What religious, social, political, and economic factors may have influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism?
Order Description

Formal Course Paper Format
What do I want for the course paper? First, here is what I don’t want. I don’t want you to repeat back to me things that I have already said in class, i.e. a recitation of the Eightfold Path or the characteristics of the Tien-tai school. What I do want is that your writing paper shows that you have thought through some of the implications of Buddhism in the real world. I will assign the class a general question to help stimulate your thinking, but at the end of the day, this paper will reflect what you think about it. This topic could be anything that contains “Buddhism” in the title. What I want is not just facts but your thoughts on the subject. There will, of course, be facts in your paper, no opinion can legitimately exist without them, and these facts will be properly acknowledged and cited, but your discussion and interpretation of the facts is what counts.

The papers will be typed, contain no typographical errors, and will have margins no larger than 1 inch. The spacing will be one and one half line spaced, with standard spacing between paragraphs and fonts of 12 pts. The length will be 2000 words. Handing in a paper of less than the required length will be viewed as not having handed the assignment in at all. Papers longer than the assigned length will be accepted, but bear in mind that excessively long papers create the medical condition known as MEGO (my eyes glaze over) in the instructor. This is generally not good.

Papers will include a title page, appropriate foot- or endnotes and a Bibliography. MLA format. The inclusion of any verbatim material from any other source (i.e. material not stated in your own words but copied directly into the text without quotation marks and attribution) will be considered plagiarism and dealt with according to the rules of the university, the minimum result being a zero for the assignment. You need at least 8 references.