About the final paper

I am done reading through your essay #1. Within the next day or two, I will formally evaluate and grade them, and then email you my feedback. In that email I will also include the ID#, so that you can keep track of your own progress in this class. (Looks like the email system is working now.)

For your final paper, a couple of you suggested that I describe the task way ahead of time. Am following-up on your suggestion in this post.

First, you need to read an essay, "The Revenge of Geography," by Robert Kaplan. This essay was published in Foreign Policy. It attracted quite a bit of criticism; so, click here to read the few that were published along with Kaplan's response as well. Two academic geographers, including Alec Murphy--you read one of his articles earlier--have co-authored a more formal essay, with all kinds of references and footnotes; read that here. It will be best if you read these in the order in which I have listed them.

After reading all these, re-read the articles by Charles Wade and Alec Murphy, which I had assigned for the first week.

By now, you have lots of ideas swirling around, some contradicting others. And then think about this course, and put together a paper in which you ought to develop your own position on the relevance or irrelevance, importance or insignificance, of this course--"World Regional Geography." Note that when we ask for your opinion in college papers, it does not mean that you simply ponitificate. We require you to develop a compelling argument by presenting appropriate evidence, quotes, supporting arguments, ..... So, make sure you do not fill the pages with unsubstantiated opinions.

• You DO NOT have to gather any additional references. However, if you want to, feel free to bring in additional materials.
• When you use ideas from the course materials, make sure you DO appropriately cite them.
• You should be able to present your arguments in about 2,000 to 2,500 words.
• Double-space, spell-check, ....
• The deadline for the final paper is noon of Saturday, August 1st.

Do not hesitate to check with me as you progress along.
Any questions at this time?