black lives matter vs all lives matter

ENC1101 Argumentative Research Essay

BLACK LIVES MATTER VS. ALL LIVES MATTER

Vital Signs

· Student will write 1000-word essay. (approximately 3 pages in double space)

· Submit electronically as a docx. file at Moodle. (not page, pdf, rtf)

· Due Sunday, November 15th by 23:59.

· Assignment is worth 150 points.

Purpose of this Assignment:

· To have the ability to articulate a position on a topic and support your argument with pertinent and relevant information

· To give you an opportunity to learn and develop your skills at creating arguments, researching support, and articulating your argument to others through both written and verbal forms. 

Description of Assignment:

Black Lives Matter is an American social movement first organized by Alicia Garza, Patrisse McCullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman, who lived in the same planned housing community as Martin, shot and killed the 17-year-old. Garza has described the movement as “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”

While Black Lives Matter movement highlights serious social issues of systemic injustice towards black people specifically, some people claim that the movement should be extended to “All Lives Matter” to recognize the inherent worth of everyone. In your essay, make an argument of the slogan “Black Lives Matter” regarding its importance, implication, or limitation based on your argument.

Essay Structure

Your assignment, an argumentative research paper, will incorporate the skills you have developed throughout this course, and will develop new skills in research. For this assignment, you will:

· Make an argument about your topic. This argument must be clearly stated in a working thesis statement. All body paragraphs must be focused and organized, clearly relating back to your thesis.

· Research sources appropriate to your topic, and effectively use those sources as evidence to support and prove your thesis. Cite all four sources you used in your annotated bibliography.

· Use APA Format. Your paper must include proper parenthetical citations and a References page. We have gone over APA citation, and you have the link to Purdue OWL as a reference.

APA Formatting & Sources

Please write your paper in the APA format. You will need to conduct basic research outside of the resources on Study.com, finding at least three sources that pertain to your topic. Please use reputable sites (e.g., .gov or .edu sites) for credible sources, and avoid sites that are not generally accepted academic resources (e.g., Wikipedia). Be sure to include a References page in APA style that credits the sources you used in your essay. Please include any Study.com lessons you used as sources (including the lesson title and instructor’s name).

Citing Sources for Your Argument: 

 

*A Few Notes about Required Sources : Your sources must be reputable and reliable. Good sources include the following:

· newspapers (San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, etc.)

· magazines (Time, Newsweek, etc.)

· books

· scholarly journals

· some websites

Requirement

· Thesis statement

· Counterargument/Refutation

· Statistics/Facts

· In-Text Citations

· At least 2 References

· Supported details

· APA style General guidelines

Remember that a well-researched paper will include a variety of sources. Also, remember that for academic papers, books and scholarly journals tend to provide the best information.

· Your sources must be a current book or article from a scholarly journal.

· You are encouraged to reference primary sources (song lyrics, advertisements, television shows, movies, photos and other art, etc.).

Evaluation

Your essay will be graded using the grading rubric. (will be uploaded this week).

THIS ASSIGNMENT IS IMPORTANT!!!

No matter what discipline you are in, you will have to write well-researched papers. Sometimes, you will have to generate your own topics. Other times you may be given a broad topic that you have to narrow and focus for research. You need to get used to finding good sources (not just whatever pops up first in a google search) and figuring out ways to effectively integrate those sources into your own writing. Research papers are the cornerstone of many upper-division and writing intensive courses.

Make every effort to produce a well-written, well-researched set of drafts now to reduce the amount of work you have to do later. Embrace the process; that’s what this class is all about.