EPE Essay Assignment:  Guidelines

 

Please write an EPE essay responding to the passage below.  Before even thinking of writing, please study the diagram on p. 37 of your text and the guidelines below: 

 

1.      Your name and class information should appear on the top left of the paper

2.      Title should be centered, boldfaced, with a 16-point font. 

3.      Title should capture the essence of your thesis in as few words as possible

4.      Your paper should be double-spaced

5.      Your paper must be between 550 and 650 words 

6.      Summary and interpretation of the passage below, taken together, must be 100 words or less 

7.      Thesis must be a single sentence, comprising 15 words or less 

8.      Each of the three paragraphs following the thesis must give a different reason for believing the thesis is right.  Each must include an explanation and be clearly connected to the thesis. 

9.      Last paragraph of paper must give the conclusion.

10. Your paper will receive two separate grades, which in turn will count as two assignments in your final class grade:  a. Contents.  b. Grammar (each error will cost you 5 points of 100, so you could, conceivably, get a minus grade (less than zero).
11. Paper must be e-mailed to me as a WORD (.doc) attachment, on or before . . . No hard copies will be accepted.

Click here to see one model EPE Essay

Click here for 3 more examples

Click here for a long EPE tutorial

 

The passage I’d like you to respond to is:

 

“If you want to know the truth, I think that fundamentalist Mormons are probably happier, on the whole, than people on the outside.  But some things in life are more important than being happy--like being free to think for yourself.” –[Adapted from Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven, p. 331, 2003]

 

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