[SOLVED] Assignment Guidelines for Paper #3: The Persuasive Research Paper

To: ENG 201
From: Dr. Sovis
Re: Assignment Guidelines for Paper #3: The Persuasive Research Paper
Overview of Paper
This assignment will ask you to do two things. First, you will examine an ongoing conversation
held between multiple authors on a topic of social significance. Second, you will then extend
that conversation by taking a stance on a specific aspect of that conversation. Writing multiple
drafts of this 8 to 10 page paper (2,000 to 2,500 words) will give you the chance to summarize,
synthesize, and explicate textual information as well as to develop and support an original thesis
situated in a specific academic or non-academic conversation.
Content of Paper
This paper must include the following parts:
▪ Title Page (APA) or First Page (MLA): You will choose the citation style, APA or
MLA, that corresponds with your field of study. Your title should be interesting and it
should also establish what the paper is about. Good titles are often based on a paper’s thesis
or, as the authors of They Say, I Say point out, on the key words or phrases used throughout
the paper (114). Successful titles often consist of two parts divided by a colon. As a general
rule, titles phrased as questions are less effective than titles phrased as statements.
▪ Informative Abstract: Summarize the content of your paper in 100 to 200 words. See
Seagull pgs. 71-74 for help with writing informative abstracts. The abstract should be
differentiated from the text of the paper itself, either by placing it on a separate page or by
using a smaller and/or different font with narrower margins. Note that an abstract is not
required for the first draft.
▪ Introduction: Make it interesting. An effective introduction introduces the topic of a paper
in such a way that the audience will want to continue reading. Introductions that tell a story
are particularly effective. Place your thesis in this section of the paper, which can be one
paragraph or multiple paragraphs. Your thesis should present your “I say,” but it should do
so by framing your “I say” as a response to a specific “they say.” In other words, your stance
should be in response to the stance taken by other authors that you will discuss in your paper.
In addition, the introduction should establish the “so what” for the paper and provide an
outline or “road map” of what the paper will cover in the order in which it will be covered.
▪ Summarizing and Responding to the Conversation (Main Body): The paper must
describe what has been said in the conversation thus far. In other words, the paper has to
describe the “they say.” The paper also has to include your response, which is the “I say.”
You could cover the “they say” in the first half of the paper and the “I say” in the second half
of the paper. This is perhaps the easiest way to set things up. However, an alternative
approach would be to move back and forth between the “they say” and the “I say” throughout
the entire paper. Regardless of how you organize the paper, your goal should be to make
your audience understand your stance and accept it as plausible and legitimate. Whether you
actually persuade them to agree with your stance is not as important.
▪ Conclusion: Make it interesting. An effective conclusion does more than merely restate
what has already been said. Instead, effective conclusions offer something new that the
paper has logically built up to—a conclusion that looks to the future, makes a call to action,
or returns to whatever was discussed in the introduction.
▪ References Page (APA) or Works Cited Page (MLA): Again, you will chose the
formatting and citation style that is most commonly used in your field of study.
Additional Considerations—Read Carefully
Keep the following in mind as you draft your paper:
▪ You must format your paper according to either APA or MLA guidelines. (See Seagull).
▪ You must cite at least 10 research sources in your paper, including at least 4 peer-reviewed
academic journal articles. Ideally, these 10 sources would all come from your annotated
bibliography, but this is not required.
▪ Do not write an abstract for the first draft of your paper.
▪ Use quotations and paraphrases to support and illustrate the main points of your paper. Be
sure that every quotation has a signal phrase, citation, and explication. In other words, make
sure that every quotation is wrapped in a quotation sandwich (see pg. 46 of They Say, I Say).
Use the templates provided by They Say, I Say on pgs. 39-40 and 46-47 for introducing
quotations and paraphrases. See also pgs. 103-104 in The Little Seagull Handbook.
▪ I encourage, but do not require, that you use the first-person “I” throughout your paper. You
will find that using the first-person voice gives you more flexibility as a writer and makes it
much easier to differentiate the “they say” from the “I say” in your paper. See pg. xxv of
They Say, I Say for a more detailed explanation of why the first-person “I” is a good choice
for academic writing.
▪ Consider using headings to divide the paper up into sections. Headings help organize a paper.
Moreover, they work like highway signs by guiding the reader along from one major point to
the next. See pgs. 33 and 185 of The Little Seagull Handbook for guidance on using
headings in your paper.
▪ The final draft of your paper must be free of typographical, grammatical, and other sentencelevel errors.
Criteria for Grading
Your paper will be graded according to the general criteria described in Appendix A of the
course syllabus. However, for this particular assignment I will focus on your ability to do the
following:
▪ Construct and support an arguable thesis statement.
▪ Summarize, synthesize, and evaluate multiple sources of information.
▪ Map out the “they say” in a conversation with multiple viewpoints.
▪ Support your own “I say” with evidence taken from multiple sources.
▪ Utilize quotations, paraphrases, and summaries.
▪ Construct a well-organized and grammatically correct essay of at least 2,000 words.
Word Counts
The minimum word counts for the two drafts are as follows:
▪ Your first draft must be at least 1,500 words long. Do not write an abstract for this draft.
▪ Your polished draft must be at least 2,000 words long, with 2,500 words the upper limit.
Peer Review
To see the due dates for submitting your draft for peer review and for commenting on your group
members’ drafts, see the Week-by-Week Schedule on Bb under “Course Materials.” Don’t forget
to save your draft using the filename stipulated in this assignment sheet.
Posting your Drafts:
1. Save your A3 draft as a MS Word® document or a Rich Text Format document with one of
the following filenames (MS Word® will add the .docx or .rtf suffix automatically when you
save the file in that format):
YourfirstnameYourlastnameDraft1A3docx [e.g., JohnDoeDraft1A3.docx]
YourfirstnameYourlastnameDraft1A3.rtf [e.g., JohnDoeDraft1A3.rtf]
2. Upload your draft to your Group page on Bb by the due date for peer review. See the
instructions on the next page.
3. After receiving peer feedback, revise your draft, save it with one of the following filenames,
and upload it to Bb by the due date.
YourfirstnameYourlastnameDraft2A3.docx [e.g., JohnDoeDraft2A3.docx]
YourfirstnameYourlastnameDraft2A3.rtf [e.g., JohnDoeDraft2A3.rtf]
Responding to Drafts:
1. Go into the File Exchange of your assigned Group page, download each group member’s draft,
and save them to your computer or flash drive using a new file name for each draft.
For example, if you are Jane Smith and you have just downloaded the draft named
JohnDoeDraft1A3.docx, save the draft with the following filename:
JohnDoeDraft1A3JaneSmithComments.docx.
This way, both John and your instructor will know that you are the group member who has
commented on John’s draft. Each group member will obtain comments from every other group
member, so you and your group members want to make very clear which files are which. Do this
for each group member’s draft.
2. Open each file and read the draft on screen.
3. Use the peer review prompts provided by your instructor to guide your review and comments.
(These will be given to you well before peer review is due).
4. To provide feedback on each group member’s draft, use the Insert Comment tool in MS
Word® to insert comments in the right margin of the draft.
5. Do NOT use Track Changes to edit or correct any grammar, punctuation, or spelling;
however, if you think it’s necessary, remind the writer to proofread and edit the draft carefully
before submitting it for Instructor Review.
6. After reviewing and commenting on all your group members’ drafts (or at least all that have
been uploaded during the review period), download all of your drafts on which group members
have commented, and use their feedback to revise your draft before submitting it for Instructor
Review by the due date and time.