Project Summary: I need a 4 paragraph: Were the men who dominated business in the late 19th century "robber barons," as some suggested, or simply good businessmen? Explain your answer. Here are the basic rules of the discussion posts and how to score the most points for them. 1. Provide three posts to the discussion question. 2. One of the three must be your own answer to the question. I am expecting this answer to be a three to four paragraph essay. 3. The other two posts need to be in response to your fellow student's posts or response. I am expecting up to one, four to five sentence paragraph. 4. Student answers that have evidence in the form of short, analyzed, and cited quotes from the textbook will score higher than answers without evidence that reading or research was done to answer the question. This includes the responses posts. 5. Since we are all using the same textbook, you only need to provide author and page number when citing from the textbook (for example, Roark, 343). You do not need to write out the full name of the textbook, Also, do not write `According to the textbook`, or `In American Promise on page 234.` That is just a way of filling up space. For other sources, a parenthetical citation can be used; leave full website citations for the end of the essay. 6. Your 3 total posts must be on 2 DIFFERENT days. Dropping all your posts on the last day of the week is like blurting out all the answers right before the bell rings in a regular class....you come out all like `blblblalaladjdfglfadfg....` See what I mean?...not a pretty picture. Interacting with your fellow students means reading their posts and responding back in a thoughtful and academic manner. Backing your points up with examples, evidence, or citation always improves your performance. 7. The final note is about online sources.Here are the criteria for use of online sources a. You must list the EXACT link you used. Do NOT use np nd in your citation. Exact Link b. The website must be from an .edu site. c. The source must have an identifiable author and sources for their information d. Online dictionaries and encyclopedias (unless the article meets the requirement for letter c above) are not allowed. e. I am most impressed with evidence taken from the common textbook that we are using than a list of websites that you really did not use. f. Clearly using websites like Wikipedia or history.com or perhaps Wikipedia or about.com or about.history or Wikipedia are definitely going to get you a loss of points. I check every single original answer for plagiarism. Every semester, I catch students engaging in this form of cheating. Don't try it as you WILL be punished for it. Plagiarism means using other people's work, without a citation and without putting things in your own words. This means the textbook as well. You can not copy things from other sources and claim them as your own. We have software that can determine if students are plagiarizing. I use it. Write in paragraphs. When supplying your own answer to the question, the one that is to be 3-4 paragraphs long, make sure it in paragraph form. Be sure to put spaces between your paragraphs. If I can not tell when one paragraph begins and another ends, you will lose points. One long paragraph, no matter how long and no matter how well written, is not an essay. Here are the major things you can lose points for: 1. Short, underdeveloped paragraphs 2. Not answering all parts of the question 3. A lack of evidence in each paragraph in your essay and your response post. Evidence means cited data or short, analyzed quotes, preferably from the textbook. 4. Missing the response posts or the essay 5. Posting everything on a single day. 6. Using online sources that do not meet the requirements above 7. Bullshitting (this means making claims without having evidence behind....you know,, how half the shows on the History Channel operate.) These rules apply to ALL of the four required discussion questions. Special note about quotes. Violating these rules will result in a loss of minor points 1. Quotes make terrible topic sentences. Th first sentence of your paragraph should be where you are introducing the topic to the reader. It is not where you put your evidence, which are the quotes. 2. Quotes by themselves are dependent clauses. They need to be attached to an independent clauses. For example: `To be or not to be.` That is a floating quote. `To be or not to be,` said Willy S. That is not a floating quote. See the difference? 3. A lazy writer or student slaps down a quote without analysis. You must interpret the quote for the readers. Why is it important? Why do you introduce it? What do you hope readers understand about its significance. Other pet peeve to mention Use of apostrophes: They do NOT make words plural, with some rare exceptions. They also do not make years plural. The correct way to write a decade is 1770s, not 1770's. The correct way to write a century is 1700s, not 1700's.