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\centerline{MONT 109N -- Mathematics Across Cultures}
\centerline{Paper 1 -- due February 25, 2011}
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{\it General Information}
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Your first larger writing assignment this semester will be
an essay responding to the questions below
about our Natural World Cluster common reading, {\it Collapse}. 
All submissions should be prepared using MS Word or equivalent
software.  The final version of the paper will be {\it about 5 
double-spaced pages in length} (but don't worry if you go a bit 
over or are a bit short -- the length is not the main point).   
Submit all work to me by by email at:
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\centerline{\tt little@mathcs.holycross.edu}
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In order to give you more practice thinking about structuring
this kind of essay, the assignment will be in two parts:
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\item{$\bullet$} Due by 9:00am on Wednesday, February 23:  A draft
{\it opening paragraph and outline} for your paper -- I will return
these with comments by Friday, February 25.
\item{$\bullet$} Due by 5:00pm on Monday, February 28:  The finished paper.
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{\it Everyone will have the opportunity to 
submit a revised version of the full paper after receiving my comments. 
If you choose to resubmit, I'll evaluate the new version in the 
same way and count only the better of the two sets of marks.\/}  
The due date for resubmissions will be announced when the papers are
returned.
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{\it Description}
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This is not primarily a ``research paper'' -- you need not consult sources
other than  {\it Collapse}, although you may find that you want
to do that to get more perspective on some of these questions.  In 
any case, you should think of your essay as {\it a detailed defense 
of a particular conclusion about, or response to the 
questions in one of the topics below}, written in a 
reasonably formal style incorporating correct grammar, spelling, and usage.   

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The specific questions you are addressing and your response(s) to them 
should be clearly stated in the first paragraph.  Then the body 
of the paper should be a presentation of the reasoning and the 
evidence that lead you to your conclusion. 

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Your essay should be well-structured with paragraphs corresponding
to the major points in your outline, arranged in a logical 
sequence.   Your job is to convince 
your reader of the soundness of your conclusion, starting ``from 
the beginning.''  That is, you should not assume the reader has been 
present for any of the discussions that we have had in class, or 
that you might have had with other Natural World Cluster students.  
You might try explaining possible opposing points of view, then 
giving your reasons for rejecting them, as part of your argument.   

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I will expect to see specific
details from the text cited as {\it evidence\/} to support
your assertions, and in many cases short quotations from the text
will be the most effective way to provide evidence.  Please identify
any such quotations by the page(s) on which they appear.  Use
the following style:
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Diamond writes that our world “cannot sustain China and other Third 
World countries and current First World countries all operating at 
First World levels” (Diamond, p. 376).
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If you do use other sources and use quotations or other
information, you should:
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\item{1)}  Identify direct quotations with quotation marks 
\item{2)}  All direct quotations and {\it paraphrases} of 
arguments found in {\it Collapse} or other sources should 
be identified by notes in parentheses giving information where the quote
can be found within your source,
\item{3)}  List all your sources in a References
section at the end of your paper:
\itemitem{a)} For books, give the 
author, the title, the publisher and year of publication.
\itemitem{b)} For magazine or newspaper articles, give the author, the title of the 
magazine or newspaper, the date of publication, and the starting and
final page of the specific article.  
\itemitem{c)}  For web sites, give an author (if you can 
determine that), the full URL (web address) and the date you 
accessed it (since information on the web often changes!)
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{\it A Suggestion}
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I will be happy to discuss (or read a first draft of) your paper and give 
you some preliminary comments by email.  Or, you can come by my office hours
if you want to ``run your paper by me.''    
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{\it Evaluation}
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I will provide written comments on your work, and
assign two grades for each paper -- one for how well your conclusions
are presented and supported (in other words, for how convincing your
arguments are), the other for how well your writing follows the standards
for formal written English. (For instance, how well is the paper
subdivided into paragraphs each addressing a particular item in your
overall argument?  Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical, recognizable
sequence?  Are the sentences within each paragraph ordered well?
Are they grammatically correct?  Are there awkward sentences?  
Are there overly flowery, overly colloquial, or incorrectly-used
words or phrases?  Is punctuation used correctly?  Are there spelling and/or 
typographical errors?)   
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{\it Topic -- Lessons from history?}
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We used the famous opening line of the novel {\it The Go-Between} by L.P. Hartley:
``the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there'' to introduce some of the
mathematics of the ancient civilizations we discussed last semester.  How do you think 
Jared Diamond would react to this point of view?  
Can the mistaken choices, obliviousness to signs of problems, and misfortunes
that were essentially out of human control that led to past collapses happen again?  
In fact, might it be said that a lot of the problems of the world today 
result precisely from the fact that we {\it do not do things differently} 
from the ways they were done in the past?  Or do you think there are essentially 
different qualities of our current world cultures as compared to previous civilizations
that make it less likely that major collapses lie in our future?  
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\bye
         
