Position Paper: Classify a Relationship

Classify one relationship (yours, a friend's, or a plausible composite) against the model's first five variables and defend the classification

Due: 22 March 2027 · Weight: 25%

The brief#

Classify one relationship against the model’s first five variables, and show your working for each.

Weeks 1 through 5 gave you five variables: the two-party framing, the attraction front-end/back-end split, the reliability rate, the five-line-item dependency balance sheet, and the fungible/specific provision split. This paper asks you to apply all five to one case, in order, and to defend each classification with something a reader could check independently — a computed rate, a listed line item score, a named substitute that either does or doesn’t exist.

The provocation is not “write about a relationship.” It’s “show that a stranger, reading only your evidence, would reach the same classification you did.” A position paper that reports conclusions without the working behind them will not clear the model-application criterion, however correct the conclusions turn out to be.

What you submit#

A single PDF, 1200–1800 words, structured variable by variable (five sections, one per variable, each stating the classification and the evidence for it). De-identify or composite any third party’s private details — the model doesn’t need a true story, it needs a checkable one.

Model application (60%) is marked on whether each of the five variables is applied correctly and specifically to the case. Clarity of reasoning (40%) is marked on whether a reader unfamiliar with the case could follow the argument from evidence to classification without needing the writer present to explain it.