Position Paper

Essay 5: Position Paper - Development 50 pts

Description: 4-5 page position paper in development of another author’s idea

Format: MLA format, double-spaced

12-point Times New Roman font

Due Dates: Rough Draft: Monday 12/09 (1 copy)

Final Draft: Friday, 12/13

Source: Either Michel Montaigne’s “On the Cannibals” or

Bertrand Russell’s “Education as a Political Institution”

Assignment:

Create a specific, unobvious, and non-list thesis that takes a position in development of an underdeveloped idea or an unresolved tension from either “On the Cannibals” or “Education as a Political Institution.”

Your thesis should be a plausible, arguable claim, and it should include the title and author of the essay you’re choosing to develop.

When investigating your chosen essay, look for a “point of interest passage” with ideas or tensions that seem interesting to you but that the author does not elaborate on, fully defend, or resolve. Ideas presented using figurative language are often rich in implied meaning and present significant opportunities for development. Avoid a point of interest passage that includes the author’s thesis, as the thesis is the one idea that the author will be sure to develop as much as they can.

Complete thesis statements will be both non-obvious and supportable through careful, critical consideration of textual and hypothetical evidence. In this case, a non-obvious thesis would be one that cannot be demonstrated by mere summary of the essay (in other words, your thesis should require significant analysis of evidence to prove plausible).

Demonstrate that your development of the point of interest passage is plausible by raising evidence from and analyzing a few key details from the essay.

Demonstrate that your development of the author’s idea is viable on its own by raising and examining hypothetical evidence.

The spirit of this assignment is not to argue “for or against” the author but rather to put yourself in the position of refining the author’s ideas. You’re to practice thinking in an intellectual tradition. Therefore, your development should not go against the author’s argument, and you should dedicate a paragraph in your essay to explaining how your development still “fits” (as in does not contradict) within the author’s general argumentative framework (his thesis).

Your work should strive for independence. That means you should provide a complete CABIN summary of your chosen essay. This summary should not constitute your introduction—it should probably appear as the second paragraph. Shoot for between 200-250 words. Remember your summary training!

Of course, you’ll need to engage the reader in the introduction and compose a meaty conclusion that addresses “So what?” without resorting to repetition.

The absolute minimum length of this essay is 3.5 pages, and the absolute maximum length of this essay is 5.5 pages.

An important part of creating a complete argumentative essay is confidently and thoroughly addressing complicating evidence and counterarguments. We’ve practiced this throughout the course.

Put yourself in an opponent’s shoes by imagining what objection your reader might raise against your development of the point of interest passage. Accommodate or refute (or do a little bit of both).

Or propose an alternative development of the passage from the essay you focus on. Accommodate or refute (or do a little bit of both).

Use ONLY the essay as your source.

Find the parts of the essay that apply to your thesis. Quote/paraphrase and explain them to support your argument. The evidence analysis paragraphs should be at least 1/2 your thoughts about the evidence.

This paper should not consist primarily of summary. The only summary necessary is the CABIN summary that appears early in your paper.

Criteria for Evaluation:

Strong, insightful, specific, unobvious, and carefully worded thesis statement that asserts an arguable claim that takes a clear position in development of an underdeveloped idea or unresolved tension from the essay

Relies on textual and hypothetical evidence thoroughly examined in analysis paragraphs

Stays rigorously focused on the thesis

Completes the assignment

Reasoned refutation/accommodation of an opposition

Minimal summary; it should be confined to the CABIN summary paragraph

Coherent, complete, and convincing argument

Engaging introduction; meaty conclusion that avoids repetition and answers “So what?”

Logical organization, with focused paragraph structure and transitions

Cites all paraphrases and quotes with a page number.

Correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and MLA citation

Grade Range:

A - Model paper. One or maybe two minor errors and no major errors.

B - A few minor errors and perhaps one major error counterbalanced by better than average execution.

C - Complete assignment. One or more major errors accompanied by several minor errors. On balance, however, the paper does fair work satisfying the requirements. A “C” paper is a successful paper.

D - A medley of major and minor errors. Sometimes an incomplete assignment. Often times “D” papers demonstrate reading and assignment comprehension issues or are a product of student sloppiness and laziness.

F - Failure.

Major Errors: Result in the loss of anywhere between 3.75-12 points, depending on the severity. These errors usually involve issues related to accuracy and misrepresentation, the thesis, introducing and concluding, independence, citation, evidence, analysis, and/or completion.

Minor Errors: Result in the loss of anywhere between .5-3.74 points, depending on the severity. These errors usually involve issues related to grammar and editing, organization, clarity, and neutrality. However, sometimes a problem with accuracy and misrepresentation, the thesis, introducing and concluding, independence, citation, evidence, analysis, and/or completion is insignificant enough to fall under this category.

Keep in mind that minor errors can snowball and cause major errors. For instance, minor errors in organization could conceivably make a paper very difficult to follow overall, giving rise to a work that lacks independence.