For this assignment you will produce a research-based argumentative essay, building on the work you did in your analysis assignment. You will take up the issue you proposed in your first assignment, and use the primary and secondary sources which you summarized, analyzed, synthesized, and reported on as well as three new additional sources, to craft an argument. Your argumentative essay will include a thesis statement and reliable research-based evidence to support your thesis.
Meaningful Writing Scenario: With any topic you chose to write about, identify your own situation as it relates to that topic so as to ensure that your writing is meaningful. Remember that a rhetorical situation includes the exigence that prompts the writer to write about a certain topic, the purpose of a piece of writing, its author, the intended audience, and the constraints these place on the writing, the mode and medium of communication, and the genre. In the context of this rhetorical situation, “your own situation” includes the exigence that prompts you to write. This exigence can stem from your passions, your experience, your past, present, and future identities, your family or community members, or a combination of these influences. Draw on any number of these situational influences to explain why the topic is meaningful to you. Let the reader know what the topic looks like from your perspective. Remember that your audience includes your peers in class. Your audience could also include Baruch students in and outside of this class, as well as a wider public readership if you submit your essay to Refract Magazine and it is selected for publication. I strongly encourage you to aim at publishing your work!
Requirements:
- 1800 words, double-spaced, Times New Roman or MS Sans Serif, size 12. Use APA.
- Use at least 7 sources in the argument paper, including all the ones you used in your Analysis paper. At least one report, one scientific journal article, one book chapter, and other relevant sources such as magazine articles, popular science articles, and news articles must be used.
- All your analysis paper sources must be used in this paper to reinforce your expertise in approaching writing as a process.
- As a first draft of this assignment, produce a detailed outline with all the sources you will use in the research paper. You will then expand the outline itself into a full paper due on the second draft due date.
- Here’s the sample of a former student who wrote an excellent argument about bilingualism: Sample Argument Assignment.
Project Objectives: 1. Learn to write an academic research paper; 3. Learn to employ credible research to persuade an audience to achieve a specific purpose; 4. Learn to bring together the results of a months-long writing process to fruition in the form of a comprehensive argument; 5. Develop new knowledge of a topic for oneself and others, informed by personal experience, primary research, and existing knowledge.
Submission and Deadlines: All due dates are in the Course Schedule. Drafts 1 and 2 must be continuously revised within Google Drive and available before the date they are due. The Final Draft must be available in the Google Drive before the beginning of the class when the course schedule indicates it’s due.
Grading: Please find information here on: General Grading and Assignment Grading
Keywords: Argument; Research; Persuasion; Evidence; Fallacies; Stasis; Toulmin; Rhetorical Analysis