Course Policies:

Grading:

Exercises (shorter papers and assignments): 20%
Class participation: 20%
Junior paper draft: 10%
Junior paper final grade: 50%


Full participation involves coming to both lecture and seminar prepared to discuss the week’s materials and engaging thoughtfully with the ideas and work of others in the class. 


Attendance and Deadlines:

Attendance is mandatory at all seminars: not only presence in the classroom, but preparation and participation. Each unexcused absence will lower the participation grade for the course by one degree (e.g. A to A-, B+ to B, etc.). Two or more unexcused absences will put you at risk of failing the course. If you are ill or have a pressing conflict (religious holiday, athletic competition, or another university-sanctioned reason), please notify me as far in advance of the seminar meeting as possible. 

All deadlines are firm and each day late will lower the assignment grade by one degree (e.g. A to A-, B+ to B, etc.). 


Course Texts:

You do not need to purchase any books for the course. On the first week, I will provide binders with shared readings and documents. You will be able to add materials to this binder throughout the course. Required films for the course can be accessed on Princeton’s Kanopy. 


Screen-free Classroom:

Outside of the film screen, we will have a screen-free classroom (with no laptops, tablets, or phones). If you have an accommodation or concerns, please let me know over email or in person. 



AI Policy:

The use of AI for drafting or editing prose, for summarizing readings, or for generating ideas is not permitted in the junior seminar. Grammarly, Copilot, and other AI writing aids should be turned off when you are doing work for this course.

Use of AI in research (i.e., finding sources) should be acknowledged in an appendix to your bibliography, which includes a summary of your prompts and a list of the sources to which you were directed (referring to the bibliography that precedes it).

Our interactions as writers and thinkers with large language models are changing fast, and their possibilities and perils will be important to our discussions this term. Nonetheless, the basic project of the seminar is to help us learn to read, think, and write for ourselves. What is difficult about interpretation, and about critical writing, is exactly what is useful about it: bringing our minds into contact with other minds; putting our own thinking in front of us, as writers, and working to make it better.



Academic Integrity and the Honor Code:

All students in this course are expected to complete their written work in accordance with University academic regulations. At the end of any written work completed outside of class for a grade, please type or write out and sign the following statement: “This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.” For electronic submissions, you may type your name preceded by the notation /s/, which stands for “signature.” 

Your debts to other scholars must be conscientiously cited. (See “CITATION” below.) Please be aware that we will refer any suspected infractions of the University’s academic regulations to the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. If you are found to have plagiarized or copied the work of another scholar or student on any portion of an assignment, you will receive an automatic F for the assignment, which may result in a failing grade for the course. 


Citation:

The junior seminar requires citation in Chicago style, according to The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Their online Citation Quick Guide will answer most questions. You are free to choose the Notes and Bibliography or Author-Date formats according to your preference. The CMOC is also the definitive guide to matters of style in the body of your text, and you can find answers to any question you may have about punctuation, capitalization, and so on in their online table of contents.


Disability Services and Accommodations:

Students who wish to request classroom accommodations can do so through the Office of Disability Services (ODS). If you have been approved for accommodations through the ODS, please contact your instructor as soon as possible to develop an implementation plan together.


Academic Resources:

Princeton offers extensive academic support to undergraduates. We encourage you to take advantage of the following resources:

The Writing Center — The Writing Center offers student writers free one-on-one conferences with experienced fellow writers trained to consult on assignments in any discipline. 
  • The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning — The McGraw Center offers one-on-one learning consultations that can be particularly useful for developing active reading strategies, project management skills, and note-taking tactics. You can make an appointment for an individual consultation by visiting their website. The McGraw Center also supports group study hall and peer tutoring. 
  • Princeton Undergraduate Research Calendar — Princeton's Undergraduate Research Calendar (PURC) helps you navigate the many programming opportunities and resources available to support your research at Princeton. Use their one-stop website to learn about upcoming events and plan ahead for important funding, internship, and fellowship deadlines. 
  • Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research — Drawn from across class years and divisions, the correspondents promote a culture of research and scholarship amongst undergraduates, support students through all stages of research and independent work, demystify the research process, and empower more students to get involved in research opportunities that enable them to make well-informed decisions about their course of study and career. The PCUR blog helps demystify the steps of the research process, highlights different kinds of research opportunities, and offers insight into what it’s like to do research and independent work in different disciplines. 
  • Reference Librarians — Reference librarians can help students make a research plan, find sources (electronic and print), and provide guidance through the research and citation process.