About the Writing Center

Yale College
The Writing Center
P.O. Box 208225
New Haven, CT
06520-8225   USA
writing@yale.edu

Model Papers from the Disciplines

Professional writers often read other writers to think about new techniques. Although reading a good paper cannot teach you everything you need to know about writing in a given discipline, it can be enormously helpful. The papers below were winners of the Writing Center essay contest from 2007-2009. We hope you find them helpful for expanding your writing repertoire. (You may also want to browse Additional Model Papers, collected in earlier years.)

It can be even more valuable to ask your professors for sample essays that they admire. In fact, if your field is not represented below, please encourage your professors to send us a good paper in that discipline.

English 114/116     Essays     Literature     History  


Natural Science   Philosophy   Bioethics     Social Science   

English 114/116
 

“The Camera as Dictator:

Photography and Fascism at Abu Ghraib”
by Stephanie Lynch ‘09
English 114: Writing Seminars 1
Professor Raymond Malewitz

“My Secret”
by Lydia Martin ‘12
English 114: Writing Seminars 1
Professor Paula Resch

“Israel's Withdrawal Gaza: Legitimizing Civil

Disobedience from Both Sides”

by Aya Shoshan '10

English 114: Writing Seminars 1

Professor Andrew Ehrgood

"'The Moral Meaning of a Pause': Ethics Committees and the Cloning Debate"
by Lindsay Gellman ‘12
Engl 116: Writing Seminars 2
Professor Raymond Malewitz

Essays

 

“When Culture Trumps Law”
by Emma Sokoloff-Rubin ‘11
English 454: Non-Fiction Writing, Voice & Structure
Professor Fred Strebeigh

“Choosing Terms”
by Sarah Nutman ‘11
ENGL 120: Reading/Writing the Modern Essay
Professor Richard Deming

“Vignettes From a Carpetbagger: Four

Parables of the Katrina Era”
by Easha Anand ‘08
Branford College 2008
English 454: Non-Fiction Writing, Voice & Structure

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History  

“Meanings in Canada’s Vimy Ridge Memorial”

by Michael Birnbaum '08

HIST 423: Cultural History of World War I

Professor Bruno Cabanes

“Regarding the Body: The Spectacle of Dissection and its Uses in the 18th Century”
by Mihan Lee ‘10
HSHM 431: Science/Spectacle in Enlightenment
Professor Paola Bertucci

“The Progressives’ Attempts to Link

America’s Rural Past and Modern Future”
by Brooks Swett ‘09
Hist 496: Nationalism in Amer. Politics and Culture
Instructor: Samuel Schaffer

“Modern Blood Libels and the

Masking of Egyptian Insecurities”
by Matthew Bozik ‘10
HIST 434: Anti-Semitism in Modern Times
Professor Paula Hyman

“Dissidence in China and Eastern Europe and the Search for a New Pragmatism”
by Eli Bildner ‘10
HIST 231J: Responses to Totalitarianism
Professor Marci Shore

 

“The Impossibility of P. Grad. 4 in the Thebaid and Implications for Ptolemaic Rule”
by Jennifer Barrows ‘12

CLCV 204: Alexander and the Hellenistic World
Professor Joseph Manning
Teaching Fellow: Caroline Stark

Literature  

“Within You, Without You: Cannibalism and Consciousness in the Transatlantic World”
by Carina del Valle Schorske ‘10
ENGL 420: Literature of the Middle Passage
Professor Shameem Black
Professor Caryl Phillips

"'Both Soles of Every Sinner Were On Fire': Contrapasso in Canto XI"

by Alice Baumgartner '10

Directed Studies: Literature

Professor Shameem Black

“The Prophet Who Protested Too Much”
by Sam Ayres ‘09
Engl 395: The Bible as Literature
Professor Leslie Brisman

“Want, Need, and Reason: Milton and Cause”
by Annie Atura ‘11
ENGL 125: Major English Poets
Professor Christopher Miller

“From Ass to Audience: Imagination as an Act of Translation”

by Carina del Valle Schorske '10

English 129: The European Literary Tradition

Professor Laura Frost

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“Holiest Love: The Spiritual Valediction in

‘A Hymne to Christ’”

by Alexandra Schwartz '09

ENGL 125: Major English Poets

Professor George Fayen

Natural Science

 

“Fly Sex: Adaptive manipulation of offspring

sex ratio in Drosophila melanogaster”
by Tse Yang Lim ‘11
E&EB 240: Animal Behavior
Professor Suzanne Alonzo
Teaching Fellow: Andrea Hodgins-Davis

“Recombination in Mitochondrial DNA:

Nonzero but Rare”

by Christina Hueschen '10

E&EB 122: Principles of Evolut., Ecology/Behavior

Professor Stephen Stearns

Teaching Fellow: Jeremy Draghi

“Evaluating the influence of evolution on

human brain size”
by Sarah Foote ‘10
E&EB 122: Principles of Evolut., Ecology/Behavior
Professor Steven Stearns
Teaching Fellow: Katy Richards-Hrdlicka

“‘Junk’: Breeding Innovation and Complexity”
by Jared Shenson ‘12
E&EB 122: Principles of Evolut., Ecology/Behavior
Professor Stephen Stearns
Teaching Fellow: Andrea Hodgins-Davis

Philosophy

 

“Telling a Lie to Save a Life: Kant's Moral Failure

and Mill's Mere Suitability”

by Brian Earp '10

Directed Studies: Philosophy

Professor Gregory Ganssle

"Save Yourself from Yourself"
by Ryan Hollander ‘12
PLSC 114: Intro to Political Philosophy
Professor Steven Smith
Teaching Fellow: Meredith Edwards

"The Lottery of Babylon and the

Justice of Random Chance"
by Nabeem Hashem ‘12
PLSC 118: Moral Foundations of Politics
Professor Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Teaching Fellow: Josh Simon

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“Mill’s Failed Critique of Kant, and Further

Critiques of Both Philosophers”

by Noah Lawrence '09

Directed Studies: Philosophy
Professor Jonathan Gilmore

Bioethics

 

"The Prisoner Dis-Analogy as a Defense of

Stem Cell Research on Spare Embryos"
by Ilana Yurkiewicz ‘10
CSES 362: Bioethics and the Law
Professor Dov Fox

 

Social Science

 

“Suffering and Redemption in the Eyes of Lincoln”

by Katerina Apostolides '06
PLSC 314: Lincoln—Principle and Persuasion
Professors Steven Smith and David Bromwich

“Pressured Justice: Activating the Courts for the Protection of Female Laborers”

by David Wheelock '09

PLSC 373: Comparative Judicial Politics

Professor Frances Rosenbluth

Teaching Fellow: Stephen Engel

 

“Fixing Poverty: What Government Can and Cannot Do To Make America Better”

by James Kirchick '06

PLSC 203: Inequality and American Democracy

Professor Jacob S. Hacker

Teaching Fellow: Nicole Kazee

“Imagined Identities: The Tibetan Government-in-exile and the Western Vision of Tibet”

by Emily Kruger '08

ANTH 455: Religion and Globalization in East Asia

Professor Gareth Fisher

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