If you want to receive the highest marks possible, I highly recommend reading these instructions in their entirety.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMMENTARY SUBMISSIONS:
PLEASE NOTE: I WILL NOT BE ANSWERING ANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE ANSWERED WITHIN THIS DOCUMENT. SO, IT WOULD BEHOOVE YOU TO READ IT CAREFULLY AS IF YOUR GRADE DEPENDED ON IT, BECAUSE IT DOES…
• Your commentaries MUST be submitted by way of the black board system, this means that if you email them to me, I will simply delete them.
• You will have 20 opportunities to submit a commentary.
• In order to receive full credit (100%) for this portion (25%) of your final grade you must !receive a minimum of 20 points from your commentary submissions.
• Each commentary has a maximum point value of 3.
• That means that it is possible to receive 60 points. Any points over twenty will count as extra
credit in the same manner as the example below:
Assume you receive a total of 40 points for your commentaries, e.g., you complete all 20 and receive 2pts. for each. 20 points is 100%. This leaves an additional 20 points that I will add as percentage points to your commentary grade. In this case, I would add 20% to the 100% which would give you 120% for your commentary grades which is still 25% of your final grade.
• I have constructed the grading rubric specifically to serve the dual purpose: it provides those that work harder the proper recognition for their work, and those that find putting their thoughts to paper especially difficult, are also able to do well enough to still receive an A for
this portion of the course.
• Students that find that they are not receiving the amount of credit they desire consistently, should to FIRST contact their T.A. by email, and ask him what you need you to do to receive full credit. You can do this by sending him an email through the email function on blackboard;
simply click on the address marked, “Teaching Assistant.”
• You are also expected to use appropriate language when interacting with your T.A., and to treat him or her as you would treat me; that is, treat your T.A. with the same level of respect and courtesy that I like to believe that most of you have for me. Those of you that do not have this level or respect, as least be smart enough to pretend that you do. Your T.A. is permitted, and
completely justified in choosing to delete any communications considered unnecessarily rude or disrespectful. However, that will not satisfy me. That is why your T.A. is specifically instructed to forward any emails deemed inappropriate directly to me, and I will decide how to proceed. I might just delete it; or, perhaps you and I will meet with the chair of your department so that we can all sit down together, and make sure we are all reading the same UTSA Honor Code that is printed in the syllabus. I am sure we can all commit to at least the minimal degree of respect to which every member of the student body is bound. Of course, this does not apply to me when I am onstage; as everyone knows, being onstage automatically makes me a rockstar, and there are simply different rules for rockstars (that is why everyone wants to be a rockstar). Moreover, I just cannot function if I am not allowed to make fun of anyone and everyone at which I happen to direct my attention. I have a doctors note to prove
! it.
• IF AFTER HAVING CONTACTED YOUR T.A. you still find yourself doing poorly, I highly suggest you come to my office hours (bring a newspaper, NOT THE PAISANO), and you and I will sit there until I am convinced that you can complete this exercise to a degree that you will at least receive full credit. I will draw the line at Midnight; I will then drive home (and, I guess you may have to walk in the dark; I believe the busses stop running before midnight). If you manage to make it home safely, and successfully avoid get smooshed by one of your fellow San Antonians (of course, I am sure they are both much more courteous, and skilled in operating a motor vehicle at night when things are so much easier to see), then I will see you in my office the next day; we will keep meeting, and you will keep playing Twilight Frogger (I bet we could get this on pay-per-view. At the very least, we could have one very nice betting pool between the 799, 98, 97, etc., people registered in the course…Oh come on, thats funny, I don’t care who you are…), until we are BOTH satisfied with your ability to complete these assignments. Please do not wait until the end of the semester to search out my assistance; if you do, it will most likely be too late, and there will be nothing to be done about it. Again, if you are not receiving the grades that you would like, YOU MUST TAKE AN ACTIVE ROLE
!in finding out why, and you must do so earlier rather than later in the semester.
SEE COMPLETE INSTRUCTIONS IN INDEPENDENT FILE UNDER “COURSE CONTENT”
FORMAL STRUCTURE:!
1. Briefly summarize the NEWS article. Identify who are the persons, groups, and/or organizations that are involved. CLEARLY STATE THE MORAL ISSUE; for example, is there some kind harm being caused to an individual, or group, or business? Is this about fairness? Is someone’s, or some group’s, or some business’s moral rights being violated? Is there more than one issue? Is there some kind of conflict between one value and another value?
?2. PROVIDE ME WITH AT LEAST ONE REASON to have a belief, one way or the other, about the issue that you are explaining. In other words, to receive full credit for any commentary, you MUST state WHY IS IT A MORAL ISSUE? WHY IS IT WRONG OR WHY IS IT NOT WRONG? If you make the statement, “Wal-Mart was morally wrong to bribe Mexican officials,” you MUST TRY TO EXPLAIN, “WHY IS WAL-MART WRONG?” For example, what is wrong with bribery? It is best to assume that I do not have any beliefs about ethical behavior at all. Your job is to convince me with REASON(S).
3. Finally, briefly suggest what YOU BELIEVE should be done about this situation, AND WHY. Explain how your suggestion is an appropriate response to the reason(s) you provided in section 2. You MUST provide reasons for whatever you believe. If you find that you cannot provide any reasons for what you believe, they I highly suggest you pick a different article. !
If you expect to receive full credit for a commentary there are a few additional things that you MUST do. Only meeting one requirement is NOT sufficient,
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
A. You MUST identify a MORAL issue (this should happen in Section 1).
B. AND the moral issue MUST directly and/or indirectly CORRELATE WITH the nature of BUSINESS ITSELF; for example, profit margin, corporate culture, competition between companies, competition within companies, legislative manipulation, the nature of the fiduciary relationship between employers and employees and customers, shareholders, stakeholders, losing site of the big picture, etc. If the correlation is indirect, you MUST make the connection to business as clear as possible (this can happen in Section 2). If this seems overly difficult for you to do, then this is a good sign that it might not be a business issue. If you cannot do so, you should pick a different article because failure to do so will result in no credit.
C. AND you MUST locate the moral issue within a CURRENT BUSINESS PRACTICE in a local, national, or international news source published within 4 weeks of turning in the assignment. Appropriate online sources include, but are not limited to NPR.org, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, etc.
D. THE USE OF BLOGS AND/OR OPINION PIECES IS UNACCEPTABLE. If your citation has “blog” or “opinion” in the URL you will receive a 0. YOUR COMMENTARY WILL NOT EVEN BE READ. Why? Bloggers and editorials (opinions) are held to a completely different standard of reporting. That is, that they are held to no standard of reporting at all. You will not receive credit for questionable sources. No exceptions.
E. You MUST cite the article by including the URL at THE BEGINNING, i.e., prior to section one, of the assignment. !
F. YOU MUST NUMBER EACH SECTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FORMAL STRUCTURE. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN 0 POINTS AWARDED FOR THEASSIGNMENT.
G. If none of this makes sense to you, or it’s too much reading, then at least THOROUGHLY discuss your article. The most common mistakes include multiple claims of wrongness with no discussion as to why. Ultimately, the idea is for you to recognize moral issues in business, and then examine those issues against your own beliefs. You should be able to justify your thinking in more than platitudes, but with the underlying logic as to why “wrong” is in fact wrong and “right” is in fact right.!
The purpose of these short writing assignments is to get you to think about the issues we will be discussing in class and for you to get used to providing reasons for your views. This will facilitate informed discussion. If you thoughtfully engage the article, you will receive full credit (2) for the assignment. Those that do not thoughtfully engage the article, for example, those that do not provide a clear sense of understanding the reasons that are relevant to their view, but attempt the assignment, will receive half credit (1). Commentaries that do not engage the article at all will not receive credit (0).
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS:
If you are looking for the highest score possible, this can be done in at least two ways:
1. You can piggy back on the 2000 years of philosophical dialogue you will learn in class, and relate your reasons to a philosophical argument, e.g., “According to the categorical imperative, utility, etc..” PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR OR MY TIME by randomly throwing in names or even arguments. Unless you are certain that you can express an adequate understanding of the concepts that you believe are at play, we are both better off if you do not do so. Students that consistently display an understanding that goes beyond the adequate, and into the complex will receive full credit+1, (3).
2. The second way to justify your statements would be to try and build a logical argument as to why what you claim to be the case is what I should believe. Those that succeed in building arguments that clearly express the depth and complexity of the issues will receive full credit+1, (3). Your arguments do not have to satisfy the validity condition, they merely need to display a serious attempt to do so.
Here is a link to improve (you are not required to do so) your commentaries:
Here is a link to a list and explanation of logical fallacies: http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/. ! At least glance them over. !
I need two commentaries ,one page for each commentary
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]