College level English writing

English 1302 Essay Assignment #1

Prewriting Exercise

Reflect on the ideas presented in the various articles you have read addressing the impact of mass media technologies as well as the discussion you have had with classmates about these ideas. In particular, bear in mind Joanne Simpson’s claim that students’ use of media technology results in a scattered, fragmentary consciousness that is affecting their ability to communicate effectively with their instructors and their performance in college classes. Similar concerns about mass media and technology and their collective impact on reading, writing, thinking, and communicating are raised by the other authors in Unit One.

Essay Prompt

Write an essay in which you defend, oppose, or modify Joanne Simpson’s central claim that media multitasking is damaging to students’ abilities to focus, to learn, and to effectively communicate with others.

Be sure that you address the three specific concerns referenced in the above prompt. And be sure that your position or stance is articulated in a clear thesis statement. To help support your claim (thesis), you will conduct some research, as detailed below. Draw upon the assigned readings, the research materials, and your own knowledge and experience to develop your argument. Be sure to provide specific examples and details to support your position.

Important Note: Focus your thesis on Simpson’s claim. You will use other sources in your essay, but the main purpose of the assignment is to respond to Simpson. This means your thesis statement should refer directly to Simpson. When students write this essay and treat Simpson like just another source to refer to, they miss the central purpose of the assignment—to agree, disagree, or both with Simpson’s essay.

Sources

You are required to have a minimum of four sources for this research project—three will be from the readings already provided (you may choose among the essays by Simpson, Tugend, Carr, and Schwartz); the fourth will be an external source that you locate.

You should look only for newspaper articles, mainstream magazine articles, or scholarly journal articles. Note that these can all be accessed through the Electronic Databases available via the DCCCD library website, http://libguides.dcccd.edu/az.php.

Be sure to record the details about every source you find (authors, titles, publication places and dates, page numbers, etc.) for the Annotated Bibliography assignment and your essay’s Works Cited list.

Citations

You must incorporate either direct quotes or indirect paraphrases of information from all of the sources you use to help illustrate and/or support your claims. References to sources and quotations from them will be done with parenthetical citation using the MLA format. At the end of the essay, provide a separate Works Cited page, again using the MLA format.

To help you out, here are the full citations for the essays provided to you:

· Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2008, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/.

· Schwartz, Casey. “Finding It Hard to Focus? Maybe It’s Not Your Fault.” New York Times, 14 Aug., 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/style/how-can-i-focus-better.html.

· Simpson, Joanne. “Multitasking State of Mind.” 2006. Rpt. in Signs of Life in the USA, 6th ed., edited by Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, Bedford, 2014, pp. 469-71.

· Tugend, Alina. “Multitasking Can Make You Lose ... Um ... Focus.” New York Times, 24 Oct. 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/yourmoney/25shortcuts.html.

Note that in MLA format, citations are written in a specific format that does not include bullets as written here.

Usefulness of the Texbook

The key skills you need to write this essay are in the Chapters of They Say, I Say you have read and written discussion boards on. For example, Chapter Four, “Yes/ No/ Okay, But” teaches you how to write a paper in which you can choose how you respond to the central reading, in this case the Simpson Essay. Go back and read the first short paragraph of the essay prompt, and you can see this clearly. In the other chapters you’ve read so far, you’ve learned how to summarize and quote a source and the other essential skills you need to write a college essay that responds to another writer’s ideas. Don’t try to write this essay without the textbook as a guide.

How to Organize Your Essay

As you read the following required elements, you will see that the three “concerns” mentioned in the prompt can provide the basic outline of your essay. For example, you might have an introductory paragraph that includes your thesis statement, then a series of paragraphs dealing with the three concerns. Note that each concern might take more than one paragraph to explain and support in a paper of this length. In fact, be careful of overly-long paragraphs. Studies show that readers will stop reading more than about eight lines, and comprehension studies reveal that even if reader stay with a long paragraph, they don’t thoroughly comprehend what they just read. Shorter paragraphs are the modern style of writing.

Required Elements

Be sure to write your name, the date, and the course and section number in the upper left corner

Be sure that your essay has:

• an introductory paragraph—this should provide context for the reader; it should include information about the general topic being addressed as well as the more specific concerns or issues to be examined; it should also include your thesis statement.

• a thesis statement—this sentence should be direct and make clear your position or stance in the debate and address the three specific concerns referenced in the prompt.

• at least three supporting claims/point; be sure to organize your essay around the concerns and/or supporting claims, and not around the authors or articles.

• focused and well-organized paragraphs, with clear topic sentence; each topic sentence should offer a claim that addresses a specific concern or issue and each should support the thesis.

• direct quotes and/or paraphrases, cited in MLA format, from all of the sources used.

• a clear concluding paragraph

• a separate Works Cited page, in MLA format, listing a minimum of 4 (four) sources

Minimum Requirements

The final version should be a minimum of 800 words (approximately 3 pages, not including Works Cited), typed and double-spaced (standard 12 point font) with one-inch margins on all sides. It must also include all of the required elements noted above.

If you do not meet the minimum requirements, you will earn no more than 60% of the allotted points for this assignment.

Grading Criteria

Are grading rubric will be provided for you during the peer editing process. I’ll use the same rubric to grade the final draft of your essay.