Essay Writing

Topics

Note that these descriptions should not be the titles of your draft. In most of these topics no thesis is given. It is part of your task of writing the paper to find the thesis you want to support, and also craft the title of your essay accordingly.

1. Negotiations and Strikes as Bargaining Failures:
2. Does Strategic Voting happen?
3. Casino Gambling: Why do people go the casinos? Do they expect to win? In which games? (one already taken)
4. Poker as a Game of Luck?
5. Computers in Chess and Poker: The best chess computers are presently able to beat the strongest human player. In online-poker there is also a lot of discussion of how to detect cheating by unallowed programs. Discuss whether computers are a threat to both games.
6. Deterrence: Throughout the Cold War, but even nowadays, Deterrence is an important means of trying to avoid war. Nuclear deterrence seems to have worked even throughout Cold War. Explain the Game-theoretical foundation of deterrence and comment on whether you believe it works. Do you have an idea about what mechanism could replace it?
7. Is game theory immoral? Do you think that game-theoretical analysis of a situation or conflict contradicts moral analysis of such a situation, or do you think that moral rules can be incorporated into game theory. Give examples.
8. Rationality: Do you think the concept of rational behavior of humans is a realistic one? If not, what purpose could it have?
9. ebay and game theory: Discuss Auctions and trust-building and how to play on ebay. (one already taken)
10. Expected Value in Real Life: Do people use it? Discuss several decisions problems in real life that can be solved using the expected value. Discuss the strongness of the recommendation: Would you follow the advise given to you by theory? On what would it depend?
11. Human Lifes and Utility: Do you think it is allowed to put human lifes into the utility function of a organization or state? Can human lifes be measured in monetary units? Are they maybe already measured in this way? Give examples of policies or actions of organizations or states that indicate that human lifes have a price. Do you consider this ethically defendable?
12. Altruism: How can altruism be modeled in Game Theory? Will the altruistic always get less than the others?
13. Is being open a winning strategy? Thereby "being open" is defined as freely and honestly communicating your preferences to the public, talking in advance what you are about to do, ...
14. Unpredictable Behavior: Whose advantage is it?
15. The banking crisis and game theory. Try to explain the present banking crisis in game theoretical terms, where players are banks and customers, and the options are to put your money into high risk possibilities (like lending money for buying a house who cannot really afford it) or safe possibilities. How would the state's moves influence the outcome of the game. What effect might the 700 Billion bailout have?

The Procedure

• Each student picks a topic during the Writing Workshop in class. Each topic can be chosen only by up to 2 students. If students select the same topic, they should try to avoid having too similar essays, since this will result in lower grades for both.
• T, Oct 7: Deadline for the Draft of the essay. This draft should be two to three pages long (typed, double spaced) and contain all features like citations, bibliography, and so on. It is recommendet to get an appointment with the writing center and discuss it there. The draft must be submitted electronically, as email attachment.
• Each draft will be submitted electronically to two anonymous class member referees. These referees have to read the draft, and write reports of the draft, pointing towards weak or strong features of it. The referees are not responsible for correcting grammar, punctuation, or spelling, but should mention it in their reports. Each class member will have to handle two papers as referee.
• T, Oct 28, Deadline for submitting the Referee's Report to me or Megan, again in electronic form. After deleting the names of the referees, these reports are submitted to the authors with the request to improve the paper, taking the recommendations into account.
• Students are then supposed to get an appointment with the writing center, discussing it there, if they hadn't been at the Writing Center yet. Every student should have an appointment with the writing center once.
• T, Nov 4: Deadline for the second draft. I will read these drafts and give feedback.
• Deadline for the final version of the essay is T, Nov 25.

Essay Rubric

The referees are supposed to address each of the items in the following rubric when refereeing the paper, but are supposed to use their own words. This rubric will also serve as the guide for obtaining a letter grade on the essay.

	F		B-		A
Introduction Thesis	weak introduction of topic and thesis, thesis is weak and lacks an arguable position		good introduction of topic and thesis, the thesis is a clear and arguable statement of position		exceptional introduction that grabs interest of reader, the thesis is exceptionally clear, arguable, and well developed
Organization	Ideas seem to be randomly arranged, no attempt for paragraph organization; writing may be repetitious or too redundant.		Organization is evident, but maybe not best possible		Good organization of essay; all paragraphs are appropriate and purposeful; Coherence (paragraph to paragraph) and cohesion (sentence to sentence) are effective throughout paper.
Facts, Evidence	limited information on topic with lack of accurate facts		paper is well researched in detail with accurate and critical evidence from a variety of sources		paper is exceptionally researched with critical evidence from a wide variety of sources
Examples	Examples do not support the thesis at all.		Examples support the thesis		Examples provide a lot of support for thesis
	Examples are vague or distracting		Examples are nonspecific or abstract		Examples are specific and concrete
Conclusion	-lack of summary of topic, thesis & subtopics with weak concluding ideas		-good summary of topic, thesis and all subtopics with clear concluding ideas		-excellent summary of topic (with no new information), thesis & all subtopics in proper order with concluding ideas that leave an impact on reader
Focus on assigned topic	No attempt has been made to relate the essay to the assigned topic.		The entire essay is related to the assigned topic ...		... and allows the reader to understand much more about the topic.
Language Conventions	inconsistent grammar, spelling and paragraphing throughout paper		Fewer than 4 errors in punctuation and grammar, and fewer than 4 words are misspelled		paper is very concise, clear, with consistently proper grammar, spelling and paragraphing
	the paper is written in inappropriate point of view		appropriate point of view		appropriate point of view
Bibliography	lack of proper format and many sources missing or incomplete		mostly proper format used with all sources shown and a variety of sources		proper, detailed format with all sources shown and a wide variety of sources