This page contains the general instructions for the next stage of your writing assignment, which must be a whole new paper. (You can reuse ideas, arguments, references and so on, but you must write up your new thinking in whole new text.)
You should see on your paper in Turnitin.com a separate assignment from me "ZNS" (for "Ze Next Stage") comment.or "ZOS" or "ZNT" or something else starting with "Z") saying what you specifically have to do. Those instructions probably came as a few sentences at the bottom of the Z-comment or as= a hyperlink to a page with very detailed instructions.
Your new assignment should appear in the top left corner
of your paper.
(If you got a "ZOS" comment, remember that Optional stages are NOT extra credit. They just replace any lower previous grade, so if you d= id badly on a previous stage, a good extra stage grade would replace tha= t previous bad grade. If you already have the required number of papers that are all perfect scores, an extra stage will not help your grade.= )
If the comment just says "new topic," you should pick a new topic from the topic list for your class, and follow the instructions for that new topic. If you made mistakes working on your present assignment, make sure you don't make those mistakes again in the new paper.
Speaking of mistakes, one very, very common mistake is when a student goes to the internet and googles a philosophical topic instea= d of following the instructions for the topic. This is an incredibly ba= d idea, and results in a lot of failed papers. People who write about philosophy on the internet are virtually all morons, and papers fille= d with moronic ideas always get incredibly bad grades.
Do the assignment. Don't trawl the internet for morons. If all you do is tell me what random morons think, you will get zero points.=
It is important that you realize that you are supposed to do the assignment described in or linked from =93Ze Next Stage.=94 If you do something different you won't get any points for doing something that isn't the assignment while not doing the assignment, you will get zero points f= or that non-assignment.
In general, the next stage assignment requires you to go beyond your previous paper. If all you do is write the same thing over again, or repeat the same mistakes you made in your previous paper, you will get zero points for this stage. (In stage one, stuff that = is wrong can still get credit, provided that that specific mistake had not previously been pointed out to you. In subsequent stages, repeating mistakes you've been told about will not get you credit. = So do not ignore the comments I made on specific parts of your paper. These basically point out things you got wrong, so you need to read them and make sure you don't make the same mistakes again.
I should not have to tell you that writing a new paper means writing a new paper. Copying in text from your old paper is not allowed. Taking your old paper and making changes to it is not allowed. In fact, doing this amounts to deliberately failing this assignment.
If you haven't read the "Ze Next Stage" comment on your paper in turnitin.com, please go to turnitin.com and find that comment. If you can't find it, or it isn't there, please email me for more instructions.
I might give you two or more different instructions. If I give you more than one thing to do, it's important to figure out whether I want you to do all or only some of these things.
Usually, I will be offering you a choice of what to do next. In that case, I will write something like "X or Y or Z" as Ze Next Stage.
Sometimes, the second task is a supplementary task that you have to do along with the main task. I usually do this when the student has made a huge, fatal mistake in her paper, such as deliberately ignoring a significant possible answer to the question, saying what something is based on rather than what it is, saying what category it falls into instead of what it is, and covering a huge hole in her theory by just arbitrarily assuming it isn't a problem. Thus such a task generally involves specifically instructing you not to make that huge and fatal mistake again. When I give you supplementary assignments, I will write something like "X and Y and Z" as Ze Next Stage.
Once you have your new instructions, I want you to reference those instructions at the beginning of your paper. If your new instructions came in the form of a hyperlink, make that hyperlink the first line of your paper. If your new instructions came in the form of a few sentences, put those few sentences between quotes and make them the first paragraph of your paper.
If you were given a choice of next-stage tasks, just put the one you chose at the start of your new paper. Don't write out the other instructions. Just write out the task you're going to attempt. Don't write out stuff you're not going to do. (You can add any supplimentary assignments. This isn't critical because the important thing is that you not make the same mistake again.)<= /p>
Once you understand the general rules for writing the next stage, write a completely new paper that carefully, precisely and completely addresses your next stage assignment.
Before you start, make sure you understand all the things you did wrong in your previous stage. This involves reading all the the comments I've made on your paper, figuring out what you actually did wrong (which may be different from what I think you did wrong) and not doing that wrong thing again.
If this next assignment isn't clear to you, please email me and ask about it as soon as you can.
And remember to make sure you quote your instructions (or give the link) at the start of your next stage paper. Remember, this tells you exactly what you are supposed to do. Doing anything else is deliberately choosing to fail.
Every stage two assignment requires you to write a new paper.
Do not copy anything from your previous stage. Do not slightly
alter text from the previous stage and include it in the next
stage. = Do not do this. You
start with a blank document and type in new words to make whole
new sentences and paragraphs. (Including old text, whether its
modified or not, constitutes deliberately failing the
assignment.)
Your most important cognitive ability is your ability to
rethink your ideas. Most
fundamentally, your Stage Two assignment requires you to
seriously consider the possibility, as a serious possibility,
that your Stage One thesis was wrong. If
it turns out that your new thinking gives you no reason to
change your mind, you can keep your present thesis, but if it
turns o= ut that your new thinking reveals that your previous
thesis is not actually supported by the available evidence, you
should change your mind.
Suppose Jill passionately believes that eating bananas is
absolutely necessary for human existence, and writes a Stage One
defending this thesis by endlessly repeating it over and over
again in different words. Whenever she mentions the existence of
people who appear to live perfectly well without eating bananas,
she "refutes" this by saying that they _must_ be eating bananas
in secret _because_ eating bananas is absolutely necessary for
human existence.
But for her stage two, the instructor asks Jill for an argument
in support of her belief. She starts off by repeating "people
must eat bananas to live" in various different ways, but then
she realizes that this is just paraphrasing, and then writes a
paper supporting the _opposite_ thesis that "No, I do not have
compelling reason to believe that people need to eat bananas to
live."
The point of the odyssey assignment is to get people to think.
If, looking at the fact that your thesis is not supported by
argument, your only response is, "hmm, how do I change this so
that my thesis appears to be supported by argument" instead of
"hmmm, maybe my thesis is wrong," then
what you're doing isn't thinking.
Remember, changing your mind is always an option. Sometimes,
it's the only reasonable thing to do.
Sometimes, a student writes as though she believes that merely restating her claim in different words, or explaining her claim in much more detail, is the same as proving that claim to be true. The following two paragraphs are both examples of this kind of failure:
=93Computers cannot ever hold real conversations. If you try to speak with a computer it wil= l just sit there, and not respond.=94
=93There is no underlying universal form of beauty. Beauty varies from culture to culture and from time to time. Beauty is always different and always changing. Some things are thought beautiful by some cultures and thought ugly by other cultures. Wherever you go you will find different standard= s for what beauty, and none of them have any standards in common.=94<= /font>
Notice that neither of these paragraphs gave any reason to believe their claims. The first one just repeated its claim in different words. The second just explained it's claim in more detai= l. Neither of them gave the reader any reason to think that they're true. Each of them works fine as a thesis statement. Neither works as an argument
If I ask you =93can you prove X,=94 and all you can do is repeat X in different words, or explain X in more detail, then it follows that you cannot prove = X, and that you should therefore change your mind, stop saying that X is true, and change your thesis accordingly.
Sometimes, students completely ignore the main arguments
against their position. This is a form of choosing to fail,
because success requires making up one's mind based based
entirely on considering all the arguments, and if you ignore
an argument you're obviously not considering it. Don't ignore
important opposing arguments. Doing so is deliberately
refusing to think.
Sometimes, students more or less carefully state the main
arguments against their position, and then ignore those
arguments. This, of course, is another form
of choosing to fail. Because success requires making up one's
mind based based entirely on considering all the arguments,
and if you state and then ignore an argument you're obviously
not considering it. Don't state an
opposing argument and then immediately change the subject.
Doing so is deliberately refusing to think.
Remember that an argument can only be bad if there's something
actually wrong with it. Remember that you can only say that an
argument is bad if you can show that there's actually
something wrong with it. Stating an opposing argument and then
changing the subject to a supporting argument does not show
that the opposing argument is bad. It just shows that you are
unwilling to think about that opposing argument. In essense,
it shows that you are failing the assignment.
An argument can go wrong in two ways. It can have a false
premise or it can have a defective candidate principle. If you
can prove (not assume, prove) that one of the argument's
premises is false, you can say that the argument is bad. If
you can prove (not assume, prove) that the argument relies on
a purported logical principle that is not valid in all the
circumstances in which it can be applied, or you can show that
it's logically possible for the premises to all be true even
if the conclusion is false, then you can say that the argument
is bad. If you can't show any of these things, you cannot say
that the argument is bad, and you should seriously consider
the possibility that the argument is good, and that therefore
it's conclusion is actually correct.
If there is an argument against your position that you are
ignoring, or which you have stated but thereafter ignored,
then your position is probably wrong. Ath the very least, if
you came to your position without doing logical analysis of an
important opposing argument, then you did not decide
rationally, and you have no logical basis for holding your
position.
Remember, this assignment requires you to decide rationally,
and not on the basis of what you want to be true, or feel to
be true.
A couple of students in a previous semester have said to me
that they thought that the stage two assignment was to take
the opposite position from their stage one. I have no idea why
someone would think this, and I am shocked and horrified to
hear students say it. So I am taking the trouble to tell you
that it is absolutely not true. I find it impossible to
believe that anyone could read their stage two assignment and
think that they are being asked to mindlessly switch to the
opposite thesis from their stage one. I have never, ever, told
anyone to do this!
So let me make myself perfectly clear. There is no assignment
in this class that tells you to thoughtlessly switch your
thesis. All assignments in this class require you to think for
yourself. If logic says switch, switch. If logic says don't
switch your thesis, don't switch your thesis. In either case,
think for yourself and do what logic says. Doing otherwise is
choosing to fail the assignment.
If you think that anything I say means that you are supposed
to mindlessly switch to the other side from your stage one,
look again. If you actually read what I say, you will find
that I am not saying that. (Any questions: email me.)
If any part of your previous paper was flagged as "not needed" or "off-topic" or otherwise marked as a waste of space, think very carefully about these comments, and change your writing style so that only necessary text is included in your paper. This is important because, when you write rubbish (or what I call "accordion music") yo= u feel like you're adding value to your paper, but you're really not. Please don't waste your time and mine. Don't write rubbish in your next paper.
Generally, I go easy on the grading of the first paper. There are a lot of commo= n mistakes that many people make in their first stage, and I understand that this is often the result of poor training by their previous teachers. For this reason a bad paper will often get 50/100 when it is technically worth much less, simply because I don't want to risk destroying someone's grade when the problem is probably poor training rather than lack of effort. However, I do point out mistakes in my comments, and if I have commented on a mistake made by you, I expect you to not repeat that mistake in future papers. For th= is reason, if your second paper consists entirely of you making exactly the same mistakes you made in your previously, you will get zero poin= ts for that stage, even if you got 50 points or more for those mistakes = in your previous paper. The reason for this is, the second time around, those mistakes have been pointed out to you, so you have no excuse fo= r making them again. (If you're not sure what is or isn't a mistake, please email me and ask before you submit your paper.)
One thing that amazes and depresses me is that some students get their next stage assignment and then do something completely different from what they were told to do! I don't understand this. I really don't. What happens is that I tell a student to do some very specific thing for her next stage, and then she does something completely different from that very specific thing, and then turns it in as if it is her next stage. This constitutes not doing the assignment. It also constitutes wasting my time. And, of course, it gets zero points.
Zeeeeeeeeeero points.
So let me tell you, if you want to get credit for doing your next stage assignment, do you next stage assignment. Don't do something else and turn that something else in instead of your assignment.
Remember to make sure you do not repeat ANY of the mistakes I have pointed out in my comments on this paper. You should fully absorb and integrate all of my comments on this pape= r before you even look at your next stage assignment. (If you decide no= t to read "next.htm", or otherwise decide not to follow my instructions= , you are deciding to fail the assignment and choosing to get a bad grade.) Please also remember that you can ALWAYS change your mind abo= ut your thesis or anything else at any time. You DON'T have to keep your present thesis if you don't want to.
If you have any questions about your next stage assignment, email me and I'll sort it out,
