Clarifying Mid-Term Business

I've gotten some questions via e-mail, so I want to be as clear as possible for everybody. You have until 11:59:59 Sunday night, July 27th to post your first precis (or e-mail it to me to post for you) and have made at least half a dozen online comments. The precis is roughly a two page document, so you probably shouldn't think of it as a "paper" -- a fully fledged paper, even a short one, is a more comprehensive and systematic elaboration of a case or accounting of an object than the precis. Pick a passage, or a handful of details, say what the argument is in that passage or in those details, don't retreat into lame generalizations. The precis should raise a question, provide the point of departure for a deeper conversation -- but it isn't long enough to answer the question decisively or have the whole conversation. I hope this helps.