Guidelines for Discussion Posts

Weekly Timing

This course is run as a seminar and interaction is important.  You will need to make your first post to the discussion by Wednesday at 11:59 PM each week and you will have until Sunday at 11:59 PM to respond to at least two classmates. You will not receive any credit for a post unless you respond to two classmates because this activity is designed to be interactive.

Relevance of Post

Your post needs to be on-topic and relate relevant details from the course pages and assigned texts--be sure to discuss all relevant assigned readings for the week in your initial post. Your post must be on the discussion topic: off-topic posts will not receive credit.  With this in mind, please avoid lengthy digressions or comparisons to other periods of history or contemporary events.  Evaluate Mesopotamia on its own terms.

I have written course pages to supplement or explain points from the assigned readings. Please be sure to refer to these in your posts. You may cite them with the author's name and title (exp. Earley-Spadoni, "Geography of the ANE").

Length/Substance

You should aim for 300 objective-accomplishing words in your initial posts; however, word count is much less important than writing for purpose and achieving your writing objectives.  Word count, for the purposes of this class, should always be understood as a "ballpark" or target.   The word target for discussion posts applies to responses that are incredibly well-written and efficient in how they deliver information--you may need 500 or 750 words to make your point if your post contains inefficient writing or "fluff."

Citations

You must indicate the author and page number of your information **frequently** in your posts, and sentences that contain facts from the readings require citations. We will use an informal version of the author-date style.

Example 1: "The Near East features mountain ranges like the Zagros and Taurus (Van De Mieroop, pg. 6)."

Example 2: "Van De Mieroop discusses the sheer abundance of clay cuneiform tablets--it's shocking that there are more than a million of them (pg. 37)!"

Please note: the author of your textbook's last name is Van De Mieroop, not "Mieroop."  He's Dutch like Vincent Van Gogh.

Direct Quotes

While you should reference the source of your assertions, you should not overuse direct quotations from the course materials.  Typically, historians paraphrase (re-state) secondary literature and only quote primary source material when the exact wording is relevant to an argument that you are making.  Re-stating the texts' arguments in your own words develops your analytical abilities. Therefore, you are limited to one direct quote per discussion post not to exceed 25 words. In case of doubt, do not directly quote the HANE text--re-phrase what was said in your own words and include the page number reference.

Organization

Do not compose a post that is all one long paragraph, or mix different ideas within the same paragraph. Your paragraphs should be internally organized and logical.An important objective of the weekly discussion posts is to help you improve your writing skills by giving you regular opportunities to write.  Therefore, your posts should be organized into paragraphs that begin with topic sentences. Links to an external site. All of the sentences within the paragraph should be related to the topic sentence. 

Contribution to the Learning Community

Your two responses should add value to the conversation by expanding upon or diverging from the original post by your classmate.  Please do not say, "That's a great post, Tammy!" and then proceed to agree with everything that Tammy said.  Equally, do not restate what Tammy said in your own words. *Respond* to what Tammy said by saying something different that builds on what she said. Elaborate agreement does not contribute to the intellectual content of your responses.

Your responses to classmates should be respectful of others' views, and you make the sort of points that encourage further discussion.  You agree or disagree in a civil manner using evidence rather than ad hominem Links to an external site. attacks.  You respond to at least two of your classmates each week.

Late Posts

Because of their interactive nature, discussion posts cannot be completed "late" (this applies to both the initial post and replies, which are due on Wednesday and Sunday respectively).

However, your lowest discussion post grade will be dropped to account for any unexpected events, emergencies etc. Otherwise, please manage your time throughout the semester to ensure an "on-time" submissions.  

Incomplete/Complete Grading

Since the posts are graded on an incomplete/complete basis, partial credit is not given if you do not meet the criteria stated above. The discussion posts are graded using rubrics so be sure to check your feedback on the rubric each week.

Students who do not receive completion credit on a post sometimes complain that it's not fair that they completed an assignment (too short, no citations etc.) but did not receive points for it. The incomplete/complete grading is meant instead to be reassuring and free you up to experiment with your writing--if you follow these instructions, you will get a perfect score every week! 

Rubric