Investigating/Explaining: Academic Research Paper ENG 1020
The Research Essay Assignment: Commenting on American Culture
Your assignment is to write an essay in which you explore a current controversial topic in American culture. Your general purpose is to educate the audience in regard to the topic by defining what makes this topic "controversial" and why by answering the basic journalistic questions of who, what, why, when, and where. You should provide relevant defintions and background, expert opinion, explain possible causes and effects, and possible solutions to the problem.
Your essay must deal with an issue that is arguable; in other words there is disagreement and it has not been resolved. Some current examples are immigration, global warming, domestic wiretapping, gay marriage, etc.
When you begin writing, assume that you are writing this essay for publication in an academic journal. Remember that an effective explanation has a point and has a clear thesis and an interesting angle or slant. Be sure to support your thesis with a clear explanation that utilizes specific support such as facts, data, examples, illustrations, statistics, comparisons, analogies, and images. Remember that your thesis is a general assertion about the relationships of the specific parts and the support you use to prove that thesis should help your reader identify those parts and see those various relationships. All examples that you use should be relevant, interesting, convincing, representative, accurate, and specific.
This assignment is designed for you to learn to explore complex issues and difficult, abstract, or unusual ideas and in the process discover and learn something about yourself and the world. As a writer you have a responsibility to your readers to make these difficult concepts concrete and understandable. While writing, try to avoid vague generalizations. Where do you get the examples to develop your essay? Which examples support your thesis? Which do not? Which are the most convincing? Which are the most likely to interest readers and clarify meaning?
You will need to conduct outside research on your topic. You must use dependable, reliable sources. These include book chapters, articles taken from books, magazine articles, journal articles, and newspaper articles. You should also locate a series of images on the internet to function as illustrative texts within your written document to support your ideas present in your paper (This can be achieved by right clicking on an image, and then copying and pasting into a Word document). If possible, you may also create your own images with the use of a digital camera. Your research paper should include a minimum of 3 images. YOU MAY NOT USE WRITTEN INTERNET SOURCES (although it is okay to use the internet to locate images). To get credit, your essay must include at least four to six written outside sources of research information pertaining to your subject.
This assignment is journalistic in nature. You are not to directly include your own opinion. You are to merely report the opinion of others. It is very important to remember that you goal is merely to inform, not argue or convince. At all times, your tone should be fair and balanced and you should avoid argumentative language. To do this, you will need to use both qualifers and author tags (see class notes). This is a formal academic essay. Do not use contractions, informal language or slang, or the first person (“I”).
For further explanation of explaining a concept, please refer to Methods for Explaining a Concept Using Investigative Writing Techniques
. The most important techniques are:
•Getting the reader’s attention and stating a thesis
•Illustrating relationships between ideas
•Supporting explanations of these relationships with specific evidence
•Choosing relevant examples
You may also refer to the following student models:
Format
Your essay should have a title. It should also be typed, double spaced, with one-inch margins all around, Times New Roman Font, & 12 pt. Your paper should be 1,200-1,800 words (4-6 pages) and have a works cited page. Refer to The Everyday Writer for other questions about format and citations using MLA style. You may also refer to owl.english.purde.edu. You should have a minimum of four to six written sources and a minimum of three visual sources. Include copies of each source with your final draft and highlight the material used in your paper on the copy of each source.
Image Format: You will need to insert the image into your paper and position it in a strategic place for best rhetorical effect. You can scan it in or save it off the web. Include a caption for each image, providing a Figure number, a title or description of the image, and the complete source.
For example:
Fig. 1: The War in Croatia left behind large-scale physical destruction and many emotional scars.
Within the body of your paper, you should then refer to the image as "Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.
Please format your images to an adequate size to see detail in the photo without making it blurry.
If it is a web image, include “date accessed.”
Important Dates:
•Library Instruction: Tuesday, 9/27
•First three annotations due: Tuesday, 10/4
• Annotations 4-6 due: Tuesday, 10/11
•First Version due: Thursday, 10/27
•Completed peer critique due: Tuesday, 11/1
•Final Version with all planning work due: Thursday, 11/3
NOTE: Keep all planning work, brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, revision workshop responses, workshop questionnaires, HIGHLIGHTED SOURCES, reflections and NUMBERED versions of the essay to hand in with the final DRAFT of the essay. REMEMBER, NO PROCESS, NO GRADE.
Final Draft, evaluated on the following criteria:
Total Possible Points: 70/
Focus (19 points): Does essay have a clear purpose? Focus on a main idea and clearly identifiable thesis? Are reader’s expectations set and then met? Ideas, examples, and reasons developed in the body of the paper are clearly related to the main focus?
Development (19 points): Are supporting examples, showing details, and data rich and relevant to the main idea? Are the writer’s assertions immediately followed by supporting evidence? Appropriate research supports the writer’s main idea or thesis? The writer shows how or why evidence is relevant to main idea or claim?
Organization (19 points): Do ideas and paragraphs proceed in logical and apparent sequence or pattern? Does writer use sufficient audience cues to let the reader know what has been discussed, what is being discussed, or what will be discussed? Does writer use attention-getting title and lead-in, essay map, summary and forecasting statements, paragraph hooks, transitional words and phrases? Do effective conclusions guide the reader from beginning to end?
Style (7 points): Is language clear direct and readable? Are sentences clear, concise, and easily read by intended audience? Is word choice appropriate for audience? Do sentences reveal and sustain appropriate voice and tone?
Mechanics (6 points): Are there obvious errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Are there patterns of error?
NO 1ST DRAFT ON DUE DATE (-6 POINTS)
NO REFLECTION (-6 POINTS)
NO PROCESS OR PROPER CITATION OF SOURCES=NO GRADE
Grading scale:
A 63-70
B 56-62
C 49-55
D 42-48
F 0-41
