PHIL 2901A

Truth and Propaganda

Winter 2024

Course Outline

I. Admin

Instructor: Gabriele Contessa

Instructor’s Office Hours: Wednesday, 1:35pm–2:25pm or by appointment (see Admin section in Brightspace for Zoom link; please note that, if there are other students ahead of you, you might have to wait in the waiting room until it’s your turn)

Virtual Classroom: See Admin section in Brightspace

Instructor’s E-mail: gabriele_contessa@carleton.ca

Teaching Assistant (TA): Corey Mckibbin

TA’s Office Hours: by appointment only (see Admin section in Brightspace for Zoom link)

Virtual Classroom: See Admin section in Brightspace

TA’s e-mail: CoreyMckibbin@cmail.carleton.ca

If you have any questions or concerns about a grade, please email the TA cc’ing the instructor. For all other questions, please email directly the instructor.  

II. Description
Calendar Description: Ancient and modern techniques of persuasion from analytical, ethical and jurisprudential perspectives. Objectivity and bias, advertising and public relations ethics, the viability of democracy in the light of pressures on and within the modern mass media.

Precludes additional credit for PHIL 2900 (no longer offered).

Prerequisite(s): 0.5 credit in PHIL or second-year standing.

IV. Texts

All readings for this course will be accessible through Perusall (which will also be used to assess Reading Engagement (see below for details). Please follow the link on Brightspace and use the code in the Admin section above to access this course on Perusall.

V. Evaluation

• Attendance & Participation (40%) (Students whose requests have been approved by the instructor can replace ¼ of the A&P grade with a Special Project that is also worth 10% of the final grade (see Course Policies for details))
• Reading Engagement (20%)
• Two Response Papers (the best of which worth 30%; the other one worth 10%)

Please note that, as a matter of policy (as well as transparency and fairness to all students), the instructor will adhere to these evaluation criteria for all students under all circumstances. This means that no requests for “extra credit” or for “shifting grades” will be entertained by the instructor under any circumstances. If circumstances beyond your control are preventing you from succeeding in this course under the evaluation criteria outlined here, please contact the instructor as soon as possible.

Standing in a course is determined by the course instructor subject to the approval of the Faculty Dean. This means that grades submitted by the instructor may be subject to revision. No grades are final until they have been approved by the Dean.

VI. Course Policies

Overview. This course will be run like a seminar. In a seminar, the role of the instructor is to lead and facilitate the discussion among students (instead of lecturing them). Seminars encourage students to adopt a more active approach to learning, to engage more directly with the issues discussed, and to take responsibility for their own learning. This approach is supported by empirical studies that suggest that, while lecturing might give students a false sense of understanding, actively engaged students actually learn more (see, e.g., (Deslaurier et al 2019) and (Carpenter et al 2020)). However, the success of a seminar partly depends on everyone doing their part. This includes, among other things, doing the readings, submitting thoughtful and relevant questions and comments, and making constructive contributions to the discussion in class.  

Attendance and Participation (A&P). Attendance and participation are crucial to the success of a seminar-style course. Attendance and participation to in-class polls are required and participation to in-class discussion strongly encouraged to contribute to the discussions. The A&P component of the overall grade will be determined as follows:

• 30% of the A&P grade (and 12% of the overall grade) is based on attendance (which is tracked through Zoom logs (so please make sure to always use your full name when logging into Zoom!));
• 20% of the A&P grade (and 8% of the overall grade) is based on poll participation (which is tracked through Poll Everywhere (see below));
• 25% of the A&P grade (and 10% of the overall grade) is based on correct answers to polls that are graded;
• 25% of the A&P grade (and 10% of the overall grade) is based on the quality of the contributions to the class discussion (and is assessed in real time by the instructor in class).

It's important to note that students may be randomly selected to speak in class (often as spokespersons for their group). Students uncomfortable with this may request to replace the in-class participation component of the A&P grade with an optional final project (details below). To opt for this alternative, please email the instructor by the Friday following the first day of classes, providing a reason for the request and any supporting documentation (e.g., PMC Letter of Accommodation or a letter from a mental healthcare provider). Please be aware that there are limited spots for this option. Unless the request is based on a documented condition, spots will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis and at the discretion of the instructor.

Please note that, when it comes to contributions to the class discussion, quality is much more important than quantity. A few high-quality contributions are often worth much more than many low-quality ones. In fact, often contributions that add little or nothing to the topic being discussed (or do not engage directly with the readings/themes/concepts dealt with in the course) will receive little or no credit. If you have made many contributions to the class discussion in a given session but you don’t feel that your grade reflects that, it might be because your contributions were not sufficiently high-quality for credit (it might also be because our memory is not always reliable and that’s why the instructor relies on taking detailed notes about each contribution made during class in real time, which might be more accurate than any post-hoc recollections).

As a policy, the instructor won’t respond to any questions about A&P grades sent by email. If you would like more feedback about your A&P performance, please see the instructor during office hours.

Please note that failure to attend a session will result in a zero for that session (unless your absence is due to circumstances beyond your control (e.g. illness or family emergency).

If circumstances beyond your control (e.g., illness or family emergency) prevent you from attending a meeting, please notify the instructor by email as soon as possible.

If you have registered late for this course, please contact the instructor as soon as possible by email to avoid losing A&P points.

Reading Engagement (RE). A seminar-style course requires that each student has had some meaningful engagement with the readings before attending the meetings. This course uses Perusall to promote engagement with the readings and assess RE. Please follow the link on Brightspace and use the course code to access the readings for this course. Students will be able to earn credit for RE by posting comments on the reading on Perusall and/or responding to other students’ comments. The deadline for RE is 11:59pm on the day before the reading is scheduled to be discussed in class (the exact deadline for each reading is on Perusall). They can also earn a small amount of credit by upvoting other students’ comments or having their comments upvoted. In order to earn credit towards RE, your comments need to engage with the text or the other comments. This can be done by asking questions about the text, reading objections to it, giving meaningful responses to other students' comments. Comments that merely express agreement or disagreement without motivating it, won’t earn you much credit (if any).

Please note that failing to engage with any of the readings will result in a zero for that reading (unless this is due to circumstances beyond your control (e.g. illness or family emergency)). 

If circumstances beyond your control (e.g., illness or family emergency) prevent you from engaging with one of the readings, please notify the instructor by email as soon as possible.

Polls. Poll Everywhere will be used to track attendance, to poll students, and to ask questions about the readings. You can respond to in-class polls using a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone, or any other device with an internet connection. Alternatively, you can submit your answers through SMS (charges from your provider may apply). You should be registered automatically for the course. Please make sure to always use your Cmail e-mail address (yourfirstnameyourlastname@cmail.carleton.ca) when signing into Poll Everywhere. Active polls for the course can always be found at PollEv.com/contessa.

Response Papers (RPs). RPs are supposed to engage critically with one of the required readings for the course. You can respond to any of the required readings that have been covered so far in the course (insofar as you haven’t discussed it already in a previous RP). RP are not supposed to summarize the reading to which they are responding. They are supposed to display critical engagement with it. As such, RPs are expected to have (i) a clearly stated thesis and (ii) a clearly stated argument to support that thesis.  The simplest format for a RP is to argue that one of the main arguments offered in one of the readings relies on a false premise and gives an argument for thinking that that premise is false. In either case, you are expected to describe clearly and accurately the thesis/argument you are arguing against and to state clearly your thesis and your argument in support of it. Your RP is supposed to engage with the arguments provided by the author of the reading. The word limit for RPs is 250 words (including any direct quotations, but excluding any references). Please include an accurate word count with your RP. RPs should be submitted through Brightspace in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format (see the Assignment section in Brightspace for deadlines). RPs are graded anonymously, so no identifying information should be included in your submission (including in the name of the file). Please note that RPs that fail to engage with the reading critically and merely summarize it will receive the minimum passing grade (50%) irrespectively of how good the summary is. 

Please note that RPs may be selected for an “oral defense” at the discretion of the instructor. An oral defense is a one-on-one meeting with the instructor discussing the content of your RP in relation to the course. If your RP is selected for an oral defense, your grade on that RP will be largely determined by your ability to discuss its content in the meeting. If your paper is selected for an oral defense, you will be assigned a date and a time to meet the instructor for about 10-15 minutes (please use the Office Hours Zoom link for this meeting). If you cannot attend the meeting at the assigned date and time, please notify the instructor as soon as possible to reschedule. You will not receive a grade for your RP until you have discussed your RP with the instructor. If you fail to meet with the instructor within a reasonable amount of time, you will receive a 0% on that RP.

Please note that failing to submit a RP will result in 0% on that RP (unless this is due to circumstances beyond your control (e.g., illness, family emergency)). 

If circumstances beyond your control prevent you from submitting a RP on time, please notify the instructor by email as soon as possible.

Late RPs will be subject to a 2.5-point penalty for every day they are late up to a maximum penalty of 25 points. Please note that late RPs might be graded with the next batch of RPs and that, in any case, they won’t receive any written comments. If you would like to receive feedback on a late RP, please use the office hours to talk to the instructor.

RPs that exceed the word limit (250 words) will be subject to a 0.1-point penalty for every word over the word limit and that RPs that do not include an accurate word count will incur a 2.5-point penalty.

Special Project (SP). Please note that this option is exclusively available to students whose request has been approved by the instructor. Students interested in this option must send a request by email to the instructor by the Friday following the first day of classes of the term. The request should include a reason for the request (and any relevant supporting documentation (e.g., PMC Letter of Accommodation, letter from mental healthcare provider)). Please note that there is only a limited number of spots for this option and that (unless the request is based on a documented condition) the spots will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis and at the discretion of the instructor. The Special Project is an original attempt to apply one of the accounts or concepts discussed in the course to a specific real-world case or to assess two competing accounts of one of the concepts explored in the course by using a specific real-world case. Completing a Special Project involves two steps. The first step is a proposal. The proposal must be submitted through Brightspace (see the Assignments section in Brightspace for the deadline). The proposal must include an overview of the real-world case based on at least two reliable external sources, a list of those external sources (with brief description of their relevance), a summary of your analysis of the case, and a discussion of the readings from the course on which your analysis relies. The proposal needs to be approved by the instructor in order for you to be able to submit your report. If your proposal is approved, then you can start developing your proposal into a report. The report must follow the plan of the approved proposal and must be submitted by the last day of the exam period through Brightspace (see Brightspace for exact deadline). The report should not exceed 2,500 words. If the instructor does not approve your first proposal, you will need to arrange for a meeting before submitting a second proposal (by the last day of classes). The approved proposal is worth 25% of the Special Project grade (and 2.5% of the overall grade) and the report is worth 75% (and 7.5% of the overall grade).

Please note that Special Project reports may be selected for an “oral defense” at the discretion of the instructor. An oral defense is a one-on-one meeting with the instructor discussing the content of your report in relation to the course. If your Special Project report is selected for an oral defense, your grade on that Special Project report will be largely determined by your ability to discuss its content in the meeting. If your paper is selected for an oral defense, you will be assigned a date and a time to meet the instructor for about 10-15 minutes (please use the Office Hours Zoom link for this meeting). If you cannot attend the meeting at the assigned date and time, please notify the instructor as soon as possible to reschedule. You will not receive a grade for your Special Project until you have discussed your report with the instructor. If you fail to meet with the instructor, you will receive a failing grade on your Special Project.

Academic Integrity. You are responsible for ensuring that you understand the nature of academic offenses (such as plagiarism and unauthorized collaboration), as defined in the Undergraduate Calendar, and to avoid both committing them and aiding or abetting academic offenses perpetrated by other students. Please be aware that the instructor is required to report all suspected academic offenses directly to the Office of the Dean.

The University Senate defines plagiarism as “presenting, whether intentionally or not, the ideas, expression of ideas or work of others as one’s own.” This can include: reproducing or paraphrasing portions of someone else’s published or unpublished material, regardless of the source, and presenting these as one’s own without proper citation or reference to the original source; submitting a take-home examination, essay, laboratory report or other assignment written, in whole or in part, by someone else; using ideas or direct, verbatim quotations, or paraphrased material, concepts, or ideas without appropriate acknowledgment in any academic assignment; using another’s data or research findings; failing to acknowledge sources through the use of proper citations when using another’s works and/or failing to use quotation marks; handing in "substantially the same piece of work for academic credit more than once without prior written permission of the course instructor in which the submission occurs." Plagiarism is a serious offence that cannot be resolved directly by the course’s instructor. The Associate Dean of the Faculty conducts a rigorous investigation, including an interview with the student, when an instructor suspects a piece of work has been plagiarized. Penalties are not trivial. They can include a final grade of "F" for the course.

Copyright. Carleton University is committed to compliance in all copyright matters. Noncompliance is a violation of the Canadian Copyright Act. In addition to any actions that might be taken by any copyright owner or its licensing agent, the University will take steps against any breach of this policy. In Canada, copyright for a work is given automatically to the creator of the work. The work does not need to be marked or declared as copyrighted in order to be copyrighted. The majority of works in Canada are copyrighted. It is important for students to understand and respect copyright. Copyright determines your usage rights for a particular work, which includes textbooks, web pages, videos and images, both electronic and hard copy. Students may not photocopy entire or major portions of books or other works, even if it is only for their personal use. Fair dealing makes some allowances for copying small portions of works. See Carleton's Fair Dealing Policy for more information. If journal articles or portions of works are available through the library, either as hard copies or electronically, students may make a single copy for their personal use. Students may not distribute copies of works that are under copyright. For more information, please see the Carleton's Fair Dealing Policy and the library's copyright website: www.library.carleton.ca/copyright.

VII. Course Calendar

Please note that the course calendar is provisional and subject to change.

Please check this Course Outline regularly for updates.

Department of Philosophy and Carleton University Policies (Fall/Winter 2022-23)

Assignments:

Please follow your professor’s instructions on how assignments will be handled electronically.  There will be NO hard copies placed in the essay box this coming year.

Evaluation:

Standing in a course is determined by the course instructor subject to the approval of the Faculty Dean.  This means that grades submitted by the instructor may be subject to revision.  No grades are final until they have been approved by the Dean.

Deferrals for Term Work:

If students are unable to complete term work because of illness or other circumstances beyond their control, they should contact their course instructor no later than three working days of the due date.  Normally, any deferred term work will be completed by the last day of the term.  Term work cannot be deferred by the Registrar.

Deferrals for Final Exams:

Students are expected to be available for the duration of a course including the examination period.  Occasionally, students encounter circumstances beyond their control where they may not be able to write a final examination or submit a take-home examination. Examples of this would be a serious illness or the death of a family member.  If you miss a final examination and/or fail to submit a take-home examination by the due date, you may apply for a deferral no later than three working days after the original due date (as per the University Regulations in Section 4.3 of the Undergraduate Calendar). Visit the Registrar’s Office for further information.

Plagiarism:

It is the responsibility of each student to understand the meaning of ‘plagiarism’ as defined in the Undergraduate or Graduate Calendars, and to avoid both committing plagiarism and aiding or abetting plagiarism by other students.  (Section 10.1 of the Undergraduate Calendar Academic Regulations)

Academic Accommodation:

You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations during the term:

§  Pregnancy or religious obligation: write to your professor with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the EDC website.

§  Academic accommodations for students with disabilities: The Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) provides services to students with Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/mental health disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), chronic medical conditions, and impairments in mobility, hearing, and vision. If you have a disability requiring academic accommodations in this course, please contact PMC at 613-520-6608 or pmc@carleton.ca for a formal evaluation. If you are already registered with the PMC, contact your PMC coordinator to send your Letter of Accommodation at the beginning of the term, and no later than two weeks before the first in-class test or exam requiring accommodation.  After requesting accommodation from PMC, meet with your professor to ensure accommodation arrangements are made.

§  Survivors of Sexual Violence:  As a community, Carleton University is committed to maintaining a positive learning, working and living environment where sexual violence will not be tolerated, and where survivors are supported through academic accommodations as per Carleton’s Sexual Violence Policy.

§  Accommodation for Student Activities:  Carleton University recognizes the substantial benefits, both to the individual student and for the university, that result from a student participating in activities beyond the classroom experience. Reasonable accommodation must be provided to students who compete or perform at the national or international level. Please contact your instructor with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist.

Important Dates:

Sept. 7                   Classes start.

Sept. 20                Last day for registration and course changes for fall term and fall/winter (two-term) courses.

Sept. 30                Last day for entire fee adjustment when withdrawing from fall term or two-term courses. Withdrawals after this date will result in a permanent notation of WDN on the official transcript.

Oct. 10                  Statutory holiday. University closed.

Oct. 24-28            Fall Break – no classes.

Nov. 25                 Last day for summative tests or examinations, or formative tests or examinations totaling more than 15% of the final grade, before the official examination period.

Dec. 9                    Last day of fall term classes. Classes follow a Monday schedule. Last day for academic withdrawal from fall term courses. Last day for handing in term work and the last day that can be specified by a course instructor as a due date for term work for a fall term course.

Dec. 10-22           Final examinations for fall term courses and mid-term examinations in two-term courses. Examinations are normally held all seven days of the week.

Dec. 22                  All take-home examinations are due.

Jan. 9                     Classes begin.

Jan. 20                   Last day for registration and course changes in the winter term.

Jan. 31                   Last day for a full fee adjustment when withdrawing from winter term courses or from the winter portion of two-term courses. Withdrawals after this date will result in a permanent notation of WDN on the official transcript.

Feb. 20                  Statutory holiday. University closed.

Feb. 20-24           Winter Break – no classes.

Mar. 15                 Last day for academic withdrawal from fall/winter and winter courses.

Mar. 29                 Last day for summative tests or examinations, or formative tests or examinations totaling more than 15% of the final grade, in winter term or fall/winter courses before the official examination period.

Apr. 7                     Statutory holiday.  University closed.

Apr. 12                  Last day of two-term and winter term classes. Classes follow a Friday schedule. Last day for handing in term work and the last day that can be specified by a course instructor as a due date for two-term and for winter term courses.

Apr. 13-14           No classes or examinations take place.

Apr. 15-27           Final examinations for winter term and two-term courses. Examinations are normally held all seven days of the week.

Apr. 27                  All take-home examinations are due.  

Addresses:

Department of Philosophy:

www.carleton.ca/philosophy

520-2110

Registrar’s Office:                

www.carleton.ca/registrar

520-3500

Academic Advising Centre:                                  

www.carleton.ca/academicadvising

520-7850

Writing Services:

http://www.carleton.ca/csas/writing-services/

520-3822

MacOdrum Library              

http://www.library.carleton.ca/

520-2735