Please help we only need to completed section 1 at this time. I would like to respond to option 2 2.  In what ways does (or does not) the New Testament provide justification to discriminate (or practice prejudice) against other peoples/nations/ethnicities/minorities and such (either nowadays or at some point in the past)?   SECTION ONE: Introductory paragraph (circa 250 words or so) must include •  your research question ( see *STAGE ONE* of assignment above) •  your argument as to why readers should truly care about your question. In other words, answer those who would ask  “ so what? ”  In other words, address the  “ significance ”  of that question. •  a road map/guide/preview of things to come. Put simply,  tell the readers what you are going to tell them . Reveal the structure or organization of the rest of your paper (e.g.  “ I will review critically two recent secondary sources that broadly address this question ” ). Then, you should also include the authors and titles of each source (titles are to be enclosed in quotation marks and must also be cited appropriately in a  “ Works Cited ”  section at the end of your essay!). please read info below because it is very important pertaining to the requirements...thanks  READ VERY CAREFULLY ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT DIRECTIONS (ROMAN NUMERALS I-V)  AND THEN RE-READ AND FOLLOW THEM — RELIGIOUSLY! I.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Students are required to submit a 2000-word research paper, limited to the critical review of two major sources. Papers must be submitted on time to receive full credit. Late papers will be lowered one-third of a complete letter grade for each day they are submitted past the due date (thus, a  “ B+ ”  paper submitted one day after the due date will be lowered to a  “ B ” , a  “ B ”  paper that is two days late would merit a  “ C+, ”  and so forth). If you think you will have problems with any aspect of writing this paper, I strongly recommend that you make an appointment at the University ’ s Writing Center. I.  SUMMARY FROM THE SYLLABUS: [ “ Writing and Submission of Major Paper ” ] The term paper / research paper for this course must be prepared  in advance  of the final weeks of the semester. It is assigned in  FOUR  stages so that you can manage this highly important assignment (35 percent of your final grade in the course!). You must complete this assignment to pass the class.  After all : if you aren ’ t writing, you probably aren ’ t thinking — much less  learning ! The final draft of the term paper (stage 4) must be submitted via the Blackboard link to  turnitin.com . All papers and writing assignments must include an MLA-style  “ Works Cited ”  list and must use  parenthetical citations  whenever you make reference to your sources (no matter whether you are quoting from, paraphrasing, or summarizing them).  Please read carefully  all  of the  handouts  about writing the term paper (or  “ research paper ” ) for a detailed guide to how grades are determined .

1. Please help we only need to completed section 1 at this time. I
would like to respond to option 2
2.
In what ways does (or does not) the New Testament provide
justification to discriminate (or practice prejudice) against other
peoples/nations/ethnicities/minorities and such (either
nowadays or at some point in the past)?
SECTION ONE: Introductory paragraph (circa 250 words or so)
must include
•
your research question (
see *STAGE ONE* of assignment above)
•
your argument as to why readers should truly care about your
question. In other words, answer those who would ask
“
so what?
”
In other words, address the
“
significance
”
of that question.
•
a road map/guide/preview of things to come. Put simply,
tell the readers what you are going to tell them
. Reveal the structure or organization of the rest of your paper
(e.g.
“
I will review critically two recent secondary sources that

2. broadly address this question
”
). Then, you should also include the authors and titles of each
source (titles are to be enclosed in quotation marks and must
also be cited appropriately in a
“
Works Cited
”
section at the end of your essay!).
please read info below because it is very important pertaining to
the requirements...thanks
READ VERY CAREFULLY ALL OF THE FOLLOWING
IMPORTANT DIRECTIONS (ROMAN NUMERALS I-V) AND
THEN RE-READ AND FOLLOW THEM
—
RELIGIOUSLY!
I.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Students are required to submit a 2000-word research paper,
limited to the critical review of two major sources. Papers must
be submitted on time to receive full credit. Late papers will be
lowered one-third of a complete letter grade for each day they
are submitted past the due date (thus, a
“
B+
”
paper submitted one day after the due date will be lowered to a
“
B
”
, a
“

3. B
”
paper that is two days late would merit a
“
C+,
”
and so forth). If you think you will have problems with any
aspect of writing this paper, I strongly recommend that you
make an appointment at the University
’
s Writing Center.
I.
SUMMARY FROM THE SYLLABUS:
[
“
Writing and Submission of Major Paper
”
]
The term paper / research paper for this course must be
prepared
in advance
of the final weeks of the semester. It is assigned in
FOUR
stages so that you can manage this highly important assignment
(35 percent of your final grade in the course!). You must
complete this assignment to pass the class.
After all
: if you aren
’
t writing, you probably aren
’
t thinking
—

4. much less
learning
!
The final draft of the term paper (stage 4) must be submitted via
the Blackboard link to
turnitin.com
. All papers and writing assignments must include an MLA-
style
“
Works Cited
”
list and must use
parenthetical citations
whenever you make reference to your sources (no matter
whether you are quoting from, paraphrasing, or summarizing
them).
Please read carefully
all
of the
handouts
about writing the term paper (or
“
research paper
”
) for a detailed guide to how grades are determined on this
assignment
–
and others.
Writing is graded primarily on the basis of content,
organization, and how clearly you communicate your ideas.
However, to communicate clearly, you also need to use proper
spelling, grammar, punctuation, concision, and so forth
. Finally, I
strongly recommend
that each and every one of you make an appointment with the
University

5. ’
s Writing Center.
III. THE FOUR STAGES IN DETAIL
STAGE 1) TERM PAPER TOPIC PROPOSAL (i.e.,
“
POSING A GOOD RESEARCH QUESTION
”
): You will have to examine carefully your own interests within
the subject area of
“
The New Testament
”
in order to come up with a research question that truly
motivates
you
personally
(and not necessarily
Brenner
)! At the same time, the question should not be too belief-based,
too bland, or too broad
–
the latter implying that you can address the question in
approximately 2000 words or more.
Hence, the
“
deliverable
” –
what you turn in for this first stage -- is a brief
statement
(using at least THREE complete sentences) of your
provisional/working
research question
. There is no need to have a provisional/working
thesis

6. (i.e., answer) at all at this stage
…
This
RESEARCH QUESTION is DUE via email on the date listed on
the schedule!
At the same time, YOU will have to base your actual question
on
ONE of the following TWO
“
guiding
”
research questions; no other (types of) questions will be
allowed!
Thus, your main job in this first stage of the assignment is to
formulate your own, more narrow research question. That
question will limit the scope of one of the guiding research
questions, so that you can keep your paper within
2500
–
3000
words. To learn how to narrow down a bigger question, please
read (and then re-read!) carefully the
“
Practice Quiz on Formulating Research Questions
”
(already in our Blackboard
“
Course Content
”
folder, inside the
“
Term Paper
”

7. folder).
AGAIN: choose one and only one of the following as your
“
guiding
”
research question
:
1.
In what ways does (or does not) the New Testament provide
justification for those who wish to commit
“
mass violence
”
(i.e.,
“
holy war,
” “
just war,
”
etc.) against non-Christian religions/faiths (either nowadays or
at some point in the past)?
2.
In what ways does (or does not) the New Testament provide
justification to discriminate (or practice prejudice) against other
peoples/nations/ethnicities/minorities and such (either
nowadays or at some point in the past)?
IMPORTANT TIP:
Always consult the Ehrman textbook
first
in developing your questions! You should re-read Ehrman
’
s contributions and suggestions. Then you might consider
looking up some of the books/articles/resources that
he
recommends. In short, there is no excuse in writing this paper
if you have

8. not
consulted the main texts carefully and thoroughly (i.e., Ehrman
and the New Testament itself)!
EQUALLY IMPORTANT TIPS: When narrowing down one of
these two research questions
—
and don
’
t forget to narrow it down to your own, more specific question!-
-you MUST avoid asking any question that is:
too
BLAND (not debatable), too BROAD (not narrowed down
enough), or too BELIEF-BASED (not provable using historical-
critical analysis of the text of the New Testament OR using
historical research on the era in which it was written and/or
canonized).
On that final type of
“
bad
”
question: you are not
analyzing
if you are
advocating
. So, your academic/research essays should never be statements
or proofs of your beliefs/theology/etc. Rather
—
and this is crucial -- the
only
legitimate evidence in NT
scholarship
is: 1) the NT
itself
(or related writings excluded from the NT canon); and/or 2)
archeological evidence or documents/writings from the time of

9. the NT. (That means: even if God/Jesus/divine beings
speak
to you about your paper, what He/She/they say does
not
count as evidence in a research paper written for this
academic/university setting!
)
Your
TERM PAPER RESEARCH QUESTION (i.e., at least THREE
complete sentences) is DUE via email to
[email protected]
by the due date provided in the course schedule (SEPT. 24)
STAGE 2) SECONDARY SOURCES IN FULL: You may
proceed to this stage if (and only if) I have approved of your
stage 1 submission. Based on your stage 1 research question
and
some
preliminary reading and thinking (i.e. preferably
writing
) about it, you will email me
COMPLETE COPIES OF AT LEAST
TWO
SECONDARY SOURCES related to that topic or question
.
These should be articles or book chapters that you have found
using: 1) my recommendations (in a folder on the Blackboard);
or 2) the
online
database
“
JSTOR
”
which is available on the UHD libraries

10. ’
website.
Unfortunately, you will probably
not
find two sources that address your question/topic
perfectly
.
More significantly: 1) each of these sources should be from
JSTOR
; 2) the two sources should add up to
at least 30 (THIRTY) pages total
; 3) each single source should be
no older than 1995
(nothing more than 20 years old!); 4) each of them should be
EMAILED to
[email protected]
IN THEIR FULL-TEXT FORM, preferably as a PDF file; 5)
. In addition, you are not serious about this research paper
assignment until you have formatted those two sources for me,
in the body of your email, using MLA formatting.
(MLA format for
“
Works Cited
”
lists can be found on the
Purdue University OWL website
, among
many
other places).
Please do not make me have to check to see whether you
followed
these
directions!
In short, you can
’

11. t just Google and find your two sources; and you cannot pick
out anything without my approval.
CAUTION: You need to email me a copy of the COMPLETE
TEXT of the source--not just a URL, a link, or a citation!
If you don
’
t provide these sources to me (your main reader), I might
presume that you are lacking
ethos
, i.e., that you not serious about working like a reputable
researcher. Rather, you need to
“
fight fair
”
(in scholarly terms) by showing me evidence for each of your
claims.
THESE
TWO
OR MORE TERM PAPER SOURCES (i.e., at least two
complete articles of at least 30 pages total) ARE DUE via email
by the date on the schedule/calendar (OCT. 7).
STAGE 3) If (and only if) I have approved your term paper
sources, you should begin DRAFTING your term/research
paper, the form/genre of which is a
critical review essay
. Your main objective in such an essay is to
analyze/review/evaluate
each of two sources intensively/seriously. That means: you
will be using the scientific criteria (or
“
standards
”
) of humanities and/or social sciences in order to
give reasons why the sources represent good or bad research
. (Clearly, then, you are not writing an essay based on

12. “
personal opinion
”
or
“
advocacy.
”
)
The resulting rough draft
–
of
at least
1500 words
-- is consequently a type of analytical
“
book review
”
(what scholars call a
“
secondary literature review
”
). As you might guess, such a critical review essay is
not at all
your high-school
“
book report.
”
You should thus
at no point
be simply
summarizing
the sources. Instead, you must at every point be
analyzing
them, critically and carefully
.
First, of course, you must

13. figure out each source
’
s thesis
(main point)
–
admittedly not a simple task.
Second, you must offer
informed
critique and/or appreciation of the methods, logic, and evidence
found in each source
, thereby showing that you understand how to write (and
therefore
think
) like a scientist/scholar/researcher
.
Third, in quoting directly your sources, or paraphrasing or
summarizing them, you must follow that quote, paraphrase or
summary with a) the name of the author(s) of the source, and b)
the relevant page number(s)
in parentheses
. (See proper MLA guidelines for preparing
“
parenthetical citations
”
!) In addition, no more than 25 percent of your essay should
consist of
direct quotations
from your sources. In other words, you must provide
“
parenthetical citations
”
-- i.e., the name of the author(s) and the page numbers in
parentheses -- when you are referencing any information that is
not

14. “
common knowledge
”
and even when you are NOT quoting your sources directly. As a
result, you should paraphrase or summarize your sources more
than quoting from them directly. Nonetheless, you must always
demonstrate that your essay does NOT contain ANY
unsupported claims (or worse,
“
opinions
”
).
Now, such an essay is clearly not an easy kind of paper to write.
What you should be doing initially
—
while
“
critically reading
”
your sources (even before you start drafting) -- is asking each of
the questions found in "Brenner
’
s Top Ten Criteria for Evaluating Secondary Sources
”
and posing those questions to
each
of your sources. Assuming you have read your secondary
sources carefully, you should start by asking just
one
of the three most challenging
“
Ten Criteria
”
questions (about
“
accuracy,

15. ” “
objectivity,
”
or
“
sufficiency.
”
) Then you should read through the
entire
source seeking an answer to it. And then ask another question,
and repeat the process until you
’
ve covered at least the three most challenging criteria.
Clearly, many of the secondary sources you are examining,
especially if they are peer-reviewed, will not make any obvious
mistakes that lead them to
“
fail
”
any of the ten evaluative criteria. Instead, you will likely only
have to find reasons
why
the sources are such
good
research. Consequently, you should not be writing sentences
such as "this source is the greatest one
ever
to address this criterion" or that "this source fails
completely
to address this criterion." Too much appreciation or too much
criticism in your ultimate "write-up" of these results--i.e., a
well-written, well-organized
essay
—
ends up making
you

16. look less credible.
Since most undergraduates are not accustomed to using these
evaluative criteria, I am clearly not expecting a professional
(or
professorial
!) performance on this assignment. Yet without learning to
analyze research according to these kinds of criteria, you will
not learn how to do
real
analysis, a component of critical metacognition, i.e.,
reflection
.
THIS ROUGH DRAFT (a minimum of 1500 words) IS DUE via
email by the date on the schedule (OCT. 26)!
STAGE 4) If (and only if) I have approved stage 3 of your
assignment, you may then proceed to THOROUGHLY revise
your rough draft into a final draft. This fourth and final stage of
the term paper assignment does not mean you must only correct
some small issues (spelling, grammar, and mechanics) and
upload it to turnitin.com link. Instead, read carefully my
advice/tips for final drafts, another document to be found within
the
“
Term Paper
”
folder on the Blackboard course website.
Rather than just some micro-level changes, you should be
revising the rough draft
significantly /globally/ radically
. Of course, at the same time you are
rethinking
the entire essay, you might also strive to make your individual
sentences more
clear and concise

17. for the readers of your essay (who are not
“
mind
readers,
”
after all).
AGAIN: You must revise
thoroughly and substantively
. Since the stage 4 assignment is worth
20% of your final grade
, this does not mean you must only correct some small
issues/items (e.g., mechanics/spelling/grammar). Rather, it
requires you to
revise significantly and radically
the
content
of your
critical review essay
. That means you should be prepared to throw away complete
paragraphs, write new ones, or seriously re-order the ones you
have written.
THIS FINAL DRAFT OF THE TERM PAPER
–
which should be
at least 2000
words--IS DUE via the course Blackboard website link to
turnitin.com. THE DUE DATE to upload is the date on the
schedule (NOV. 23)
IV. THE STRUCTURE/OUTLINE OF TERM PAPER IN
DETAIL
ESPECIALLY STAGE 3 AND STAGE 4
SECTION ONE: Introductory paragraph (circa 250 words or so)

18. must include
•
your research question (
see *STAGE ONE* of assignment above)
•
your argument as to why readers should truly care about your
question. In other words, answer those who would ask
“
so what?
”
In other words, address the
“
significance
”
of that question.
•
a road map/guide/preview of things to come. Put simply,
tell the readers what you are going to tell them
. Reveal the structure or organization of the rest of your paper
(e.g.
“
I will review critically two recent secondary sources that
broadly address this question
”
). Then, you should also include the authors and titles of each
source (titles are to be enclosed in quotation marks and must
also be cited appropriately in a
“
Works Cited
”
section at the end of your essay!).