Purpose and grading
The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with an opportunity to think about the course materials and topics. The assignment is designed to allow you to express your informed position on a criminal justice topic. It is not sufficient to simply respond “yes or no” to these questions or for you to provide vague, non-descript responses. Rather, you are expected to state your position and the reasons for it. The focus of grading for this assignment is the strength and quality of the essay. Spelling, grammar, and neatness count on this assignment for up to 20% of your response.
Your position itself will be not be graded. That is, it does not matter whether you agree or disagree with the professor, other students, or the book authors. What does matter is how well you make your case. Experience indicates that a good essay will define important terms (don’t assume your reader either knows what you are talking about, or shares your perceptions and definitions). It also indicates that a common pitfall is that of addressing tangential issues. For example, if you are asked to write about criminal sentencing, spending a lot of time on the death penalty itself would hurt the overall essay. You may use the death penalty as an illustration of some point you wish to make, but the assignment is on sentencing, not specifically on the death penalty. The strength of the argument is assessed in terms of both the logic of your position and how well your points are supported by reference to data and the literature.
Again, students are free to use any style or approach with which they are comfortable. For students not knowing how to begin, the five paragraph essay format is often especially appropriate. In this format, you develop an essay of – You’ve got it! – five paragraphs. The first is an introduction that tells the reader what you will cover and defines key terms. The second through fourth provide support for the position announced in the first, and the last is a summary and restatement of the position.
This reaction paper is not a library research assignment. You should be able to write a successful essay based solely on the course books. No formal listing of works cited is required, and citations are relaxed (unless you cite references outside the course material, which I do not recommend – see below). Direct quotes are not appropriate for this assignment. Paraphrased ideas, or citing general support can be noted by simply identifying the source (e.g., Worrall or Walker). Specificity is valued, so if you rely on a work that appears in the book, try to cite the specific author(s), rather than the author of the book (for example, Sherman, or Sherman in Worrall).
Formatting
1. Formatting matters and may be considered in the assignment grade. The papers are to be double-spaced with Times New Roman 12-point font and 1-inch margins. There should be no “spaces after” between paragraphs. See the example document posted to D2L.
2. Each essay response should be no less than two pages and no more than three pages long. Any paper less than two full pages of text will be heavily penalized. Any paper with more than three full pages of text may be penalized and all information after the third full page will not be considered.
Important policies
1. All assignments must be uploaded to D2L before the due date/time. Late assignments will not be accepted. Therefore, it is recommended that students submit their assignment no later than 10 minutes before the time the assignment is due so to avoid missing the deadline.
2. Your submission must be in a Microsoft Word file (.doc, .docx, or .rtf). Any other type of file uploaded will be subject to a loss of points.
3. You are welcome to cite outside material, but it is not recommended. Outside materials must be peer-review research. If you do cite outside material, you must provide a properly formatted APA reference page. Any other type of resource will result in a loss of points.