Analyzing an Argument

TUT 100- Virtue in Animal and Machine - Professor Weinman

Summary:

You will complete the stages of writing a paper by engaging an author's argument in a novel context.

Purposes:

Our goals are to

engage in creative thought,
work through the major stages of writing, and
practice revising and giving/receiving feedback.

Due:

There are several milestones for this assignment with various due dates.

Writing Lab Appointment:: 5 pm, Wednesday 9 October
Sentence Outline:: 10 pm, Monday 14 October
Smooth Draft:: 10 pm, Monday 28 October (first Monday after Fall Break)
Final Draft:: 10 pm, Thursday 7 November

Turn In:

Each milestone has a slightly different submission mechanism.

Writing Lab Appointment:: E-mail me your appointment date with a sentence about what your objective for the session will be.
Outline and Smooth Draft:: Submit a copy by the deadline to PioneerWeb. Bring two copies to class with you the next day.
Final Draft:: Submit a copy by the deadline to PioneerWeb. Bring your sentence outline and smooth draft review sheets and all marked copies to class on Tuesday 12 November. Please attach them all together with a paper clip, binder clip, or staple.

Assignment

Bekoff and Pierce have established a context for an exploration of virtue in animals, clustering their analysis around three categories of behavior (cooperation, empathy, and justice). Wallach and Allen have simply set up the motivation for and possibility of machine morality.

Writers and researchers commonly investigate how an existing argument applies to a novel situation. This approach often leads to discoveries about the new context or points to shortcomings of the original argument that must be accounted for or generalized. In this paper, we will take only the first step by investigating how Bekoff and Pierce's ideas fit into Wallach and Allen's domain. (You have the option of taking a subsequent step in your next paper.)

Topic

Wild Justice describes several examples of how various flavors of cooperation are demonstrated in animals as a means for establishing their moral behavior. One particularly important arch is given in Chapter 3, "Cooperation." Your paper should address the question

To what extent can the same argument from cooperation be (potentially) applied to machines?

Find and use examples of (ro)bot successes, failures, or the lack of either to demonstrate either

how their argument extends (or could extend) to "silicon animals", or
why and how their argument fails in this case.

Your writing must engage the cooperation-based argument of Bekoff and Pierce for establishing moral behavior, rather than making your own. This task should be eased greatly by our prior analysis of their argument.

Audience

The audience for your work should be your peers. That is, someone who has been exposed to the theories and arguments we have discussed in class and who has a similar level of scientific understanding. You must still connect the topics of our readings to your analysis by showing how they apply.

Length and Format

The length of your paper should be 600-800 words (not including references or headers and footers). Scholarly references should be included in a list of works cited at the end in APA format. Please use a twelve point font and one inch margins. Your name, the course, and paper title should be on the first page, while your last name and a page number should be on all other pages.

Revisions

In addition to the peer review we will do, you are required to make an appointment with the Writing Lab for any stage of this assignment. The goal of the Writing Lab staff is teaching about any stage of writing. Therefore, your appointment may be while you are planning your approach and drafting of your sentence outline, revising your sentence outline, or during manuscript revisions before or after your smooth draft. Our purpose is to help you become familiar with this extremely valuable campus resource and learn even more about the process of revising.

Make your appointment right away! Go to PioneerWeb, click on the "Course Areas & Acad Info" tab. Click on the link "Writing Lab Appointments" in the left-hand column titled "Resources." You must make an appointment (for any time) by Wednesday 9 October. Any Writing Lab staff member will be able to help you with this assignment.

Milestones

Sentence Outline

Write an outline of your paper that shows the logical organization and flow of your argument. All headings (and sub-headings) must be a complete sentence. These exact sentences may or may not end up in your paper, but each entry in your outline needs to show a completely formulated statement. Furthermore, no division (or sub-division) may consist of only one part. That is, an "A" must have a "B" and a "1" must have at least an accompanying "2." This format will help you bring clarity to your paragraph sequence and internal cohesion. Once you have organized the paper, you should find the task of writing and developing paragraphs easier. Your outline should adhere to the same formatting guidelines as your other written assignments: double-spaced twelve point font with one inch margins and names/titles in appropriate places.

Please note that your outline is likely to be malleable and subject to many alterations as you craft your overall argument. Crafting it is a learning process! Working to construct and re-arrange the skeleton in this way is much easier than with an entire paper, which can often be unwieldy.

Here are some suggestions for crafting an outline that will help you to write your paper effectively:

Clearly identify your thesis statement at the beginning of your outline.
Make the top-level of the outline the major points/topic sentences.
The major points should have a logical ordering.
Each major point should be supported by evidence.
Each piece of evidence should be explained, interpreted, or contextualized.
More complex points should have a synthesis that describes how the sub-points (e.g., evidence and interpretation) logically entail your major point.
The importance of your argument should be reflected in your thesis, introduction, and/or conclusion.

Because the purpose is to architect your argument's skeleton, paragraph transition language is not explicitly necessary at this point.

Smooth Draft

As in your first essay assignment, you will bring a smooth draft to class that will be reviewed and workshopped with your peers. Remember that this is not to be fresh from your fingers. In addition to the tips given in the first assignment you should also run your draft through Professor Simpson's 30 point inspection. That process will likely take you an hour or more, but it is very much worth it. So that the results are fresh to you, I recommend giving yourself at least a half day between when you complete the rough draft and begin your polishing.

Final Draft

Your final draft should exhibit incorporation of the comments from your peers and the Writing Lab.

Original material is Copyright © 2010, 2013 Jerod Weinman, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. All other material is property of the respective owner(s).