Purpose: This assignment helps students understand how to engage with sources and integrate them into their work – placing sources and themselves “in conversation” with each other.
Skills:
Locate print and digital sources that represent multiple perspectives.
Analyze sources by critically reading, annotating, engaging, comparing, and drawing implications.
Practice working through the writing process, including brainstorming, drafting, peer review, revision, and publication.
Compose a rhetorically-situated, researched text that enters an ongoing conversation, integrating relevant sources.
Can I Insert My Opinion in this Paper?
First and foremost, everything is an opinion. However, there are two types of opinions:
An opinion – that your everyday person has on an issue or topic that is not based on any research or expert knowledge. The holder of this opinion has not been part of the scholarly conversation and therefore the opinion may not be valid. Many online sources contain such opinions (not all, of course. But this is why I urge you to make sure you check the credibility of the sources you retrieve from online).
An informed opinion – this is the opinion that comes from a person who has read, studied, and written on the topic extensively. This individual has been part of the scholarly conversation.
So, yes you can insert your opinion in this paper because it is now informed. You have researched the topic, gathered your sources, analyzed your sources, evaluated your sources, examined your views and perspective on the issue based on your new way of thinking, and now you are ready to add your voice and informed opinion into the conversation.
With this said, this does not mean that all informed opinions are not refutable. There could be errors in some of these opinions. However, what makes them still worth examining and considering is that the expert may be willing to change her or his position, as one would hope, as this is what makes an academic, an academic – a person who is always seeking new knowledge and understanding of the world we live in.
How Should I Structure this Paper?
Introduction
Body paragraphs
Conclusion
Please see and use one of the organizational plans and outlines posted below: Example of an outline:
I. Introduction
a. thesis
II. Body paragraph One
b. topic sentence
III. Body paragraph Two
c. topic sentence
IV. Body paragraph Three
d. topic sentence
V. Body paragraph Four
e. topic sentence
VI. Body paragraph Five
f. topic sentence
VII. Body paragraph Six
g. topic sentence
VII. and so on… (all depends on your subject matter)
h. topic sentence
VIII. Conclusion
A more complex (but easier to follow outline/essay):
I. Introduction
a. thesis
II. Topic # 1
b. Paragraph # 1
b. topic sentence
c. Paragraph # 2
c. topic sentence
III. Topic # 2
d. Paragraph # 1
d. topic sentence
e. Paragraph # 2
e. topic sentence
IV. and so on… (all depends on your subject matter)
VIII. Conclusion
THIS OUTLINE FOLLOWS BOSTROM’S ESSAY FORMAT.
How Many Pages?
This paper should be seven to ten pages long. Once again, focus on the content and substance.
Base the writing of the essay off of the annotated bibliography and the research proposal.
Make sure that when writing the thesis, upload a seperate document so that I know what exactly is the thesis statement. Still incorporate it into the writing, but I just need an additional seperate document showing the thesis.
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