Instruction
Western Civilization I First Essay: Critiquing Majority Rule in Athens In his famous funeral oration, Pericles boasted, “Our system is called a democracy, for it respects the majority and not the few . . .” (Thucydides, 58). Athens was a majoritarian democracy in the sense that the will of the majority of citizens was the supreme law of the city-state (as opposed to liberal democracy, where individual rights and constitutional checks and balances trump the will of the voters). Citizens voted directly on all laws and important matters in an assembly that met frequently. They also served as jurors in criminal trials. In both circumstances, a simple majority was needed to act, and there were no appeals to a higher authority; the majority of citizens was the highest authority itself. Your task is to write an essay critiquing this majoritarian system, using the primary sources assigned in class. • Step 1: Examine Thucydides’ account of the Mitylenian Debate, which describes the assembly of citizens in action. What does this source tell us about the drawbacks of entrusting life-and-death decisions to ordinary citizens without any kind of oversight? Write at least one paragraph. A paragraph should have a topic sentence that makes your argument, followed by evidence from the source (discussion of specific passages and a few quotes), as well as analysis (your own explanation and reasoning). • Step 2: Examine Plato’s Apology of Socrates, which describes a famous jury trial. What does this source—and the circumstances surrounding this trial—tell us about the drawbacks of entrusting life-and-death decisions to ordinary citizens, without any kind of oversight? Write at least one paragraph in response to this question. • Step 3: Write a brief introduction that defines the topic and summarizes the main argument(s) you are making in the paragraphs you have already written. This introductory paragraph will be inserted at the beginning of the essay. • Step 4: Write a brief conclusion that reinforces your main argument(s) without restating, word for word, sentences in previous paragraphs. Do not make any new arguments or introduce any new evidence here. This paragraph will go at the end of the essay. • Step 5: Review the whole essay for mistakes and deficiencies and make necessary revisions. Pretend that you are publishing this work in a newspaper; it should reflect your best abilities. Target Length: Your essay should be as close to 750 words as possible, no more than 1,000 and no fewer than 500 words. Format: The essay must be typewritten, double-spaced, with normal size-12 print, and 1-inch margins. Be sure to put your name and section number on the top of the first page. Include the word count at the end of the document. - Citations: Whenever you include information that is not common knowledge in your essay, you need to acknowledge where it came from, even if you are putting it in your own words. This should be done in the text of your essay using parenthetical citations (see below). Quotations: You should endeavor to summarize information from the textbook and other secondary sources in your own words (followed by a citation, of course). It will probably be necessary to include a few precise quotations from primary sources in order to make a compelling argument. Whenever you include language verbatim from another text, it needs to be in quotation marks (“”) followed by a parenthetical citation. Academic Integrity: Failure to cite your sources or include quotation marks where necessary may constitute plagiarism and will earn the paper an automatic F. For more information on plagiarism, consult http://libguides.nvcc.edu/plagiarism. Collaboration: The paper that you submit must reflect your own work and nobody else’s. Do not share finished papers or drafts with other students. Even the slightest evidence of copying or inappropriate collaboration may result in a grade penalty or an F. Parenthetical Citations: A parenthetical citation typically includes the principal author’s last name and page number. If there is no author, an abbreviated title (no more than 2-3 words) will do. The citation goes at the end of each sentence containing cited material, after any quotation marks and before the period. If you include author or title information in the text of the essay, just the page number is necessary in parenthesis. If numerous citations to the same source appear consecutively in a single paragraph, you may consolidate them. Below are some examples: • If you are citing material from the textbook, a parenthetical citation looks like this (Hunt, 77). • If you are citing material from a primary source in the source reader, it looks like this (Aristophanes, 141). • If you are citing material from an editorial comment in the source reader, as opposed to the text of the primary source, it looks like this (Lualdi, 140). • If you are citing material from a primary source on Blackboard, it looks like this (Thucydides, 2). Note: If you cite more than one source with the same author, you may need to include the name of the author and an abbreviated title (Thucydides, “Mitylenian Debate,” 2).