Write a 750-1,250 word argument essay (3-5 pages in MLA). Your essay should be written in MLA format (double-spaced, Times New Roman, etc.). This essay builds from all the skills you have worked on this semester.
For this essay, everyone in the class will be taking the comparison of the country they picked against the USA and take a position on the education systems. You will use the first source from the Single Source essay to start; however, you will choose two additional sources to use which will help make your essay unique. Your essay should answer the following question:
****How does the USA Educational System compare to the international educational system in Germany?****
Though your essay must address the topic, you should feel free to focus on an aspect of the topic that interests you. For example, your essay might consider how expensive college is and how the issue of vocation could affect this, the structure of college instruction, gender differences in how students are directed from K-12 through higher education or another focus of your choosing. Review resources in your textbook and here on Moodle for examples of narrowing a topic to a thesis statement.
Your own ideas are your most important source for this essay; however, you will want to achieve an academic tone. Your essay will be comprised mainly of your own ideas through your analysis, comparison, and evaluation of your other sources and through the structure you create with your introduction, conclusion, and topic sentences.
In addition to your own ideas, you must use at least THREE of the sources; ONE resource must come from your ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.
You should develop your essay as described in the outline provided for you on Moodle. Your essay should smoothly synthesize your chosen sources with your own ideas in order to create a new, insightful perspective on this idea of a college education.
A note on synthesis in a full essay: Synthesis is writing body paragraphs that include information on the same topic from several different sources. Your essay should include at least some synthesis from your chosen sources; however, it is not necessary that EVERY paragraph include multiple sources. The most important consideration is to organize your essay by topic, not by source. In other words, if only one of your sources addresses a given topic, it is fine to use it in a section by itself, but where multiple sources address the same topic, they belong together. It’s also okay to use different amounts of information from each source; you might use one article in several paragraphs and another only once.
As you organize your materials and decide where each of your chosen sources will fit into your essay, you will also have to make decisions about when to use summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation. In particular, be wary of using too much direct quotation–ask yourself whether what you are quoting is really worthy of preserving word-for-word, or whether paraphrase would work just as well. (One direct quote in a paragraph is usually plenty and not every paragraph needs one. A good guideline is that no more than 10% of any piece of writing should be in another person’s words–and less is often better!)
Whichever you choose, make sure your summaries and paraphrases contain no unmarked borrowed language from the source, your direct quotations are accurate and punctuated correctly, and that all three have the author’s name and where appropriate, a parenthetical citation.
You need to be sure to cite your sources, both in-text/parenthetically anytime you incorporate ideas/words from the sources and at the end on the Works Cited page. The Work Cited entries will be provided for you, but you will need to incorporate the in-text/parenthetical citations according to the specifications from A Writer’s Reference.
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