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Last saved by: Venus, Wesley
Company: Gordon College

Media Theory/History Research Paper 
The Media Theory/History Research Paper will account for twenty percent of your final grade, and it is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, November 10. It will require each student to write a researched paper on some topic relating to media theory and/or history. The paper will need to be five to seven pages long (Times New Roman, 12-point font, one-inch margins, MLA formatted unless there is compelling reason to format it otherwise). That page length does not include a works cited page, which you will also need to have. Going over seven pages is not nearly as bad as going under five.
It is a research paper, so it will need to have at least five secondary sources to receive a C. The purpose
Topic: So long as the topic of your essay relates to the Theory and/or History of Media, you can choose anything as your subject. We will discuss potential topics during class on September 8, but suffice it to say that you can draw your topic from any topic of discussion that catches your interest in class or in the textbooks.
Remember, however, that the purpose of your Research Paper is argumentative: you will want to familiarize yourself with the available scholarship on the subject and think of some debatable aspect within it. Another way to put it is to think of your paper as an answer to a question, and so long as that question could be answered more than one way by a reasonable person, then it is debatable.
Multi-Media Presentations: On November 3 we will discuss the requirements for your Multi-media Presentations on your Media Theory/History Research Papers, but it is not a bad idea to begin thinking about how you will present your project to the class as you decide what the topic will be. (The Multi-media Presentation accounts for ten percent of the final grade for the semester.)
Grading Standards: The grade assigned for the paper will be a measure of how thoughtfully and carefully the principles discussed in class from the textbooks are applied. There is plenty to say about how this will be measured, and we will discuss those things in class. Generally, though, “carefulness” is a measure of how correctly and clearly the principles are applied, and “thoughtfulness” is a measure of how insightfully and fully they are applied to establish a reasonably novel point. (That is, the less obvious or well-established or well-studied your point is, the more thoughtful your paper will be.) Generally, a paper will receive a C for adequate work, a B for being either careful or thoughtful, and an A for being careful and thoughtful.
Conferences: Unlike the Web Page Design Project, there is no proposal or “process” elements. Unless you speak with your teacher about the direction and progress of your Research Paper, he will have no way of knowing what to expect from it until the day it is submitted. For this reason, you are encouraged to set up time to meet with him as often as you need.