General information on essays

A significant and important portion of the work for this course consists of writing essays. There are a total of four essays, in roughly increasing order difficulty. (Of course, some might find one task easier than another while others do not, and I would love to hear your feedback on that.)

For each essay, you have roughly a week. Since many of the essays are peer-reviewed and tied in with the course schedule, I unfortunately cannot accept late submissions. Start early if possible to avoid stress before the deadline.

For essays 2 and 3, you are also required to provide 2 peer reviews each for other students, and the original authors have to write a "rebuttal" -- a response to the peer reviews. Note that if you miss to turn in an essay, you cannot do a peer review for that paper either (and obviously neither a rebuttal).

We will talk in class about what makes a good essay, a good review, and a good rebuttal, and I will publish the grading criteria here after we have agreed on them.

Here are some general good guidelines about essay writing in history of mathematics Links to an external site.. 

Grading criteria

We worked out the following quality criteria for essays. You should use these criteria in your feedback, and your essay will be graded following these criteria. Note however that not all criteria are relevant for all essays, so treat these more as guidelines with some degree of flexibility.

Essays must be between 400 and 900 words long. (Formulas and bibliography doesn't count)

Content (70%)

  • The text answers the questions at hand and focuses on relevant issues for the question(s) – 25%
  • The text is clearly structured, the argumentation is clear, sound, balanced, and critical. Where appropriate, good illustrating examples are provided. – 25%
  • The text shows good understanding of the source tests. – 7%
  • The text integrates the source text into the general historical context and shows a deeper understanding of its role. – 7%
  • The selection of source texts (where applicable) is good (relevance, supports the argument) – 6%

Form (30%)

  • Mathematical correctness – 12.5%
  • Correct and complete citations – 10%
  • Language and style – 5%
  • Spelling and grammar – 2.5%