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Persuasive Position (Academic Argument) Essay Paper Three

ENGL 1010

Lynn Summer 2023

Length: 4 full pages (not including the works cited page)

Format: MLA9 (including both in-text citations and a works cited page)

Additional Requirements: The integration and synthesis into your essay of 3 (three) secondary sources

Due Date: Friday, July 14, 2023 before NOON, 12:00pm (not midnight) in the appropriate Brightspace Assignment Folder

For your third essay, you must craft and develop an academic argument using a thesis statement, effective topic sentences, developed paragraphs, credible evidence, and knowledgeable and persuasive discussion.

The Prompt

Your essay needs to take a position on the following prompt: According to their 2015 book, Redesigning ges

as qtd. in Levesque). What is the most challenging structural and/or motivational barrier preventing college and university students from successfully completing their courses/degrees/certificates? In other words, when a PSCC student drops out mid-semester or does not return from one semester to the next, what do you believe (and what can you successfully argue) is the leading reason for that student not continuing in his/her studies?

NOTE: Your choice of challenging barrier/reason for non-completion does not have to be academic in nature, but you do need to decide on ONE (the most challenging).

Compose a four full-page persuasive position essay on the prompt using specific, cited reference to at least three academic sources; ONE OF THE THREE(but no more than two) should be chosen from the variety of sources I have made available for you in Brightspace for this Paper Three assignment. Your essay should also exhibit a combination of rhetorical strategies to convince your readers to reevaluate and reconsider their position on the topic.

Your essay should provide some contextual background information on community college success rates in 2020-2022. Note: COVID- student decisions. You are welcome to include unexpected events, such as natural disasters and pandemics, as part of your discussion, but do not let current events take over your entire argument.

Remember you are trying to convince your readers what is the LEADING reason for why students do not RETURN to or COMPLETE their schooling, so while COVID-19 could be a workable answer in the short-term, I should warn you upfront that Paper Four will ask you how PSCC can help address the student issue/answer you chose in Paper Three. Thus, COVID-19 should not be your sole answer.

Required Use of Sources

Without background information, your argument will lack credibility. You need to demonstrate that you understand the scope of the issue before you can credibly argue a position about that issue. In other words, your introduction or conclusion should discuss several structural and/or motivational barriers that stand in the way of successful completion for the average community college student, but your thesis and argument should focus on proving that one of these barriers is more challenging than all of the others. Note

extreme positions or rhetoric in this discussion as you do research. No viable source will be extreme in its language or position.

Your assertions should be consistent with available evidence.

Please bear in mind that Wikipedia, helpme123.com, Sparknotes.com, or any similar websites are NOT academic sources. In addition, if you use a news source, you must also reference a news source from the other end of the political spectrum to provide balance and intellectual honesty but both news sources will only count as ONE academic source for our purposes. Be aware that interviews may also be valid academic sources.

I strongly recommend that you find your third source [those in addition to those I have provided for you] by searching the PSCC library databases as discussed in our course lessons, NOT the open internet.

While sources are important to establishing and maintaining your credibility, you should not rely on quotations to make your argument. In addition, you should only be quoting the section of a text that is absolutely necessary to support your idea, not inserting 2-3-sentence-long quotes if the entire quotation is not relevant or important to your point. For the purposes of this assignment, I am limiting you to a maximum of three direct quotations per page and one block quotation in the entire essay. What that means is that your essay should be YOUR essay, your argument, your supporting ideas, your developed discussion, your voice, etc. The sources and quotations are to be used as support only, not as the foundation of your argument. Note that a quotation should never be the first sentence or the last sentence of any paragraph.

You cannot build an intellectual argument on opinion or your political affiliation alone. Therefore, you must do research to find support for the argument, or claim, that you are making. Thus, I am asking you to find/use at least three (but no more than five) external sources as support for your position. These sources cannot be talking points put forth by either of our two major political parties.

NOTE: Be very, very wary of using the speeches and interviews of political figures (and some news sources) as factual evidence a majority of the time, if a politician is speaking, he or she is not telling the complete truth. It is up to you to distinguish the facts from the political rhetoric because YOUR reputation depends on it.

Purpose and Standards

of a broader worldview.

Remember that pers

An effective essay that persuasively argues a position will:

(1) address a specific audience [your peers college-educated men and women] and purpose [persuade];

(2) take a clearly defined stance on the issue in the form of an arguable assertion [thesis statement];

(3) support the assertion with good reasons and logical evidence [use of your 4 sources];

(4) anticipate and address counter-arguments; and

(5) provide a thought-provoking and informative introduction and conclusion.

your position is the only right one. We have discussed that your goal as a writer is to persuade your reader to take a single step in your direction.

Your primary purpose is to convince your audience that your position is valid, logical, and/or worth considering.

Your thesis statement needs to assert a clearly defined position on the prompt. Answer the question asked. If a

follow.

Your essay will need clear organization, topic sentences, transition phrases, and fully developed quotation integration. You must also include a section or sections in your essay that specifically address the counterarguments to your claims.

and all contractions. The tone of this essay should be overtly formal and academic in nature. While you are taking a position and arguing that position, this is an academic

You will also need to include proper MLA in-text citations for all four of your sources and a works cited page in MLA format for this essay.

Tutoring and Submission

Because this essay is worth 15% of your final grade, I urge you to go work with and/or to have your essay reviewed by a tutor as soon as possible via sending an email with your attached draft to [email protected] OR in person in the ERC Writing Center and to use that tutor feedback to revise your essay before you submit your final draft to the Assignment folder. I will note that scholars who used the advice given to them by that tutoring service on Paper One made, on average, a full letter grade higher on their scores in comparison to those who did not.

This essay is due in the appropriate Brightspace Assignment folder by NOON (12pm not midnight) on Friday, July 14th.

your final draft all of which are clearly named and indicated as what they are in the Assignments folder.

Sources for Paper: 

 Student Needs are Academic Needs  o https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/student‐needs‐are‐academic‐needs/ 

 Burns and Durojaiye – “The Long Road”  

 Carnevale, Michael, et al., "Learning While Earning” 

 A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions 

in the Classroom  o Chrome‐

extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.jstor.org/stable/pd

f/42920900.pdf 

 Improving community college completion rates by addressing structural 

and motivational barriers  o https://www.brookings.edu/articles/community‐college‐completion‐rates‐

structural‐and‐motivational‐barriers/ 

 Community College Student Success: The Role of Motivation and Self‐

Empowerment.  o https://web‐p‐ebscohost‐

com.ezproxy.pstcc.edu:3443/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=efec7528‐1f3e‐

4d0c‐9054‐

15252075bb4a%40redis&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=96533007&db=eft 

 Health and academic success  o https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2327‐6924.12345 

 Colleges Could Do More  o https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/759949879/colleges‐could‐do‐more‐to‐

help‐student‐parents‐pay‐for‐child‐care‐watchdog‐says 

 Through the Eyes of Students  o chrome‐

extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ysu.edu/sites/default

/files/%282016%29%20Through%20the%20Eyes%20of%20Students%20TINT

O.pdf 

 Too Distressed to Learn  o chrome‐

extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.insidehighered.

com/sites/default/files/files/Wisconsin%20HOPE%20Lab%20‐

%20Too%20Distressed%20To%20Learn%20(Final).pdf