short assg 6
This assignment is all about familiarizing yourself with the structure of scholarly academic essays. We'll be focusing specifically on the essay entitled "Humanity in a Posthuman World," which you have just read. The assignment functions basically as a reverse outline--rather than naming the parts of the essay before you start writing an essay, you're going to name the key parts of this essay after you've read it.
You should structure your assignment just like the instructions are structured below. Highlight or bold each section, starting with Thesis Statement, and then answer the questions for that section before moving on the next one.
Thesis statement: First, identify what you think is the thesis statement in this essay. Make sure that you quote it directly from the text. Don't paraphrase or summarize it, just quote it. Note that thesis statements in longer scholarly essays may not appear at the bottom of the first paragraph--they can occur pretty much anywhere in the essay, so look carefully. Once you've found the thesis statement and quoted it, write a few sentences explaining why you think this is the thesis. What makes it the central, indispensable argument of the whole paper?
Introduction: How does this essay introduce its topic? Does it dive right in? Does it provide an anecdote? Is the introduction effective, in your view? Does it capture the reader's attention? If so, how? if not, why not?
Topic sentence: A topic sentence is the first sentence in a paragraph. Pick any topic sentence in the essay and quote it (don't use the first paragraph--introductions follow their own rules). After you've quoted the topic sentence, explain what it's saying, and give an assessment of it. Does it successfully clarify what the paragraph is about? If so, how? If not, what is it missing?
Citation of Primary Source: Find one place in the essay where the author is describing the primary source, the film The Girl With all the Gifts. Quote a sentence or two of the citation and note where in the essay it occurs. Finally, what is the author doing with this citation? How specifically is he using it? How does it support the thesis?
Citation of Secondary Source: In addition to citing the primary source, this essay also cites secondary sources. List at least three secondary sources highlighted in the essay, and for each one, type a sentence or two describing the purpose of the source. For instance, if the essay highlights one historical source, one philosophical source and one statistical/data source, note the function or purpose of each. How does each source support the thesis?
A Note: This assignment pairs well with the PowerPoint presentation that I gave you earlier this semester, entitled "Key Elements of an Academic Essay." I'm going to attach it here again, so that you can easily access it. If you have any questions about the terms in the assignment, this is where you'll find definitions and clarification. Here's the link in case you need it again: Key Elements of an Academic Essay (3).pptx
Nuts and bolts: follow the framework listed above. I think it should probably be between 400 and 600 words if you answer all the questions with complete sentences--which you should.