Write a short essay with a beginning, middle, and end in which your thinking on the page reveals the hidden structure of an event or object in the world that you find interesting and/or problematic.

Write a short essay with a beginning, middle, and end in which your thinking on the page reveals the hidden structure of an event or object in the world that you find interesting and/or problematic.

Source your essay’s thinking (your reasoning—your induction) in a careful, creative reading of 2-3 texts (1 primary plus 1-2 ancillary). Your ancillary texts may come from the Digital Anthology for Writers (DAW), or they may come from research done on the NYU Library’s online databases. They may also come from other reputable sources (yes to Google Scholar; no to Google anything else). If you are not sure about the reliability of your source (especially if you suspect an editorial bias), you must account for that doubt in your representation of its idea. Only one ancillary text may come from personal experience (a scene from memory). Only one ancillary text may be a visual exhibit text, which you represent in a word picture.

Remember that your essay should describe a conceptual problem that arises from a careful consideration of your Primary Text, and attempt to describe how that problem works, with the help of your Ancillary Texts.

Remember to demonstrate a conscious relationship with sentence structure and paragraph structure as you plumb the twists and turns of a conceptual conversation on the page.

Your essay must be at least three full pages and no more than four (Times New Roman, double-spaced). You must number your pages. Your essay must have a title and an MLA heading, which do not count toward your page total. In order to meet the minimum, your writing must extend onto a fourth page at least until you’ve accounted for the space your title/header occupied on page 1. Use MLA in-text citation (no footnotes or endnotes). Append a Works Cited page, formatted properly in MLA style.

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