East Asia Study Essay

Topic: How does “Neo-Confucian East Asia” differ from “Buddhist East Asia” in its conception
of such ideas as state, national identity, and “East Asia”? Obviously you will not
have space to address these subjects individually; you will need to think about how
they are interrelated and about how Neo-Confucian approaches to these notions differ
from Buddhist ones.

Rules

Your essay should be about 2000 words in length. A draft of your essay is due via Quercus
on November 20th. It will be marked and returned to you with comments and suggestions
for revision. If you receive a mark of 80 or better, revision is optional; for
everyone else, the revised essay is due December 10th.

For this essay, I’d like you to find and make use of a minimum of three outside sources.
Of course, you should make full use of the assigned readings, but this essay will also be
an opportunity for you to exercise your research skills. The outside sources must be
quality academic sources—books, journal articles, chapters in edited collections, for example.
Simply Googling the essay topic will not do. Make use, instead, of the library’s
resources for finding scholarly materials.

Unexcused late papers will be penalized three points for each day they are late. The description
of our expectations and the citation guidelines that accompanied the short essay
apply to this essay as well. What follows is a quick rundown of the most important
aspects of writing the essay:
1. Choose one of the topics.

2. The questions are meant to guide your thinking. They are not a proposed outline
for your essay.

3. The most important aspects to writing an essay are, first, to develop an argument—
an opinion about the topic—and, second, to back up that argument with evidence.
So, I expect that you will make extensive use of the readings, particularly the readings
from primary sources. I also expect you to make use of the resources available
through the library to identify external sources.

4. Do not use Wikipedia or other online websites as sources; the information available
on the internet about premodern East Asian history is particularly unreliable and
can easily lead you astray. The random information available on Wikipedia also
tends to be very general; your essay should be much more focused and deal with
specific examples.

5. How you present your ideas matters almost as much as the quality of your ideas
themselves. Proofread your essay, and if you’re unsure about grammar or other
aspects of writing, have some one look over a draft of your essay: the writing centre
at your college is an excellent place to start.