Essay Guidelines
Based on your reading of at least four texts from the course syllabus, including at least one of Eisenstein, Johns, and Sherman, write an 8-10 page (double spaced) essay answering any one of the below questions:
1. How does modern scholarship interpret print culture? How do other authors support, refine, or dispute Eisenstein’s concept of “print culture”?
2. How did the spread of literacy and print inform social and cultural conflict, or vice versa? How has the evolution of print established the identities of those who interacted with books?
3. What is the nature of the book? How did the expected and unexpected uses of books facilitate the spread of knowledge as well as create new societal practices and norms?
Essay Style: All references, paraphrases, quotations etc. must be properly footnoted and acknowledged. Please follow format as laid out in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (essentially an abridged Chicago Manuel of Style): https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/turabian/citation-guide.html Unreferenced and poorly referenced papers will be given correspondingly lower grades.
Internet: The use of Internet sources is expressly forbidden except with the instructor’s permission or direction. The course essays should derive from your own original reading and understanding of the course materials and reflect your own distinctive, historical interpretation. The use of secondary Internet sources, especially online encyclopedias and dictionaries such as Wikipedia, Britannica online, Spark Notes, as well as book reviews of the course materials is expressly forbidden. Any use of such sources, acknowledged or unacknowledged, will result in a failing grade of “0” on the assignment and a failing grade in the course.
Plagiarism:
Each discipline within the arts has specific and appropriate means for students to cite or acknowledge sources and the ideas and material of others used in their own work. Students have the responsibility to become familiar with such processes and to carefully follow their use in developing original work.
MICA will not tolerate plagiarism, which is defined as claiming authorship of, or using someone else’s ideas or work without proper acknowledgment. Without proper attribution, a
student may NOT replicate another’s work, paraphrase another’s ideas, or appropriate images in a manner that violates the specific rules against plagiarism in the student’s department. In addition, students may not submit the same work for credit in more than one course without the explicit approval of the all of the instructors of the courses involved.
When an instructor has evidence that a student has plagiarized work submitted for course credit, the instructor will confront the student and impose penalties that may include failing the course. In the case of a serious violation or repeated infractions from the same student, the instructor will report the infractions to the department chair. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the department chair may then report the student to the Office of Academic Affairs, which may choose to impose further penalties, including suspension or expulsion.