Research Paper

ENG2150 - Assignment 2 1

Assignment 2: Research-Based Argument Essay (Part 2)

• Word count: 2,800-3,100 words / ~ 8-9 double-spaced pages

• Font 11-12, Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, or similar

• At least one primary source and four secondary sources

• Contains formal references, a bibliography and your Writer’s Letter

• Submitted by direct message to me on Slack, by Word Document

• Time needed to complete: about 5-6 hours, highly recommended to spread over a few days

• Peer-review of first drafts in pairs occurs in Week 13 (May 3rd to 10th)

• Due in Week 15, by May 20th at the latest

(this is a strict deadline, due to the deadline I’m given for submitting final

course grades)

Description

So, here we are: your final project! This is the completed research-based argument

essay that you have already worked on substantially by completing Assignment 1, your

rhetorical analysis. This exercise is fundamental: you’ll be asked to write argumentative essays

very frequently in college. It’s also an amazing skill to have for your future life: you’ll know

how to efficiently analyze any material, critically question things that are presented as truths to

you, and you’ll know how to make a powerful, professionally back-up argument. It doesn’t have

to be tedious: by following the step-by-step method you started for Assignment 1, you have

already spread out the work.

Hopefully you’ve chosen a topic and a medium that you’re deeply interested in, so that

you find enjoyment in your project. Topping up the research you’ve done for Assignment 1 with

the two additional Reflective Annotated Bibliography sheets from Week 12, you may note

that your thesis changes slightly, or your topic framing or approach shifts. That’s complete fine

and normal: it shows you’ve deepened your reflection since first working on your topic,

receiving feedback from me and your peers, and it also allows you to update the research angle

you’re interested in exploring with this final project. An academic will frequently take weeks or

even months to complete a peer-reviewed article like the ones you used for your RefAnnBibs,

adding ideas, rearranging the structure of their argument, and refining their thesis as they go.

Directions

As a reminder, to write a complete, well-presented essay, you need four things: a specific

topic, selected sources, selected evidence from your sources, and most of all, your own ideas

(and a willingness to proofread!). Following is the detailed step-by-step method you’ve already

ENG2150 - Assignment 2 2

used for assignment 1. Now, you’re stepping back briefly into step 2 to add your two new

RefAnnBibs, and you’re then completing step 3, not forgetting 4 (the Writer’s Letter).

In 5 steps, this is how you’ll eventually complete your full paper:

1. Define your topic (about 1 hour): - After discussion of your topic with me and your peers, choose one primary source (text of

any genre, film, audio, or otherwise). The source can be one we have studied or one of

your own finding. Find what it is that draws you to that primary source and choose your

topic accordingly. Be specific (e.g. your topic is not just ‘a text on migration’ but can be

‘the use of first-person narrative in Equiano’s autobiography’ or ‘the use of on-screen

violence in Desierto’). Ideally, you’ll choose a topic you’re so interested in that you’ll be

willing to dig deeper into it for your final project, and therefore you’ll save yourself some

time because you’ll have already worked on some material for this assignment.

- Define your approach: are you most interested in rhetorical devices and how they convey meaning? Are you more interested in purpose and audience? In ethics and social

implications? In medium, circulation, access, delivery? In genre? If choosing literary

material, are you more interested in theme, narratology, characterization, tone, metaphor,

plot, setting, or point of view? For film and audiovisual material, is it filming techniques,

plot, light, sound, camera movements, audience, acting, or direction that sparks your

interest? It’s important to be conscious of what approach you naturally lean towards and

make it clear which it is that you choose for your essay.

- Find some secondary sources (at least 2). These need to be peer-reviewed, scholarly sources. You can find them on JSTOR, ProjectMuse, Google Scholar, and the Newman

Library, all using your Baruch credentials.

- After a first reading of your sources, formulate your topic as specifically as possible in a few lines.

2. Search for evidence (2-3 hours): Go over this step again, but more briefly, to

incorporate your two new sources. See if they give you new ideas you want to include in

your already-formed subtopic clumps. You might need to rearrange your subtopic

clumps, and you’ll see your thesis may evolve. It’s all a normal part of the research

process. Make sure you also use the feedback you’ve received from me on your

assignment 1, and that which you received from your peers for your RefAnnBibs.

- Do a solid, directed, second reading of all your sources, taking notes of relevant rhetorical devices that may help you prove your points. Select citations from your

primary and secondary sources. Only select what is directly relevant to your topic,

specifically. Don’t try to cover everything. And don’t waste time here: less is more!

- Take a break.

- Jot down your ideas in the order they come to you. Keep them in short note form.

- Pair your ideas with evidence from your primary source (a quote, or a video/audio reference) and from your secondary sources (quotes or paraphrases, both needing formal

acknowledgement). This is where your two Reflective Annotated Bibliography sheets

from Week 5 come in handy: they’ll save you time to extract from those sources what

2

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2

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you need for your own purposes. For your primary source, use highlighting, page

markers, or Hypothesis publish-to-self highlights and annotations).

- Reorganize your ideas in 2 or 3 clumps as they relate to each other. Note that you may have to discard ideas that don’t fit, or, on the contrary, add a couple of points. Organize

your clumps in the way that will most logically lead to your overall thesis. Usually,

starting from the simplest to the most complex points will make for an easy-to-read,

compelling essay.

- Divide the wordcount roughly for each clump (they don’t have to be equal in length). Don’t forget to keep some word count for your introduction and conclusion.

- At this point, adjust your topic formulation if needed. The more specific, the better.

- Write a temporary introduction (that you’ll adjust when you complete this project for assignment 2).

- In note form, using headings and subheadings, list your points and subpoints. Include some notes for transitions between your points. This helps ensure that every

single point you make is part of a continuous thread that relates at all times to your

argument (aka. your thesis.) Include as many details as you can, as well as your

references (quotes, examples, paraphrases – all duly acknowledged according to your

chosen citation style from Purdue OWL.

- Write a temporary conclusion.

- Proofread everything to check that your development of points makes sense, that they all address the issues you propose to address in your introduction, and that the

conclusion closes your paper nicely (this is proofreading for content).

- Proofread your notes several times and use the spelling and grammar check (proofreading for form).

- Don’t forget to check your references and (temporary) bibliography.

- Hand in your very detailed roadmap for your final project.

3. Write out your essay (2-3 hours):

- You now have a detailed roadmap for your essay, and you now need to add the form, writing out your points in full sentences, and taking great care of the form. Remember to

take frequent breaks during this step.

- Download the Word doc template provided on our course website (under Assignments > Rhetorical Analysis. Insert your name on the top and in the header, then save it using the

file name as requested above. I recommend using AutoSave as you write (it continuously

saves your doc to your Outlook 365 cloud with your Baruch email address).

- Write an introduction (that you will later adjust, so don’t worry too much just now). Express your topic, briefly explain your sources, and formulate your thesis as clearly as

possible in the introduction.

- Choose a citation style. I recommend Purdue Owl for a list of academic citation styles and guides (the list of styles is under Research and Citation on the left hand side). It

would be useful to choose the style that’s preferred in the discipline you intend to take as

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your major. Some styles use footnotes and others use in-text citations. You’ll save loads

of time by using Zotero, as we saw in Week 6.

- Write out your points, justifying the use of your evidence before and after you insert your quotes/paraphrases/examples. If you are using someone else’s ideas in your own words,

remember to properly cite them according to your chosen citation style. Keep your

paragraphs to one single idea each, so that they’re concise. Don’t worry about typos and

layout just yet – it’ll distract you from your argumentation.

- Make sure that the language is formal, and that you use contractions very sparingly (e.g. ‘don’t’ instead of ‘do not’). Try to emulate the language and tone of the peer-reviewed

sources you’ll have read.

- Before you write your conclusion, come back to your intro to adjust anything that turned out differently while you wrote out your points. You might have discarded or ideas,

changed your thesis, etc. Make sure the last sentences of your introduction announce the

order of the main points your essay addresses.

- Write your conclusion, briefly restating your main points, and making final considerations on your thesis, which you’ll express again as clearly as you can here. It’s

good to open up your topic towards the end of your conclusion, alluding to points of

further study that you might address in your final project, or that someone else in the

scholarly community might address.

- Go over your whole essay from the end to the beginning (that’s called a reverse outline) to make sure that your points unfold logically, from the most specific (end of essay) to

the broadest (beginning). Insert any transitioning sentences to smooth out the structure.

- Give a good, critical title to your essay.

- Check your citations, including every single reference, and make sure you include every source used in your bibliography. Don’t include anything from informal websites like

Wikipedia, Hisory.com. Quartz, etc. You can use them to check fact – with caution – but

these don’t have a place in academic writing. Format your references and bibliography

according to your chosen citation style. Bibliographies should always have Hanging

alignment (in Home >Paragraph Settings) and author names should always be in

alphabetical order.

- Author names are Capitalized, and you write their full name the first time you mention them, and only their last name thereafter. Book and film titles are italicized, and article,

short-story, song, and poem titles, are in ‘quotation marks.’

- Arrange the layout. The way you present your work is the first impression you give your reader/assessor. Make sure your paragraphs are short (again, keep them to one idea each).

Use the Tab key on the first line for each paragraph. Use 1.5 or double line spacing. Use

justified alignment. In Word, Go to Home > Paragraph Settings, and tick the ‘Don’t add

space between paragraphs of the same style’ box. Don’t use bold except for the title, and

only use italics when featured in a citation (in which case you insert ‘emphasis in the

original’ in brackets following your citation), or when you really want to lay emphasis on

a word. Note that longer quotes (4 lines or more) have a specific layout:

they are indented to the right, single-spaced, in the same font as the rest of your

essay, in justified alignment, without quotation marks, and with their footnote or

ENG2150 - Assignment 2 5

in-text reference immediately following (you’ll have seen how when you did your

secondary reading). (Reference, page)

- Proofread for sense (see end of step 2). - Proofread for form, again, and again. Use the spelling and grammar check tool in

Word, but we aware that it frequently misses things. In any case, make sure the last

proofreading is done by your human self – you’re smarter than any robots!

4. Complete your writer’s letter (5-10 minutes) You’ll find it below the bibliography, at the bottom of the template I asked you to

download. Doing self-reflexive thinking on your work helps you improve your

research skills, gives me an opportunity to get some feedback from you, and it also

helps me understand what the process of completing the assignment was like for you.

Advice An analysis asks you to go beyond summary and think about various elements that make

up a text: the argument or message, how the writer or speaker crafts that message (evidence,

stories, metaphors, stylistic devices), the audience, the purpose, the political and historical context

for the text, and the conclusions you can draw from these.

As you approach your sources, consider the following: What arguments do the writers/speakers

make? How do they support these arguments, who are their audiences, and what was their purpose

in writing the text or giving the speech? These elements will help you develop your own argument

about the significance of the material on which you’ll focus.

One thing to bear in mind, though, is that the question of meaning tends to be reductive:

who are we to say what a text means? It’s much more interesting to say how it means, by which

rhetorical devices, and how that makes us interpret it individually. The audience makes the

meaning, but there are as many forms of meaning as there are people. That’s why I’m only

interested in your original contribution (in academic language, ‘original’ means the contrary of

plagiarism, not necessarily an innovative or eccentric interpretation).

When you are looking for evidence (step 2 above) and are doing your rhetorical analysis,

choose any of the methods we’ve tried so far in weekly modules, or any method of your choice.

Every mind is different and needs a different method.

What everyone needs though (and that includes even those who are confident about their

writing skills) is to take very, very good care of the form of their assignment. Even the best

argument, backed up by the best sources, will convince no one if it is badly presented, in language

full of typos and mistakes, and in a badly laid out document. Take a break before you start

proofreading for sense and take another break before you start proofreading for form. Doing both,

with a fresh mind each time, is crucial. Don’t just rely on the spelling check tool: it frequently

leaves out typos and doesn’t detect grammatical mistakes very well. Handing in a paper ridden

with typos is not only distracting from what you actually wrote, it is disrespectful both to

your instructor and to yourself.

Don’t forget you can ask your peers for help on Slack, ask one another for a second set

of eyes, and consult me if you have any questions or need any further advice. Come back to these

instructions, should you be in any doubt, and ask your peers on Slack before you ask me about

easily answered things like paper specs (wordcount, format, etc.). There is a channel dedicated to

each assignment on Slack, and I really want you to use it as a common space to rely on a

ENG2150 - Assignment 2 6

community of classmates, just like you would have used the campus café to chat and share

progress.

Rubric

The gradeless rubric below will work as a checklist for you to make sure you have

addressed all criteria of a research-based argument essay. There are a lot of criteria (that’s why

these essays can be so hard) so make sure you take your time and check your work criterion by

criterion (or better still, include this rubric in your essay prep, before you write it). When you are

fairly sure you have, submit your work to your paired classmate for review. They will then use

this rubric to know what to look for, and you will do the same for them. You will then revise

your work according to their feedback, and finally, submit it to me by the deadline given above.

While you only used this rubric to check that Assignment 1 was on track to fulfill all the

criteria, you are now submitting a fully finished work to the best of your knowledge.

Therefore, applying the feedback you received from your peers and myself, you are now

using this rubric as your final checklist that everything is addressed as best you can.

Originality (meaning yours, in

terms of avoiding plagiarism)

and relevance

- An engaging, original work with relevant rhetorical analysis

- Relevant rhetorical devices from the chosen primary source demonstrates close reading,

bringing examples that reinforce the student’s

points without trying to cover all aspects the

whole primary source

- There are some elements demonstrating creativity or, at least, the student’s unique

approach

Structure and logical

development - Main points and intended structure are

announced clearly in the introduction

- Expresses a logical series of points that evolve logically, from the least to the most complex

- Contains transitioning sentences from one point to another which accompany the reader

throughout, bringing each point home

- All points or questions raised in the introductions have been addressed

Clarity of thesis (main argument) - The thesis or main argument is given in the introduction

- Every point in the development relates to the thesis

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- The conclusion brings a sense that the thesis was satisfyingly addressed in the essay

Use of secondary sources - Relevant historical and academic context is provided

- Secondary sources are peer- reviewed/scholarly/academic sources

- Authors and page numbers are clearly and correctly acknowledged after each quote or

paraphrase, whether in brackets or in footnotes,

depending on the chosen citations style

- A complete and well-formatted bibliography is included at the end of the essay

- Every point is backed up by evidence coming from the primary and/or secondary source where

relevant

- Quotes are formatted in text between quotation marks, but long quotes (=/> 4 lines) are indented

to the line, single-spaced, in justified alignment,

and without quotation marks (see instructions

above)

- The student engages with scholarly debate by challenging arguments already made in the field,

sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing with

them

- Plagiarism is avoided because all uses of secondary sources are duly acknowledged (note

that historical facts, dates, and general truths do

not need to be acknowledged, but repeating a

secondary source’s content in your own words

needs to be acknowledged just like a direct

quote)

- Quotes or any kind of reference to an external source are always introduced and justified as per

their relation to the student’s argument

- There are no ‘decorative’ quotes Clarity of language and layout - The language is formal and corresponds to

academic style

- Sentences are a reasonable length, mostly concise

- Language is not overly flowery and overall easy to understand

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- There are virtually no mistakes in grammar and punctuation

- The document layout is clean and reader-friendly - Author names are capitalized, using full names

the first time they are referred to and only last

names subsequently

- Book and film titles are italicized; poem, short- story and article titles are in inverted commas

Respect of instructions - All instructions of word count, number of sources, presentation, use of the provided

template, writer’s letter, and references were

respected to the best of the student’s knowledge

Proofreading - The work shows clear evidence of through proofreading, proving to be free of typos or other

accidental missing parts

- Student seems to have used the spelling and grammar check tool in Word

Pair Work - Student was responsive in the peer-reviewing activity and offered significant feedback to their

paired classmate, as well as receiving

- Any issues were brought to the instructor’s attention in due time