Religious Study Essay
Describe the process of legal change in two of the three religions (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam) by drawing on two specific instances of change in laws (one example per religion). Compare the two processes. Based on your comparison, make an argument for why law changes when it does and what explains the differences in the process of legal change between the religions.
Compose a response paper to the following question. Your response paper should be a minimum of 3 full pages and no longer than 5. It should be double-spaced, use a 12-point font, and have 1-inch margins all around. Read the question carefully; make sure you answer all of the different components that make it up. Go back and carefully re-read the sources in order to answer the question. Strive for clarity and precision. Make sure you cite your sources correctly when you either quote a text, or reference or paraphrase an idea found in the text. Have friends read your response paper after you print it out to see if they can comprehend your argument and catch any glaring spelling and grammatical mistakes, then read it to yourself slowly and out loud. You should only turn it in after you have corrected the conceptual and grammatical mistakes.
1. Do not introduce the author or principle figure (e.g. Friedman, Novak, Maimonades) or the text (e.g. On Legal Interpretation). Assume the reader knows them. Do not start out by saying that the author or figure was a famous rabbi, etc. Plunge right away into the thesis and the argument. Do not summarize the text. Assume the readers have read it, though they may have forgotten some details.
2. Neither praise or put down the author or the figure you reference. Do not say whether you like or dislike the authors ideas. Simply analyze the text to support your thesis.
3. Constantly cite the text. Do so by putting the page numbers and identifying words from the title, and nothing else, in parentheses, like this (Legal Interpretation, 434) or (Jewish Marriage, 128-9).
4. Do not include a bibliography. I forbid you from using outside sources since it makes students suspend their own thinking and adopt somebody elses (usually erroneous) ideas.
5. To write a paper that is not superficial, you need to re-read entire text or texts at least once, and the parts that are especially relevant to your paper several times.
6. Three pages provide very little space: use them wisely. Do not undertake anything but a close engagement with the text. Do not be wordy. Do not make general statements about religion, philosophy, knowledge, life, the human condition, etc. Narrow and focused is good. Broad and general is bad.
7. Students most common mistake is to try to cover too many ideas. Pick one and focus on it. Given the choice between a broad thesis and a narrow one, pick the narrow one. But dont pick something thats so narrow that its trivial. Organization: Let the logic and broad structure of your argument determine the papers organization, including the order in which topics are treated and the passages in the text cited or analyzed. So, you need not organize your paper to mirror the texts own organization. You also should not organize your paper around quotations from the text.
