have different perspectives and even the
perspectives of people from different bureaus in the same agency may
differ. You research should not be an
examination of what the official does, but an analysis of a specific problem
related to our role-playing simulation that comes from the perspective of a
specific governmental office. As an
example: The Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor may look at the potential of an Iranian intervention into Syria as an
event that would compound an already disastrous human rights tragedy. The Director of CIA’s Office of Terrorism
Analysis might be more concerned with how Iranian intervention would enhance
Iran’s to assist Hezbollah or maybe the official might see Iran and Hezbollah’s
intervention in Syria as a problem for them: discrediting their revolutionary credentials
as they support a dictator like Assad or maybe they got bogged in the Syrian
civil war and Syria becomes Iran’s “Vietnam.”
The point is to gain the perspective of the official (I’ll help with
that) and not worry about whom that official actually is or the day to day
issues of the office.
Below
I’ve given a brief description of the office and its main mission. This will give you a starting point in
helping you decide which official you’d like to play in the role-playing
simulation. The PRD will give a bigger
picture.
The
list of roles is linked to the actual office if possible; sometimes this will
provide useful information and sometimes it won’t. For some White House-based assistants, such
as the National Security Council staff links are not available. For other roles
where there are no links, use the links for the main Department page for any
info you might want. The links to the official websites are not necessary for
your research. If they exist, I provide
them just because I can.
Department
of State The State
Department is the primary arm of US diplomacy.
It contains all US Embassies and a large bureaucracy which analyzes
nations and international events to provide expertise for the Secretary and the
President.
Secretary of
State
This is the senior US diplomat and President’s chief foreign policy advisor (in
theory). The Secretary’s job is to see
the big picture of US foreign affairs.
The Secretary is typically a major political figure in his/her own right
and may have been a presidential contender.
Because of this the secretary will have a keen eye for the domestic
political impact of any foreign policy choices.
·
Deputy Secretary of State The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary is often out of
the country and in these cases the deputy takes the Secretary’s place at
interagency meetings. The Secretary and
the deputy often negotiate a division of labor (where the Deputy manages the
Department or the deputy has responsibility over certain areas of the world
that need less of the Secretary’s attention).
Again, the focus in this role is the big picture of US foreign policy.
§
US Ambassador to the United Nations This official continues to have a growing
role. The Ambassador represents the US
at the United Nations and negotiates with other nations to work out
multilateral stances on many issues that appear before the UN. For example, if the US wants a UN Security
Council resolution to condemn ran or Syria, this official does the negotiating
with other nations UN Ambassadors. Often
this official is made a non-statutory member of the US National Security
Council.
Department
of Defense This department
has the role of organizing the nation’s defense capability, both planning and
execution. It is run by civilians, but
it includes the uniformed military officers who actually engage in military
operations.
Secretary of
Defense
This is the President’s chief advisor on defense matters. Sometimes the SecDef will lean more toward a
management role, focusing on the task of making sure the US has the weaponry
and manpower it needs to fight wars.
Other SecDefs have become important policy advisors, rivaling the
secretary of State as the chief foreign and national security policy confidante
of the President. The focus here is the
big picture – perhaps the military balance and its implications or perhaps even
broader than that.
·
Deputy Secretary of Defense The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy
often negotiate a division of labor (where the Deputy manages the Department or
the deputy has responsibility over certain areas of the world that need less of
the Secretary’s attention). Again, the
focus in this role is the big picture of US political-military preparedness.
·
JCS Chair (for all offices below, use the Chairman’s page) The Chairman of
the JCS is the principal military advisor to the President and the Secretary of
Defense. He is not in the chain of
command for military operations, but has the task of advising the NSC on
military capabilities and strategy of the US, its allies, and enemies. This official is a uniformed military
officer. The Joint Staff, large
bureaucracy of military officers (typically with Master’s degrees and PhDs in
public policy, international affairs, or technical areas), works directly for
the Chair of the JCS.
Department
of Energy The DoE is an
important element of national security.
It runs the US nuclear weapons infrastructure (they make them; the DoD
would use them.) The Secretary of Energy
is a member of the NSC (since 2007). This is the department that has the
expertise in understanding how a nation like Iran would be able to take its
nuclear energy infrastructure and turn it into a nuclear weapons
infrastructure. Another responsibility
of the DoE is to look at the issue of energy itself --- the world and US future
energy supply, the impact of disruptions to energy supply or events that will
lead to an increase in the price of energy think Middle East; think oil; think
of what happens if there is a wider war in the Middle East.
Secretary of Energy The head of
the agency. The Secretary would have
his/her eye on the big picture related to the above issues and perhaps greater
attention to the domestic aspects of all these issues than the lower levels of
the DoE.
·
Deputy Secretary of Energy The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy
often negotiate a division of labor.
The big picture aspects are the crucial ones for the Deputy.
Department of the Treasury The Treasury Department is in charge of economic issues for
the US government, everything from thinking about the future of the US economy
to the deficit to the budget to trade to the impact of world events on the
global and regional economy.
Secretary
of the Treasury: The Secretary manages the department and is the chief
economic advisor to the President and typically is included in the NSC process
to make sure the economic impact of national security issues is considered when
decisions are made. This official will
often be focused on the impact of foreign events on the US economy.
·
Deputy
Secretary of the Treasury: The
Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy often negotiate
a division of labor. The big picture aspects are the crucial ones for the
Deputy.
Department
of Justice This is the
department that deals with all the legal issues of the functioning of US
government and US government policies.
Congress may pass laws, but it is the department of Justice (along with
the White House Counsel’s Office) that interprets the meaning of the laws and
the methods of making law into policy into a legal manner. (Ultimately the US Supreme Court may rule on
the initial law and whether that law has been “faithfully executive” by the
executive branch.)
Attorney General the head of
the Justice department and typically asked to be a non-statutory member of the
NSC. His/her job is to consider the international
and domestic implications of US national security policy.
·
Deputy Attorney General The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy
often negotiate a division of labor. The big picture aspects are the crucial
ones for the Deputy.
Department
of Homeland Security The newest
cabinet department (2002) and the one charged with everything from border
security to emergency response to counterterrorism. It is also one of the
agencies that deal on cyber security (as an essential part of the mission of
critical infrastructure protection). Its
counterterrorism mission is one that requires working with other departments
and agencies.
Secretary of
Homeland Security The Secretary may look at foreign events in the context of
how those events and the US response could spark problems in the US (such as
terrorist reprisals against the US homeland). The Secretary is typically a non-statutory
member of the NSC and one of the key statutory members of the Homeland Security
Council.
·
Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy
often negotiate a division of labor. The big picture aspects are the crucial
ones for the Deputy.
National
Security Council Staff (NSC staff) The Obama administration merged the NSC staff
with the Homeland Security Council’s staff (the Office of Homeland Security)
and the new staff was dubbed the National Security Staff, but it has since been
renamed the National Security Council Staff.
We’ll spend a lot of time talking about this. The short version is that this staff has
evolved into the President’s personal foreign and national security policy
bureaucracy. It replicates all the
functions of the rest of the executive branch agencies that deal with national
security affairs, but it is smaller, faster, loyal to the President, and
appointed by the President, but no confirmed by the Senate (nor do staff
members have to appear before Congress).
The President can also organize anyway he wishes without any statutory
complications. It focuses on whatever
the President wants it to focus on.
Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs (National
Security Advisor): The National Security Advisor manages the NSC Staff and has
become and has become the President’s most important national security advisor
and alter ego for the President on national security affairs. His/her office is just down the hall from the
President’s in the West Wing of the White House. This official generally runs the NSC process
on behalf of the President, chairing the NSC/PC and often even the NSC. The focus of this official is the big picture, everything from the
day-to-day politics of every event and policy all the way to the implications
for the next fifty years.
·
Deputy Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
(Deputy National Security Advisor):
This is the deputy to the National Security Advisor and chair of the
NSC/DC. The Deputy is often next in line
for National Security Advisor position.
This official’s interests are the same as the National Security Advisors. Often this official takes on the management
of the entire NSC process (from the NSC/DC down to the NSC/PCCs and other
working groups that may be formed).
o
Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning: The NSC Staff is divided up into small offices
with Senior Directors for specific issues. This is the senior director for
global strategic issues, such as the global and regional balances of power, US
alliances, US global and regional reputation, and long-term strategic issues.
Intelligence
Community This is the
name for the 17 agencies/offices/bureaus that do the intelligence work of the
US government.
Director of
National Intelligence Since the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act the DNI has run the intelligence community.
This official’s job is to put all the intelligence from the entire IC
together into an analysis that President and his advisors can use to make
decisions. It’s important for this
official to explain to the President what the IC is sure about, what it isn’t
sure about, and what it simply does not know.
This is the big picture of events that are happening in the world. The President gets the President’s Daily
Brief (a morning briefing on what’s going on in the world from this official or
someone designated by this official).
·
Deputy
Director of National Intelligence (use
the Director’s web page for info): Again the Deputy will help manage the IC for
the Director.
·
Director of Central Intelligence CIA used to do the job of gathering
intelligence of its own and also putting together all the intelligence of the
IC. However, the 2004 IRTPA (rotten acronym)
essentially reduced CIA’s role by giving the big picture job to the DNI. However, CIA still has huge intelligence
assets and since 9/11 it has developed its own paramilitary forces for
counterterrorism, its own prison system, and its own drone fleet. The DCI is still a big picture-focused
intelligence position, with a lot of clout.
Interagency
Groups
NSC/PC
1.
Chair:
National Security Advisor
2.
Secretary
of State
3.
Secretary
of Defense
4.
Secretary
of Energy
5.
Secretary
of Treasury
6.
Attorney
General
7.
Secretary
of Homeland Security
8.
Director
of National Intelligence
9.
Chair
Joint Chiefs of Staff
10.
US
Ambassador to the United Nations (State Dept)
NSC/DC
1.
Chair:
Deputy National Security Advisor
2.
Deputy
Secretary of State
3.
Deputy
Secretary of Defense
4.
Deputy
Secretary of Energy
5.
Deputy
Secretary of Treasury
6.
Deputy
Attorney General
7.
Deputy
Secretary of Homeland Security
8.
Deputy
Director of National Intelligence
9.
Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning (NSC
Staff)
10.
Director
of Central Intelligence
The
role-playing simulation will take place over the last three class periods. We are simulating the interagency
process. Each department /agency has
been assigned various tasks to study by the PRD. Each individual has researched and written
about his/her own part of the national security issue (your papers) and each of
you has shared your executive summary with everyone else. During the role-playing simulation you’ll be
attempting to draft a Presidential Directive that will put all this information
and analysis together in a way that answers the questions asked by the PRD and
provides the President with a recommendation of policy options. For examples of actual Presidential
Directives follow this link.
The
PRD will be very specific. Each
department/agency will have a specific issue to analyze or set of questions to
answer. Each person will have a specific
issue to analyze or question to answer.
The PRD will specify the form of the Presidential Directive. For example, it might require two paragraphs
on Iranian military capabilities for intervention, two paragraphs on the
potential Israeli response to Iranian intervention, two paragraphs on the impact
on al-Qaeda and radicalization in general, two paragraphs on the proliferation
impact, and maybe three paragraphs on how it might impact the overall Middle
East etc…The Presidential Review Directive will assign each of you a specific
task. You’ll do the research on it and
then you’ll be the expert.
The
role-playing simulation will include two types of meetings:
1.
Department
or Agency Meetings: Everyone is a member of some department or agency. You will meet with this agency at the
beginning of the role-playing simulation to look over your reports (your
executive summaries).
2.
Interagency
Meetings in assigned committees to begin drafting the Presidential
Directive. There are three levels of
committees as shown above. Each of the
Policy Coordinating Committees (NSC/PCCs) will have responsibility for drafting
specific paragraphs related to their area of expertise. The Deputies Committee (NSC/DC) has the job
of making sure these paragraphs answer all the questions in the PRD. The Principals Committee (NSC/PC) has the
overall job of making sure that the analysis pays attention to overall
strategic issues – the big picture.
The
schedule will look something like this (it may be modified depending on how the
role-playing simulation proceeds):
Session One
§
Department/Agency
meetings to prepare agency priorities and policy recommendations
§
Interagency
meetings: NSC/PC, NSC/DC, to work on ironing out interagency differences to
build consensus and policy recommendations for committees above them in
hierarchy
§
NSC/PC
to decide any directions it has for NSC/DC
Session Two
§
Agencies
meet again if necessary at the beginning of class
§
NSC
Meets to put together draft
The
paper will include:
·
The bibliography
and end notes are separate pages and can be as long as you like. The bibliography and end notes do not count
as part of the 1-2 pages of the executive summary.
·
In
general, use citations in the executive summary that provide the reader with
the ability to read more about every important issue mentioned in the paper
because you cite the source of that information (your endnotes). These can be
explanatory endnotes that have lots of additional information in them,
information you couldn’t fit into the 1-2 page format. (Hint,
hint; this is one of the ways to edit the paper down to 1-2 pages; you can
write a paper that is much longer than 1-2 pages then edit it down to 1-2 pages
by moving the less important info into the endnotes).
Ask me! If you have a question on where to find
sources or if you need a specific source and you can’t find it, ask me. This is what I do for a living. I have everything! Some of what I have below
is repetitive. There’s a reason for that. I do it hopes that if you skim (and
you shouldn’t, but you might), you will stop in a place that has important
information. I do it hopes that if you
skim (and you shouldn’t, but you might), you will stop in a place that has
important information. And I hope that
if you see something twice, you might say: “Hey, this is important.”
1.
How to start looking for sources. The internet is all very nice. I
can find lots of cute dogs and the complete box score for every Chicago Bulls
game since they entered the league in 1966 and I can find out who played the
Chief Ugnaught in The Empire Strikes Back
(Jack Purvis). But for what we’re doing
journals and books are still better. For example, if there are five 400 page books
on the Iranian nuclear weapons program sitting in the library and 18 refereed
articles, why do a google search, which will get you 135,000 sources, but some
of them have one sentence on Iran, and some of them are written by some guy who
thinks he’s being possessed by the ghost of the Ayatollah Khomeini. You may think you’re saving time by doing all
your research from one chair. You’re not. There are so many quicker ways of
getting information than a google search. Such as…
2.
Use the Library: Really!!!!
Here’s what I mean: Library
Search Engines: Be careful of
a google search for scholarly research: Remember that you
can google something easily and get a list of 39,000 sources in under
one second. But how good are those sources? That’s unclear. You’ll get
everything from a scholarly book to a government report to a scholarly article
to a web site to a blog written by someone who thinks fluoride in the water is
a plot by North Korea to make us all sterile! The Internet is filled with
conspiracy theories and lies and insanity. Finding the good information is
difficult.
Scholarly Articles: For scholarly journals start with google.scholar). There are lots of different sources of information for you. The
best ones for scholarly research (what you’ll do in college) are scholarly
articles. These are articles that take a long time to write; they are fact
checked and reviewed by maybe a half a dozen people before they are
published. The information is accurate and the analysis is thoughtful.
That’s where you’ll find your best information. How do you know what the
scholarly articles are?
Start with google.scholar . That is a specific search engine that only gets scholarly
work. It eliminates websites and newspaper articles and magazines.
Remember that the web is very good for several things: information on what
happened yesterday; instant opinion on what happened yesterday; instant
disinformation (propaganda and outright lies about what happened yesterday);
and databases on obscure things. How else would I know that in 1943 Washington
quarterback Sammy Baugh led the NFL in touchdown passes, interceptions, and
punting? On November 14, against the Lions, he threw four touchdown
passes and intercepted four passes. I know this from ProFootballreference.com.
That’s fun. That’s the Internet. But scholarly research should start with scholar.google.com.
Keywords: For any kind of search keywords are important.
You may have to do a few searches before you find the right keywords that get
you all the good sources. Always try a few combinations to see what you get.
If you were looking for books or scholarly articles on Russian involvement in
the Middle East, you might use several combinations of these:
The Web: You cannot do this type of research only on
the web. Do not expect to be able to sit in front of your computer and
find all the information you need. Remember that the primacy purpose of
the Internet is advertising (even what passes for information is really
advertising its information). The web tells you that everything you need is on
the web. That is not true. It is especially not true when it comes to
scholarship.
·
A Warning about the Web: I don't think I need to tell
you much about the web. In college I wrote papers on a manual typewriter and I
took my SATs on stone tablets. But if you do have any questions about it let me
know. An important note about Internet sites: what is crucial about any webpage
is that you and I know what the source of the information is. All information
on the web is not equal. Before you trust any information on the web you must
know who runs the websites. Who is the source of the information? The US Nazi
Party has many websites. Their information is probably not a source you want to
use for research on Israeli foreign policy, for example. If I’m
researching Russian foreign policy, I need to know if the source is from the
Russian government or a scholarly source. Their views might be very different.
There is a ton of propaganda on the web. Many governments in the world are not
Democratic. They don’t have freedom of the press, but they do have a huge
presence on the Internet where they disseminate propaganda that tries to
influence the world’s judgment of their actions. China, Russia, or North
Korea are good examples of nations that use propaganda on the internet as part
of their “influence operations” that try to make their governments look warm
and fuzzy while they imprison government critics. Even in Democracies you need
to be careful of the sources. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party
both have their own web presence that is designed to make them look good and
make their political opponents look bad. Media often has a perspective as
well (left, right, center, celebrity, sensationalist, scandal…whatever).
In short, always be mindful of where the information comes from. The web
is a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories. That’s one of the most difficult
aspects of our information environment. There are so many sources of
information and many of them are just garbage. Remember that on the web you can
find a lot of information on these topics, NONE OF THE FOLLOWING ARE TRUE!!!!!
·
How President George W. Bush launched the September 11 attacks so
he could repeal the 2nd Amendment
·
How George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 to steal all Iraq’s oil
and prevent Saddam Hussein from disclosing that the Bush family had been
controlling global oil prices for decades in league with the Saudi Arabian
royal family
·
How Barack Obama was born in Kenya and sneaked into the US at an
early age so he could become President; he was doing this under the orders of
al-Qaeda
·
How the Affordable Care Act (that created near universal health
care in the US) had a section allowing a small government committee to decide
who would live or die when they reached old age (the “death panels”)
·
Again: NONE OF THESE ARE TRUE, but there are way too many people
who believe this stuff because it is on the Internet.
·
Oh and there was an Italian website about fifteen years ago that
linked me to the Kennedy assassination. I am not kidding. I had just turned two
when Kennedy was killed. If I was involved in the plot, I don’t remember.
How do you tell what is good and what is bad? That’s difficult,
but here are some keys to it:
·
Beware of “news” sites where all the articles are designed to
frighten you about the dangers of this or that
·
Especially be wary of “news” sites which try to frighten you and
tell you the sky is falling then move to a commercial break and try to sell you
something that will save your life when the sky does fall. These are
essentially infomercials masquerading as news.
·
Beware of “news” sites where everything comes from one extreme
perspective -- all the problems of the world are caused by a specific
politician, or a specific political party, and there is never any middle ground
or alternative perspective. Many legitimate news sites are accused of that by
their competitors; if you actually read those news sites, you find that
the accusation is false.
·
News organizations get things wrong from time to time. That
doesn’t mean bias. That means that journalists are human. The difference
between real news and “fake” news is simple. Fake news is propaganda designed
to push a political agenda by making you believe something that is false.
Real news is an attempt to get to the truth. Sometimes that doesn’t
always happen. Journalists can use a bad source or forget what they learned in
journalism school because they are so excited to get a scoop. Journalists can
make honest mistakes and there are bad journalists who may make bad mistakes.
The difference is this: when a good newspaper or website gets it wrong, they
fix the mistake and they often fire or demote the reporter. They also have multiple reporters working on
any sensitive story because they want to make sure they have a lot of eyes on
the subject. Bad newspapers or websites tell a story and when someone
proves that it is wrong, they don’t care. They continue to push the story
because they aren’t interested in getting it right; they are interested in
selling the story to achieve a political goal. That’s not news; it is
propaganda.
3.
Use
books and journal articles!!!!! Do not
think that you can do a good research job just by surfing the web. You can surf and surf the web and never find
the information you’re finding in web sites.
It might be far easier to walk into the library and find the three or
four books (maybe 1,000 pages specifically on the subject you’re researching,
or the dozen journal articles on that subject.
My advice: journals first because this is somewhat recent, then books
(start with google.scholar), then surf the web. (Hey, he repeated this; maybe it’s
important…)
4.
Searching
in Specific Journals: Many journals are available through the VCU system and
you can search through the VCU library, but you may also try Google Scholar (There it is again. Freaky). One way to use the VCU Library or google.scholar is to
use key words for the issue, and then the name of one of the journals listed
below. After doing that, then a search
under the president and the issue might get you some other sources, but they
are likely not as good. So, for example,
search under “Iran, Washington Quarterly”
and you get 150,000 of articles from the Washington
Quarterly and other journals as well in .08 seconds.
5.
A great
source is the International Crisis Group. This
is an NGO that reports on crises in every region of the world. These are the
most comprehensive and detailed analyses of crisis spots that exist.
6.
Also,
check out the Rand Corporation (www.rand.org). It is a US government
sponsored think tank that does the best analyses of national security issues.
Though it is US government sponsored, it is independent analysis and it’s the
best there is. Most of the sample
executive summaries linked to these paper instructions are from Rand.
7.
A Warning about the Web: I don't think I need to tell you
much about the web. In college I wrote papers on a manual typewriter and I took
my SATs on stone tablets. But if you do have any questions about it let me
know. An important note about internet sites: what is crucial about any webpage
is that you and I know what the source of the information is. All information
on the web is not equal. Before you trust any information on the web you must
know who runs the websites. Who is the source of the information? The US Nazi
Party has many websites. Their information is probably not a source you want to
use for research on Israeli foreign policy, for example. Also for example, if
you find a source on Iranian foreign policy, you should know if the source is
from the Iranian government. It might have a perspective. My guess is that an Iranian government web
site and a US government website will have different views of the Iranian
nuclear program. You should recognize the difference between government web
sites and scholarly information and sadly fake news. Importantly, you need to
know who runs the site, and you need to tell me that in the citations (see
below). That’s why refereed articles are so useful.
They are reviewed and edited and fact checked.
8.
Many
think tanks have great resources in them. These collections of links are on the
syllabus and here:
a.
Links to sources
on nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and missile
defense
b.
Links to Websites on foreign policy and national
security.
9. Journals: There are dozens of journals on
national security issues as well as excellent journals on Political Science
that will have articles on domestic and foreign affairs. Scholar.google is the
way to find them. Below is a list of some that specialize in national
security/foreign affairs. Some of the best journals on national security
affairs include the following (in no particular order). The VCU libraries have almost all of these in
text or available on line).
The Best Policy-Oriented Journals
o
Foreign
Affairs (policy-oriented)
o
Foreign
Policy (policy-oriented)
o
The
National Interest (policy-oriented)
o
The
Washington Quarterly (policy-oriented)
o
Survival
(policy-oriented)
o
The
American Interest (policy-oriented)
The Best Academic/Policy-Oriented
a. Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence (policy-oriented)
·
Orbis
(half policy; half academic)
·
Journal
of Strategic Studies (half academic; half policy)
·
Foreign
Policy Analysis (half academic; half policy)
·
International
Security (academic)
·
Security
Studies (academic)
·
International
Affairs (London-based academic)
·
World
Politics (academic)
·
Journal
of Conflict Resolution (academic)
·
Armed
Forces and Society (academic on civil-military relations)
The Best Specialized Journals
·
Georgetown
Journal of National Security Law and Policy (on legal issues related to
national security)
·
National
Security Law Journal (on legal issues related to national security)
·
Also,
remember that many Law Reviews (the best academic journals on legal affairs
will have articles on national security legal issues
·
Studies
in Conflict and Terrorism (on terrorism; policy-oriented)
·
Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (policy; on weapons technology and its impact)
·
The Long War Journal (on terrorism; policy-oriented; only on line)
·
Terrorism
and Political Violence (on terrorism; more academic)
US Military Journals
·
Parameters
(journal of the US Army Strategic Studies Institute)
·
Military
Review (US Army Combined Arms Center)
·
Joint
Force Quarterly (journal of the Chairman of the JCS)
·
Strategic
Studies Quarterly (journal of the US Air Force Air University)
·
The
Naval War College Review (journal of the US Naval War College)
·
List of links of US and other national military journals; some think tank
journals too
Journals on the Middle East (most of these have articles on domestic
and international issues)
·
Middle
East Policy (the best for this assignment)
·
Middle
East Journal
·
International
Journal of Middle East Studies
·
The
Journal of the Middle East and Africa
Read this. Pay attention to it; or
face everlasting doom! Failure to pay attention to this will likely result in a
grade of D.
The following is not just because I
want to annoy you or because I like to have things done my way. The following is because this is a class
where you will do social science research and the rules of social science
research are different from the rules of English composition or
journalism. Learning how to write for
different audiences and in different styles is part of the university experience.
You must use an established format for
citations and your bibliography. You
need to learn how to reference information properly, and how to write a
bibliography with the correct and complete information before you leave VCU.
This is easy to do, but more important than you think. Whether you go into
academia or business you will be judged on the quality of your information, and
that means people will want to know where you found your information. They will
judge you at first, before they read your text, on your bibliography and
citations. If you do it wrong while at VCU, you’ll get a deduction from your
grade. If you do this in graduate school
or government or the business world, you will be asked to go home and not come
back (as in “you’re fired”).
It does not matter to me what format you
use, as long as you use an established standard format for the social sciences.
You can use footnotes or endnotes or parenthetical references, but you must
learn to do it correctly. Here are web
resources that will teach you to do this:
·
Chicago Style Citation Format (not Chicago Style Pizza; no
deep dish citations). This is the best and easiest to use.
·
You can
use scholar.google.com another way. If
you found the book or article on this page, you’ll see that underneath the
small paragraph on the source is a link for the citation. It’s a little quote
symbol. Click on that and it will you
give several already formatted citations.
You can do that even if you didn’t originally find the source on
scholar.google.com. Just go to the page
and search for it there, then click the link. The properly formatted citation
can be copied and pasted directly into your bibliography. Remember, however,
that these are bibliographic formats.
Footnotes and endnotes are slightly different and have different page
number rules that are discussed below.
That is very important.
·
Easy Bib
·
Bibme
·
Purdue OWL (Online Writing Workshop)
·
Endnotes.
Here is a citation for an article that I wrote which has endnotes that
you can use as a template. It also
includes a bibliography that you can use as a template. You can access it
through scholar.google.com: Newmann, William W. "Hegemonic disruption: the
asymmetric challenge to US leadership." Strategic Studies
Quarterly 5, no. 3 (2011): 67-102.
Endnote and
footnote citation style are the same. The only difference is where you place
them in the text. Microsoft word allows
you to choose endnotes or footnotes and to switch one to the other if you
like. Ask me if you have questions on
how to do this.
Since
I have instructed you to pay attention to notation and bibliographic style, and
have provided you with a specific place to look for the proper styles, I will take points off of your paper if you
do not do this in the correct manner. This is simple. If you do not do
it correctly it means one or both of the following: 1) you are not taking the
assignment seriously or are too lazy to do the paper correctly; and/or 2) you
are doing the paper at the last minute. Both of these are good reasons why you
will not get the grade you are able to earn.
Warning! Remember that this paper requires endnotes only. Do not use in-text
citations. In Political Science you shouldn’t use them anyway.
Citing
Information for Endnotes
Footnotes,
endnotes and parenthetical references are the three ways to cite
information. You will use only endnotes
here (but the rules are the same for all three styles when it comes to when to
cite information). This section
describes why and when you cite information. What do I need to cite? That’s a
question students ask all the time. In doing research there are three basic
types of things you must cite: quotes, specific information, and other people’s
ideas.
·
Specific
Information: When I say specific information, what I refer to is any
information which is not general knowledge. For example, you would not
need to use a citation if you state that Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon’s
National Security Adviser in Nixon’s first term (general knowledge). But you would have to cite the fact that
Kissinger met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on July 9, 1971 and any details
of the meeting. Another example: you would not need to cite that Chinese
economic reforms were first announced at the Third Plenum of the 11th
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, but if you included
information on why Hua Guofeng’s attempt to establish his own Mao-like
authority had failed in part because his economic reform plan was not
farsighted enough and why this failure allowed Deng to push his reform plan
through the Central Committee, you’d need to cite the source.[1]
·
Other
People’s Ideas: If you’re doing research and you’re thinking about the issue
you’re researching, any idea that is not yours absolutely must be cited. Take
the issue of Indian nuclear strategy mentioned above. If one author says that
Indian nuclear doctrine has changed drastically since India’s decision to build
a full-fledged arsenal in 1998, that idea has to be cited.
If you are referring to specific information that you found
on a specific page in a source (if the source has page numbers, unlike some web
sources), you must include the page
number where you found the information.
Let’s say you found information in a book that is 450 pages long. Citing
the book and not the page number is not very helpful for anyone who thought
that the information was interesting and wanted to learn more about it. You’re forcing that person to scan through
450 pages of text to find the info. Instead, cite the page number and then the
reader can just turn to that page number.
This is the established method of citation (This is true even for
parenthetical references, which you will not be using here, but might use
somewhere else). If you are citing the
main point of an article or book or something as background information, you
don’t need the page number, but if it is specific material it does need a page
number. If you do not cite page numbers, the earth will spin off its axis and
plunge into the sun and you will be responsible for it.
You may use only endnotes (but the rules here are also true
for endnotes). In the social sciences, endnotes are numbered
consecutively. The first note is number
1; the second is number 2, etc. Microsoft
Word will do this for you. You can use a
source more than once in your paper.
There are specific citation formats for the first citation and for the
second citation. You can also put more
than one source in a specific note. See
my article for examples for all of this: Newmann, William
W. "Hegemonic disruption: the asymmetric challenge to US
leadership." Strategic Studies Quarterly 5, no. 3
(2011): 67-102. You can
access it through scholar.gogle.com. A short reference follows:
o
Book first cite: William
W. Newmann. Managing national security policy: The president and
the process. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003, 17.
o
Book second cite: Newmann. Managing national security policy, 38.
o
Journal article first cite:
William W. Newmann, "Kennedy, Johnson, and Policy toward China: Testing
the Importance of the President in Foreign Policy Decision Making." Presidential
Studies Quarterly 44, no. 4 (2014): 645.
o
Journal Article second cite: Newmann. "Kennedy, Johnson, and Policy toward
China," 650.
This is the key to writing a good paper
so I am providing detailed instruction on this. Political Science has a
specific style of writing, especially when it comes to introductory
paragraphs. It mirrors the style of
government memoranda. In short, the
introductory paragraph should summarize the paper and that includes giving the
reader a summary of you conclusions. If
you don’t do this, even a great paper, becomes a grade of B.
A good introductory paragraph should
include the following:
In other words, the introduction should
provide your reader with a "road map" that explains exactly what you
will say during the paper. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Basically,
what you need to do is write the outline you have for your paper in sentences
in the first few paragraphs of the paper. Your opening paragraph (or couple of
opening paragraphs) should also give the reader some reason to be interested in
your topic and in your argument. Tell the reader why this subject is important.
Here is an example of an opening paragraph: (I’ll use a topic that won’t
overlap with anyone’s potential topic.)
The Barack Obama
administration’s decision to invade increase the number of troops in
Afghanistan in 2009 can best be described as a collegial decision making
process, in which the president relied on all his advisors to give him options
and evaluations of options. However, the
final decision was made by Obama himself after close consultation with National
Security Advisor James Jones, the senior commanders in Afghanistan, and key
all-purpose political advisors within the administration. , (There's the
topic and conclusion). During the deliberations in 2009 and 2010
all senior advisors participated in the decision making process. Even Vice President Joe Biden, who disagreed
with the general direction of the policy, was always allowed to air his views
in the National Security Council. While
divisions did exist between the political aides and the Dept. of Defense, no
views were left out of the debate (the
specific argument and your evidence). This decision making process will be
illustrated by a brief examination of the situation as Obama entered office, an
analysis of the intra-administration debate between January of and December of
2009, and an examination of the final meetings where the decision was
made. The narrative of the decision will
be followed by an analysis of the decision process in the context of the
presidential management models. (your
road map).
So,
this paragraph tells me what you think, summarizes why you think that is true,
and explains how you will illustrate your point.
You
can use lots of topic headings and subheadings to correspond to the points on
your "road map" -- they'll help you organize your thoughts, and
they'll help your reader clearly identify where he is on the "road
map." The above paper might have five main sections:
As
you make the points that support your argument, you'll probably be aware of the
places in which your argument is controversial or in which a reasonable person
might disagree with you. Preempt those controversies in your text. Point out
what those opposing arguments might be, and why you think your point of view is
more accurate or reasonable.
·
Simple: for this assignment, do not use quotes. You
have one to two pages, so you don’t have space.
If you want to quote a word or a phrase from some official statement,
that might work.
First,
never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever cut and paste anything from a source into
your document unless you place it in quotes and cite the source of the quote.
And generally in a paper that is under a few dozen papers, there is never a
need to quote anything that is not an official source. Why quote anything unless the exact works are
crucial. So quoting a President or
Foreign Minister or a witness to an event is useful, but quoting a scholar or
journalist is not. For the purposes of
this paper, there is no reason to quote anyone. The paper is too short for
quotes.
This is really not a fine line. Did you write the sentence or not? Did you
come up with the idea or not? When in
doubt, it’s relatively simple: never include something in your paper that you
did not write unless it is quotes and then it also must be cited. Anything that is not your idea must be cited.
Plagiarism is a violation of the VCU Honor Code and I will not hesitate to charge
someone with a violation if I catch plagiarism.
If you have questions about what is plagiarism, ask me or see VCU’s Writing
Integrity Workshop.
But just because someone else has
already written an idea that you agree with 100% doesn't mean you can't discuss
it in your paper. Just point out whose idea it is; paraphrase it in your own
words, cite the source of the idea, and expand upon it. Generally, that is how
Political Science works. 90% of all Political Science articles and books do the
following (I give you another example that is not topically relevant to the
class):
There are various explanations for the Clinton administration’s decision to grant China permanent most favored nation trading status. Barton accuses the Clinton administration of hypocrisy, campaigning on a human rights platform only to abandon it once in power and satisfying the business community revealed itself as the real priority.[2] Rogers argues that Clinton learned during his first year of office that sanctions on China would accomplish very little and only slow and steady engagement would ultimately improve China’s human rights situation over the long term.[3] Romanoff focuses on the internal bargaining within the administration and the ability of President Clinton’s economic advisors to best a human-rights first collation of advisors from the State Department and NSC staff.[4] Each of these arguments has merit. A combination of the second and third arguments, emphasizing Bill Clinton’s learning process, holds the most explanatory power.
The article would then outline the theories of Barton, Rogers, and Romanoff, analyze each one, and then develop the fourth theory. There is no problem as long as Barton, Rogers, and Romanoff get credited with developing their theories, and the fourth theory is yours. If the fourth theory belongs to a fourth author (Banner? Danvers? Fury?), the author should be credited and your article will show why his theory is superior to the other three. The point here is that you may find sources which have different opinions on an issue.
If paraphrasing an idea: make sure to change the verb you use so it is different from the verb used in the source. Make sure you change everything but the proper nouns. So let’s say, you’ve read this in your source: “The President phoned the Prime Minister immediately after he received the news.” That may be the point you want to make in your paper, but you shouldn’t quote that and can’t copy it (or you’d be plagiarizing). The only words you really can use here would be “President” and “Prime Minister.” These are the proper nouns. So put it into your own words. How about: “Once the President had been informed, he contacted the Prime Minister.” And then cite the source of the information. That would not be a quote problem or a suspicion of plagiarism
And never,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever cut and paste anything from a source into your
document unless you place it in quotes and cite the source of the quote. (He said it again! And in italics! Must mean
something!)
1.
Margins and Font Papers should be doubled-spaced with one-inch margins, and reasonable
sized font (11 point). Shorter pages with wide margins and large print size
font will be penalized.
2.
Subject and Verb Make sure you have a subject and verb in every sentence. (You would be
surprised how many important journals and books allow non-sentence sentences).
This is non-fiction, not fiction. So you need to observe the basic rules of
grammar. A long sentence is not necessarily a better sentence -- each sentence
should express only one thought. Don't be afraid to break up a long sentence
into two or three shorter ones. It will usually flow better that way.
3.
Official Titles
Provide someone’s title in the text the first time you mention them if they are
an elected official (Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia) or an appointed official
(Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul
Nitze). Thereafter, you can refer to
them as Kaine or Nitze. So for the first mention, you’d say: “National Security
Advisor Henry Kissinger told his assistant to.…” From that point on, you can simply say
“Kissinger told his assistant to…” When you mention a senator or
representative, say: Senator John Warner (R-VA) to introduce and after than you
can just say Warner or Senator Warner.
4.
Keep a Copy
Make a copy of the paper for yourself before you hand it in to me. There are
two reasons for this. If you have a copy, you don't have to worry about me
losing a copy. I have never lost anyone's paper, but just in case you should
always make sure that you have a copy of your paper with you, in any class, not
just this one.
5.
Back up WHEN
YOU TYPE YOUR PAPER ON A COMPUTER MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP DISK WITH THE
PAPER ON IT. AS YOU TYPE THE PAPER SAVE THE FILE TO THE BACKUP DISK EVERY TEN
MINUTES OR SO. Don’t just leave it on your hard drive and hope it will be safe. A super safe way to deal with this is to use
your own, already built-in cloud system.
Email the drafts of your paper to yourself and then you know it will be
safe on the VCU system and you can access it from anywhere on the planet. Also,
remember that if you type on the university computers be careful. Putting your
paper on the hard drive in the computer lab is risky – they sweep the hard
drives of files at night. Keep a backup copy for yourself. I have several
backup copies of anything I write. You don't ever want to lose work because you
didn't back it up.
6.
No Wikipedia
Do not use Wikipedia or any other web-based encyclopedia. It is unreliable and you should have stopped
using encyclopedias for research in elementary school.
7.
Reliability of the Internet Be careful about internet sources. Make sure the source is reliable. Remember that anyone can post anything on the
internet. There aren’t necessarily any
editors or fact checkers. For example,
there is a website that links me to the Kennedy assassination; I was two years
old. Ask me if you have questions about this (internet sources, not if I was
involved in the Kennedy assassination; I wasn’t).
8.
The use of “I”:
Try to avoid using “I” in non-fiction.
Instead of “I will discuss three problems…” say “This essay addresses
three problems…”
9.
The use of a
semicolon: Semicolons connect two complete sentences that are related to each
other. For example: “I went to the
pizzeria to get a pie; it was closed so I had Chinese food instead.” You could also write them as two separate
sentences if you wanted. The following
would be an incorrect use of a semicolon: “I had six very tasty pizzas last
week; except for that crappy one from the big chain store.” That should be a comma, not a semicolon. The test is this: If the two sentences you are connecting with
a semicolon could stand alone as complete sentences then use a semicolon. So it becomes obvious: “Except for that
crappy one from the big chain store” is not a sentence.
10.
The use of
“however”: This trips everyone up. It’s
a bit similar to semicolons. “I went to
the pizzeria; however, when I got there, it was closed.” Notice the semicolon, not the comma. That’s because “When I got there, it was
closed” could be a complete sentence by itself.
Also, this sentence is like the use of a semicolon. You are connecting two complete
sentences. In this case, you’re
connecting two sentences that are related, but related in a very specific way. The second sentence is adding the “however”
to show a different expectation than the first sentence implies. The first sentence implies you were going to
eat pizza. The second sentence says you
didn’t. On the other hand, look at this
example: “I went to the pizzeria. Upon
arriving, however, I found out it was closed.”
The “however” is surrounded by commas.
That’s because “upon arriving” is not a sentence by itself. Here’s another aspect of this. “I went to the pizzeria, the one with the
best pizza in the world.” There is a
comma there because “the one with the best pizza in the world” is not a
sentence by itself. These are the non-fiction rules. In fiction, you can do
anything you want.
11.
Some useful
rules:
1. Numbers under
100 should be written as out. So you
would not have this sentence. “President
Bush met with 3 advisors.” It would be
“President Bush met with three advisors.”
2. When you have
an acronym, such as NSDD-75 or UN. First
write out the name in full: National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 75, or
United Nations (UN). After that first use of the term, use the acronym.
Papers are due at the beginning of class on the date
indicated in the syllabus. After about 10 minutes of class has passed, your
paper is one day late. That is true for
the rough draft and the final draft in cases where a rough draft is mandatory.
I will mark late papers down ONE GRADE for each day late. That means that an almost perfect paper -- one that I
would give 98 points to -- becomes an 88 if one day late, 78 if two days late, etc.,...
all the way down to 8 points if nine days late, and zero points if ten days
late.
In classes where a rough draft is
mandatory (if the rough draft is optional, ignore this): These deductions count
for both the rough and final draft. For
example if you turn the rough draft in one day late and the final draft in one
day late, you will have twenty points deducted from your paper grade. For the rough draft the maximum penalty is 50
points for five days late that will be deducted from the final grade. If you don’t turn in a rough draft that will
be 50 points off.
Talk to me if you are having some
family or personal problems. If there is a serious need to get an extension on
the paper, I will give you an extension. I do realize that there are more
important things in life than this class and this assignment. So if you
run into a problem, talk to me. Computer problems do not count as a problem
that warrants an extension. If you are writing your paper at the last
minute and you have a problem, the moral of the story is that you should not
have been writing your paper at the last minute. If you have a printer
problem, that doesn’t have to be a problem.
Give me your disk and I will print up the paper, or come to my office
hours and we'll print up the paper at my office. If you have some kind of
computer problem, and you are not writing your paper at the last minute, let me
know. Maybe I can help.