Compose an eight-page, eight-source argument synthesis. Remember, you must argue a position in this essay and use sources to help prove your point. I am also requiring that you include a counterargument or two to show your versatility in arguing and seeing different sides of the topic.
As noted in your Proposal assignment sheet, this final Research Paper could be a revision of your Multi-Source Essay. If you choose to change topics between the time you handed in your Proposal and the end of the semester, please email me so that I can approve the new topic, but be aware that you still have to turn in an eight-page, eight-source paper regardless of the topic.
Composing Advice
As with your Multi-Source Essay, you want your sources to have a dialogue and work on your terms. Do not simply support one of your sources as the only way to see something; instead, decide your approach and use the sources to help you build points. You may certainly string together points that you like from several articles and combine them into a persuasive statement of your own. This is one way to see how a synthesis builds. Your job is to conduct the orchestra of sources and use your summarizing, critiquing, and arguing skills to bring the reader to your point of view.
Eight pages and eight sources might seem a monstrous task as you first read this. But if you break your argument into three or four main points and build each point at two or so pages, you have quite a bit there. Expect a page or so for the introduction and conclusion, each, and you are right around eight or nine pages. So work on this essay in “chunks,” and perhaps think about your sources coming in line with these chunks too. Could this mean that you are writing three or four small critique papers and then revising to make them all flow together? It could.
Another way to think about the structure of a longer paper such as this is to break it down into sections, each section potentially containing multiple paragraphs. Seen this way, a potential structure might look something like this:
Section 1) Introduction and thesis
Section 2) History of the problem (including, perhaps, past solution attempts)
Section 3) Current state of the problem
Section 4) Consequences if the problem isn’t resolved
Section 5) Solution(s)
Section 6) Counterarguments
Section 7) Conclusion
Of these sections, 1 and 7 are traditionally just a single paragraph, though there are certainly ways to stretch an introduction into two or more paragraphs. Sections 2-6 could just be each a single paragraph, or multiple paragraphs, depending on how you write and what you’re choosing to include. The only tricky section is 6, the counterargument, since that’s actually a “floating” section, meaning that it could go anywhere in the paper. That is, if your counterargument comes directly after your solution(s), that means your counterargument should argue against your solution(s). In contrast, you could put a counterargument after section 4, in which case your counterargument would argue that the consequences aren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Regardless of where you put the counterargument, however—and there’s nothing wrong with starting your paper with a counterargument, and having your entire paper disprove that counterargument—the point of a counterargument is to introduce a voice into your paper that disagrees with you, and that you then have to respond to, either by disproving it, agreeing partially with it, or admitting that it’s right, but maybe unimportant.
Counterarguments
At some point in your essay, you are required to discuss opposing points of view to your thesis. Dealing with counterarguments can be a big plus for you, as you can either shoot them down or acknowledge their point of view and move on.
Nuts and Bolts
1. Use proper MLA style for citations, and include a Works Cited.
2. Your essay should be a minimum of eight pages in length (not including your Works Cited), and have at least eightsources, two of which have to come from The McGraw-Hill Reader
