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CAPSTONE ESSAY ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
This assignment is an essay that brings all of the knowledge and skills developed in this course
to bear on a single ethical issue. You will write an 1800–2000-word essay (not including
footnotes, the title page, table of contents, and bibliography) that combines the insights and
arguments of the second and third discussions into a single carefully-articulated work. Format
should be 12pt, Times New Roman font and in Turabian format.
INSTRUCTIONS
Begin your paper with a brief introductory paragraph that clearly states your goals, thesis, and
method. State what metaethical theory you are defending, the issue in applied ethics you are
addressing, the conclusion(s) you want to defend.
Next, provide a lengthy and detailed defense of the metaethical theory you defended in
Discussion: Compare and Contrast Metaethical Theories. This will likely reflect what you
argued for in your thread and the feedback that you received from the professor and/or
classmates who responded to your thread. Here you can go into much more detail than you could
in the discussion, which was limited to 600 words. If you have changed your mind since
Discussion: Compare and Contrast Metaethical Theories and wish to defend a different
theory, you may do so. This section of the Capstone Essay Assignment would be roughly half
of your paper (three to four pages).
Next, proceed to the applied ethics issue that you discussed in your Discussion: Ethical
Application thread. Here you should greatly expand upon your argument. Add detail, nuance,
and argumentation, providing a fairly complete and comprehensive application based on the
theory you defend in the first half of the paper. You may illustrate the application with real-life
examples, but please do not fill your paper with anecdotes. You should anticipate possible
objections to your approach to the issue and respond to them in an objective and informed
manner. (For ideas on how others might object to your approach, a good place to begin would be
your classmate’s reply to your thread, but you need not stop there. Many books and articles have
been published on issues in applied ethics, and these can provide a wealth of possible arguments
relevant to every issue.) You are encouraged to use quotes from sources as a way to support your
arguments, but quotes should not make up more than one and a half pages of your essay.
Your conclusion should reflect what you have argued in your thesis. It should recap what you
have accomplished and how you have accomplished it.
This paper is not required to utilize any sources outside of those that were used in the class (the
two textbooks, the videos, and the PointCast presentations), but use of additional resources is
permitted and encouraged. At the minimum the paper should utilize the resources from the class.
All resources used must be listed in the bibliography and any resources quoted, paraphrased, or
alluded to must be documented via footnotes formatted according to Turabian. Sources such as
Wikipedia and online dictionaries do not count as academic sources and should not be used.
Biblical references are encouraged, but will not count as an academic source.
ETHC 101
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Remember, your footnotes and bibliography (if you had one) do not count toward the 2000 word
limit. You will be penalized if you exceed the limit, so please do not.
Your paper must begin with a title page that includes a paper title, your name, the date, and the
course name and number. The second page of your paper must be a table of contents. The last
page of your paper must be devoted to your bibliography. The paper must utilize 12 point Times
New Roman font, double-spaced, with one inch margins. It must be double-spaced rather than
triple-spaced between paragraphs and there should be only one space after the end of each
sentence.
Any documentation in the body of your paper must be done via footnotes formatted according to
Turabian. If you are not familiar with how to do this, simply look it up online. There are many
websites that explain Turabian formatting. Footnotes should be single-spaced 10 point Times
New Roman font.
Your paper must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document. If you submit it as a .pdf or
anything other than a Microsoft Word document it will not be graded.
Proofread your work before handing it in! Errors of spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation
will affect your grade. This is a university-level writing assignment. Please write accordingly.
Submit your finished paper via the submission link. Turnitin is a program that checks your work
for plagiarism. Plagiarism is unethical and will not be tolerated. If you are not sure what
plagiarism is, it is your responsibility to find out. Ignorance is no excuse. Do not plagiarize!
This assignment contributes to achieving and assessing the achievement of all four of the Course
Learning Outcomes.
