I’ve mentioned a couple times before that I’m back in school part-time a decade after my last adventure in higher education. As such, I feel I’m pretty rusty in skills like academic writing, etc.
So here (PDF) is a short (<5000 words) term paper I wrote for a class this semester. I already turned it in and got an A. But I’m interested in hearing any opinions about what could be better.
In particular, I’ve never been 100% sure about what requires footnotes and what doesn’t. (This prof didn’t seem to care too much, so I didn’t receive any feedback on that subject.) For example, I mention in one paragraph some facts about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. (e.g. “Ethiopia borders Somaliland.”) Does this sort of common-knowledge thing have to be cited? I never know where the line is drawn.
Oh, the assignment: We were to pick a book from a list the prof gave us (I chose Civilization and Its Enemies by Lee Harris) and describe the author’s thesis, then describe our own reactions to the thesis (in the first person), and support our arguments with relevant quotations. Then, describe our reaction to the book as a whole, and give it a score from 1-10. This was for a lower-level undergrad polisci elective.