Term Paper Creative Option

For those classfellows who are considering the creative-writing option for the Term Paper, it will be necessary to have me sign off on your proposed format in advance. The proposal must take the form of a set of failure standards -- applying the falsification concept from experimental science, where a theory is ranked as scientific only when it is capable of being falsified in a reproducible trial.

So, if you chose to submit a creative paper or project for your Term assignment, in either essay or point form, list the full set of criteria by which your project can be gauged to have failed. To wit,

• if the project does not advance an academic thesis
• if the project does not identifiably incorporate material from relevent scholarship
• if the project fails to relate directly to some number of the primary course texts
• if the project fails to represent and demonstrate advanced understanding of the central ideas of the course
• &c, &c.

This criteria requirement arises from creative submissions in previous courses, where creativity was more than once mistaken (by the student author) for open license. At the same time, it has proven to give the student a helpful planning template and a good stimulus to .... productivity.

The creative project must be accompanied by a concise scholarly essay of two to three pages in length justifying the academic validity of the project.