Hi. Was hoping someone could give their 2 cents for this course. I might take it as an elective, so I was wondering if it was a pull-my-mark-down kinda course. Is there lots of writing? How are assignments/tests/exams weighted? Is it taught well? Thanks

I haven't taken it (yet), but I can tell you that the prof, Dr. Barry Allen, is amazing. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about him. As long as you go to lectures regularly and have decent writing skills, you'll do well. He gives out the exam questions beforehand as well, so it's not hard to do good on the exam as long as you prepare for it.

Here's the course outline from a couple of years ago: http://www.humanities.mcmast er.ca/...i/old/2F03.pdf. Not much (if anything) should be changed for this year.

I took this course in my second year and loved it! Dr. Allen is amazing (in first year I took phil 1a03 with Dr. Allen and actually went to all of the 8:30 lectures...he is that good!) and the course material is really interesting. I've taken three of Dr. Allen's courses and his mark break-down is pretty much always the same: 10% tutorial (attendance and participation), 20% for 3 papers (totaling 60%) and then a 30% final exam. I doubt he would change it up this year . As for the course load, it isn't bad at all. Since you always know what topic you will be writing your essays on, you only really need to read 3-4 articles (you will probably end up reading more tho just because of the material/out of interest). In my case, my mark in this course was consistent with my other grades. I would highly recommend this course!