10/12/05
The Assignment Specifications for Submitting Your Assignment Links to Useful Websites Academic Honesty
This next assignment concerns the Fourth Amendment, which protects our right to privacy. Your essay must be about one of the following cases: "Police Brutality," "Shoot to Kill," "Death in the Dredge Pond," "An Inflammable Situation," "You're Going to Have to Kill Me," "Detained and Abandoned," "You Lied to Me," "Truancy. That's What I Was Trying to Establish" "Athletes and Drug Testing," "Illegal Strip Search?" "Cocaine in the Flashlight" or "Of Guns and Metal Detectors." If you choose to write your essay about "Of Guns and Metal Detectors," please select only one of the cases.
You have two options for writing this essay. You may either put it in the traditional IRAC format, or opt for something a bit more flamboyant by writing it as something you would present to a jury. If you choose this second option, please read pp. 96-105 of your textbook, and use the advice there about opening and closing arguments that grab the reader's attention and also don't tell your audience what to do but instead, gently lead it there.
The final draft of your essay is due in my computer as an attachment file no later than 11:59 p.m. Monday, October 24th. Also, students must be present for group evaluation on Monday, October 17th and peer review of Wednesday, October 19th. Students failing to be in class for each group evaluation or for peer review will lose a letter grade on this assignment for each evaluation day missed. In addition to these formal opportunities to evaluate your work, I am happy to give you feed back via the internet during the course of the assignment providing you don't submit material to me at the last minute. To that end, I will not look at a rough draft for this assignment after 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, October 23rd. Also, you may seek further assistance with your work at any time by visiting the Writing Center in the basement of Coates Hall.
Your essay must be at least 1000 words in length and relatively free of errors in spelling and grammar. Failing to meet this length requirement will cost you a letter grade on this assignment. Also, your grade will be docked a letter for every three errors in grammar and spelling present in your final draft (even if they are the same errors), so proofread your work carefully.
Specifications for Submitting Your Assignment
Also, please name your file in the following way: yourlastname_fourth. For example, Joe Blow would send a file titled blow_fourth. If you have a particularly common last name (i.e. Smith, Jones, Johnson,. Nguyen), you may use your first name too. In that case, label your file in the following way: yourlastnameyourfirstname_fourth. For example, Janice Smith would name her file in the following way: smithjanice_fourth. It is very important that you label your file in this way. Whenever an assignment is due, I receive anywhere from 20 to 100 files in my computer at once. This can become very confusing unless files are labeled properly. If you label your file in a more generic way, then you run the risk it being overwritten by someone else's file with a similar name. Thus, failure to label your file properly will cost you a letter grade on this assignment.
Also, put the phrase "Fourth Amendment Essay" in the subject heading of your e-mail when submitting this part of the assignment. I receive a great deal of messages in a given day. Some of these are messages from people who have a legitimate reason to contact me (i.e. students sending assignments or in need of advice). Some of it is spam from people pretending to know me, only wanting to sell me Viagra, pornography, or lower mortgage rates. Thus, it is also very important that you put an appropriate subject heading in your message to me so that I don't inadvertently delete your message. This is especially important if you aren't using your PAWS account, and have another e-mail account where your address doesn't make your identity clear. The chances are good that I might not recognize barkydog@aol.com or stinkycat@cox.net as one of my students, and thus, delete the message without reading it. Failure to give your message an appropriate subject heading will cost you a letter grade on this assignment.
Finally, please put your name in the text of your attachment file. Failure to include your name in the text of the file will cost you a letter grade on this assignment.
The Fourth Amendment Explained by the 'Lectric Law Library and Findlaw.
The Fourteenth Amendment Explained by Findlaw.
Fourth Amendment Rights: The Right to Privacy, Search and Seizure, Drug Testing
Here's some commentary about illegal searches and seizures in high schools. This site makes particular reference to the T. L. O. case (better known to you as "You Lied to Me")
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has put together a useful site about search and seizure issues. This site also makes reference to T. L. O. and the Veronia Case (better known to you as "Of Athletes and Drug Testing")
Ask Sybil Liberties about students' Fourth Amendment rights.
As usual, Landmark Supreme Court Cases has some excellent food for thought, this time on Fourth Amendment Issues. Visit this link for some good mental exercises or some more specific information about New Jersey vs. T. L. O.
Plagiarism is academic dishonesty, and I will not tolerate it in its various and sundry forms. Plagiarism is when you represent someone's writing as your own. It is plagiarism to take material verbatim from another source without surrounding it with quotation marks and properly documenting the source. It is also plagiarism to paraphrase words from another source without giving it credit. It is plagiarism to have someone else write a paper for you or submit someone else's work for a grade. Plagiarism isn't limited to information found in books or assignments previously submitted by other students. Taking sources from the internet without attributing them is also plagiarism. I expect my students to have a clear understanding of how to document outside sources (and we'll even go over this concept in Freshman Composition), so there's no excuse for failing to give credit where it is due.
I will keep out a sharp eye for plagiarism and may randomly audit a set of assignments by submitting some of them to turnitin.com or checking the internet or the vast files kept by my colleagues to ensure that everyone is doing his/her own work. Students suspected of plagiarism will be turned over to the Dean of Students for disciplinary action. If the Dean of Students rules that a student has plagiarized an essay, that assignment will receive a zero, and thus, the student will receive an F for the course since one of the class requirements is that students not have a zero on any major assignment. Students who plagiarize have basically lied to me, and will be dealt with harshly.