RS 3853 Reading Journals

I am getting questions from students about the nature of the reading journal that will be kept this semester in RS 3853. I reserve the right to make small changes to what follows as I finalize the syllabus but this is pretty much what the journal will look like this semester.

I have decided to change the nature of the reading journal this year. It will, however, still be worth 20% of the final mark.

As before, the journal will essentially be a letter that you write to yourself about the weekly reading with the intent that the journal will be a resource that you will use in the final exam. You should focus on writing in your journal the essential thoughts (both the author and yours) from your weekly reading. Later in the course you will be expected to include a reflection section that describes how the reading related to other course readings.

For this semester, the reading journal will be submitted every week at the beginning of each lecture. The reading journal will be kept by me and you will submit weekly chapters. The weekly journal chapters that you submit will be printed and I will insert them into your journal which I will give you in the final exam.

You may use up to two pages maximum for any selected reading but each reading must be on separate pages.

Each reading should start on a new page with an appropriate bibliographic reference to the source at the beginning. The journal must not contain more than 10% direct quotation and it is subject to the rules concerning plagiarism and academic dishonesty.

You are to format the pages with 2 cm margins on all sides using arial, 10 point font single spaced (but double spaced until you have two pages). The text is limited to black, bold and underlined type (no colour, no highlighter). You are welcome to insert one table or diagram per page of your journal.

In short, if you want to get ahead of the game, your Christmas readings
1. Water Bible and Science made easy,
2. Elder Critical Thinking and
3. Poole Science and Belief

would constitute three sources and you would be allowed to write up to six pages (2 pages each max).

If I were writing a journal selection on them I would make sure that I had the chapter titles with a paragraph on each chapter with perhaps the odd direct quote which captures the authors thinking. That would be it.

Take care.