Most obviously, your paper needs to state a thesis and defend that thesis throughout. The thesis should be your position on the ethical questions raised by the empirical case. Although in most cases you will not be arguing for a clear-cut "Yes!" or "No!" answer, your thesis should nevertheless be clear what position you take. We suggest that you state the thesis early on in the paper - possibly in the opening paragraph. In a paper of this length, you should not get involved in a lengthy preamble. Get right to the point!
The body of the paper should develop this thesis. Illustrate the implications of your thesis and show why they are desirable. Your discussion should also consider and rebut objections to your thesis. In some cases you will draw objections directly from readings; in other cases you will need to construct likely objections yourself. Reading and lecture material should be helpful in guiding you toward such alternative views of the dilemma. In a paper of this type it is quite probable that you will not be as complete as possible and you may not have all the possible evidence. In this event, it is quite acceptable to frame your conclusion hypothetically.
Limit yourself to the page length stated in the syllabus. That is, please no papers shorter than five pages or longer than eight! Be careful about citing other authors' opinions. Always cite properly (that is, including author, title, publisher, place and date of publication, etc.) using standard citation formats. If you need to cite from material that is not covered by standard citation rules (e.g., texts from web-pages, newsgroup or listserv postings), create your own citation format. Cases of plagiarism are unpleasant for all involved and are a surprisingly frequent occurrence. Finally, please proofread and edit your papers!
Please prepare one-page outlines of the argument you plan to put forth and discuss them with Prof. Nissenbaum or Julian during the week before the paper due date.
jdierkes@cs