Your essay should be eight full pages, have an argumentative thesis or claim, and must include a counter-argument or rebuttal. You must have five outside sources total, two of which must be academic and peer-reviewed (scholarly articles from a peer-reviewed journal or a book from a university press). Your other three outside sources should be from a published article or book from a reputable publishing company (tier two) or from a reputable magazine, newspaper, or government source found through the LCC library databases. You can have extra sources but they must be tier one or tier two and published sources through the LCC databases. Your sources should be listed in a works cited page and should be referenced in the piece with quotes and paraphrasing and attributed by an in-text citation. Use 12 point Times New Roman font and one inch margins on all pages. Double space your paper. Give your essay an appropriate and interesting title and a works cited page and in-text citations using correct MLA style. Please make sure your essay is saved in word (.docx). Do not use Google docs (it messes with the spacing) or Apple pages (I will not be able to open it). You can save it as a .pdf, but be aware that I will not be able to make comments directly on it and this will hinder me being able to give you more detailed comments. As per the syllabus, you cannot turn in a final draft until you turn in a rough draft. Your rough draft is due to the appropriate peer review group on Thursday 11/18 by midnight. You will receive 50 points for having a completed rough draft. You will also get 25 points each for your two peer reviews (total 50 points). Peer review is due by Friday 11/21 by midnight. Your final essay is due on Thursday 12/02 by midnight to the Final Research Assignment Dropbox. Feel free to turn it in early if you finish it early! Please make sure that your writing style is academic, formal, and uses standard English with correct grammar and punctuation. You are writing for a college audience! You can pick a topic of your choosing as long as it is argumentative and is a different topic from anything you have written on before. To review, here are some types of claims that you can argue (taken from your textbook on pp. 123-124. Look at those pages for more specifics). Types of claims Claims can be conceptual or practical. Conceptual claims typically fall into one of five categories. Thinking about how you want to approach your topic, in other words what type of claim you want to make, is one way to focus your thesis on one particular aspect of your broader topic. Claims of fact or existence. Claims of definition and classification. Claims of cause and consequence. Claims of evaluation or appraisal. Claims of action or policy. Practical claims are usually built from a chain of conceptual claims: a problem exists, what causes the problem, and how doing what you propose will fix it (see p. 124 for more specifics). Keep the following in mind: Make sure that your thesis is an arguable claim. Identify the opposition and show fairness and understanding of the opposing viewpoint. Deal with the opposition by agreeing, challenging, refuting, or acknowledging those views. But then counter them and say why they are wrong and your thesis is right. Make sure that you have strong topic sentences that relate to your thesis. Support each topic sentence with evidence. Use effective reasoning and write for a college level audience. Begin and end strong. Don’t forget an interesting title and remember that punctuation is important too! Requirements: 8 pages Five outside sources, two of which need to be scholarly (tier 1). The other three should be from tier 2 sources. All of these sources will be from your annotated bibliography. A works cited page and in-text citations according to MLA You need to find a topic with some complexity and depth to meet the page and source requirement All sources must be tier one and tier two and found through the LCC database – no internet articles! For review: Tier One – the highest level, which means scholarly, academic sources. Original research in a peer-reviewed or scholarly journal A student interview with an expert in the field A scholarly book published through a university press An original government study or research A published dissertation Tier Two – the next highest level. While these are not scholarly, they have gone through some type of editing process to get published. A magazine or newspaper article A book published from a publishing company A government fact sheet Documents such as the Constitution or laws *You will fail this essay if you do not have an argumentative thesis, a counter-argument, correct in-text citations, a works cited page, and academic sources found through the library databases.
