Readings by Aristotle

1. Topic: Your question can emerge from any aspect of the readings that interested you. I suggest asking about something that caught your attention and made you think or that genuinely confused you. While the focus is on Aristotle you are very welcome to put his ideas in conversation with Plato’s ideas.

2. Development: Your question itself can be one or more sentences long which means that most of your writing is going to be support. Give your question textual and conceptual context. In other words make sure whomever is reading your question understands how it emerges from the text and make sure they also know what other key ideas might be connected to your question. Don’t just throw in a question all by itself but rather develop it so that it makes sense. You are also welcome to identify what is motivating you to ask the question if that is instructive for clarifying the question. Treat this as an essay using paragraphs to present distinct phases in your argument. It may help to think of your question as the thesis guiding the essay. However it is usually easier to end with your question than start with it. You might need your whole development in place before you can make the question clear to your reader. Ultimately organize your writing in whatever way is best for conveying your question. Another option is to start with a simple question and then follow its threads. This might mean answering it augmenting it criticizing it inverting it complicating it or doing whatever makes sense to expose a deeper question.

3. You must directly quote the text at least twice. Quotes will be included in your word count but only up to 40 words (so long as you are using quotes of a reasonable length you shouldn’t be worrying about this). Don’t forget to do a citation for each quote. A parenthetical citation is fine; e.g. Socrates said “You are forever giving s in a discussion as spoiled people do who behave like tyrants as long as they are young” (Plato 76b). ‘