Information. Your third and final paper will be due, online, by 11:59pm on May 17.
The paper itself should be four to five pages (4-5pp.) double-spaced—that is, at least four full and
at maximum five full double-spaced pages—excluding your works cited page. For your font, use
Times New Roman 12pt., with 1” margins. These papers are (very) short: I want you to learn how
to write cleanly, forcefully, and succinctly. Don’t write a paper that is merely a summary of the
readings thus far. Write with prosaic and not poetic language.
Remove all identifying information when you submit your paper: aside from a descriptive title,
don’t include your name, my name, the course’s name, or even the date.
For further information about the virtues your paper should demonstrate, please refer to the writing
handouts that I’ve posted in the “Handouts” folder on Canvas.
Like I stated on our syllabus, I don’t accept late work, under any circumstances, so it’s your
responsibility to submit your paper on time
Prompt. Over the course of the semester, we have covered methods for the study of religion,
theories of religion, and the textbook understanding of religion. In this paper, you will need to
draw on all three.
From a popular news source—for example, The New York Times or The Guardian—find a recent
news story concerning religion. This news story will serve as your example. What should we know
about this example? How does religion fit into it? Then drawing from any of the theorists we have
read, analyze the example from the theorist’s perspective. What should we—your audience—take
away from the example you have chosen?
In your analysis, you might follow some theorists and describe whether and how the example is
religious in nature. Or you might follow some other theorists and evaluate whether the example is
actually religious or a distortion of a particular religion. But you should move beyond simply
repeating the news story report about the example. Also, as long as you provide citations, you may
draw upon ideas that you presented in your first two papers.
