A significant portion of your grade will be based on case studies, which I am asking you to write up, on issues in ethics and the professions that appear in the news.

I am asking you to write critiques of two case studies written by your classmates. You can find some here, or you can get some directly from your classmates.

The point of this assignment is to get you to think about the issues in this course and see their application to what goes on "out there in the real world," and to be able to critically explore the arguments that are offered to defend solutions to these issues.

There are a couple of restrictions:

• You may not do a critique on a topic you have (or will) write a case study on.
• You may not do multiple critiques on the same topic.
• No two critiques of yours may be on case studies from the same person.

Do your own work.

Grading:

Each critique is worth 5 points.

Details of the expected format:

You may either annotate the case study you are critiquing, or offer your critique as a stand-alone document. In either case you should submit your critique as an .rtf file via e-mail to rlee@uark.edu.

The file name of your submission should be r1-name.rtf, where "name" is your last name and "1" should be replaced by "2" for your second critique.

If you are annotating the case study, be sure to indicate what is your writing and what is the author's. One way to do this is to include all your comments in brackets. Another is to put all your comments in a different font (but choose a font my computer is likely to have).

The critique should include the following elements:

• your name
• your e-mail address
• the semester
• your critique number ("1" for the first you submit; "2" for the second)
• the case study you are commenting on, typically indicated with a file name, such as c1-jones)
• a brief description of what this case is about
• critique of the arguments the author has put forward in sections 9 and 11 of her/his case study
• suggestions for improving the arguments (substantional suggestions, not rhetorical suggestions) the author of the case has put forward in sections 9 and 11 of her/his case study.
• suggestion of other alternative answers to the normative question raised in section 6 (other than those given in sections 8 and 10)
• mention of any other broader ethical issues raised by the case, or clarification (or critique) of the issues mentioned in section 7
• other comments, including comments on the choice of the ethical question (section 6), the discussion of altering facts (section 12), and the author's further comments

Rich text format (which you are asked to use) does not save pictures, tables, or footnotes. You can include footnotes in square brackets ("[" and "]") within the text. If you need to include pictures, tables, or other elements not expressible in .rtf format, make arrangments (e.g., to use a .doc file) with the instructor.

Example:

Here is an example of a good critique (by a real student of a case by a real student): sample