Guidelines for the Final Exam Essay
Your exam should be between 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 pages, double spaced.
Please use citations — either MLA style or Chicago Manual of Style. Your paper should have all sources cited and should include either a Works Cited or Bibliography.
Be sure your Essay has a clear introduction, conclusion and thesis statement
You should use information from the Stephen Shapin book, The Scientific Revolution and at least two other sources — sources include the films posted on Blackboard, primary documents or articles posted on Blackboard, recorded lecturer or any other primary source material you find on the internet or in the library databases. (Remember: Primary sources are either original works written by the people you are discussing or art works by these individuals).
Choose one of the following questions:
Option 1:
“During the early modern period (1500s – 1700s)The Permanent crisis of European order was … the general backdrop to debates over natural knowledge and its relation to state power and social order.” Stephen Shapin, page 125
Explain the ways Europe was in crisis during this time and then connect that to the acquisition of knowledge. Shapin argues that “nature was widely understood to be a divinely written book whose proper reading and proper interpretation had the potential to secure right belief and thus to guarantee right conduct.” If this is the case, how does this help you understand either Church efforts to control Galileo’s dissemination of his own scientific findings OR the long wait John Harrison had in being awarded the Longitute Prize in England.
If you write about Galileo, you may use the documents from the trial of Galileo and any of the works by him OR watch the film Longitude (posted in this folder) and write about what it teaches about the resistance John Harrison encountered from the Board of Longitude, other state officials and members of the Royal Society.
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