English 110 Week 5

Assignment

Module 5: Assignment 2 -- Draft of Research Paper

The Assignment

For this assignment, you will draft a formal, academic essay in MLA format that details an argument about your selected topic. You will use the outline from the previous assignment as a guide, but you can make modifications to your thesis and argument as necessary.

Here are the basic requirements for your essay:

(1) Your essay must be 4-5 pages in MLA format with an additional Works Cited page.

(2) You must use at least 4 sources in this essay, two of which MUST be academic journal articles. The other two may be journal articles or other credible, academic sources.

(3) Your essay must be organized with a formal structure, developed with concrete evidence and analysis, documented in appropriate, ethical MLA style, and written with a formal, clear style.

Please use the following guidelines to help develop a successful essay:

(1) Your essay should begin with an introduction that introduces the topic and ends with a strong thesis. Your thesis should state your argument and its major reasons in a clear, concise manner. Think of it as a mini-map of your paper for a reader.

(2) Then, you should include a background paragraph that offers your reader more information about the topic and its current debate (or relevant history). Make sure your reader is clear about the exigence of the argument; in other words, why does this argument matter NOW?

(3) After, you should include three to four paragraphs that identify your three to four major reasons. Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence that links back to the thesis, and you should support each body paragraph with sufficient, credible evidence and analysis.

(4) Before you conclude, please add a Refutation of Opposing Arguments, where you will present the opposing side or potential obstacles and offer a refutation in order to convince your reader and eliminate bias.

(5) Finally, compose a conclusion paragraph that ties all of your paper's points together and argues an overall significance.

(6) Each body paragraph should include concrete evidence from research. You should integrate your research smoothly and ethically. Use identifying tags to introduce your sources and show your reader an outside idea. Always analyze the significance of the research before you move on to the next point! Example: In Jason Ree's article, he notes that, "QUOTE" (32). This reveals that...

(7) Your tone and style needs to be academic and polished. This helps add credibility to your voice. Reading aloud will help the most with this! Avoid first and second person in this style of writing.

Academic Writing

In college coursework - our "academic community", much of the formal writing you will do should follow expectations for "academic" writing. There are certain characteristics that are common to academic writing that you need to know, practice, and increasingly become fluent in your writing.

Some Characteristics of Academic Writing

1. Formal Style and Tone - Your approach to your topic should always be professional. While you want your writing to be engaging and interesting, you want to avoid a conversational style.

2. Third Person Perspective. Keeping your writing in "3rd person" means avoiding personal pronouns like "I", "we", or "you". You are not writing a personal narrative or talking directly to your readers. Using phrases like "the reader will understand..." and making sure there is a real noun where you would place a pronoun can help.

Third person pronouns include "he, she, it, and they". Checking to make sure you do not have those first person (I/we/us) and second person (you) pronouns can help you make sure you're not putting your personal opinion in your writing.

The only time you want to include the 1st and 2nd person pronouns is when they are part of a direct quotation you are using from a source.

3. Whole Words - No Contractions - Using contractions is a feature of more conversational, informal writing. Make sure you spell out both words instead. Rather than "can't", use "cannot", etc.

4. Be Specific - In good quality writing, it is always important to use specific nouns and vivid verbs. The more specific you can make your vocabulary, the more effective your ideas will be for engaging your reader. The words "thing" and "stuff" have no power - What is a thing? In addition, verbs should really show specific action. Especially in writing like we are doing that discusses sources, you want verbs that are powerful. Instead of "the author SAYS...", you might opt for "the author ARGUES" or "the author EXPLAINS"...those verbs show more clearly what is happening in the example you are writing about.

5. Vocabulary - While a lot of academic formal writing uses "higher level words", you want your writing to be authentic. Avoid using a thesaurus to use overly complex words. All words have certain connotations, or implied meanings. Sometimes replacing a regular word with a synonym changes the meaning and makes writing awkward. Don't use bland words, but make sure you are using words that have an appropriate connotation, contain some "juice", but are not too lofty or over the top.

Instead of using the word "very" a lot, you should opt for a stronger word that says the same thing, just more powerfully. Rather than "very often" you could use the word "frequently".

6. Stay Objective & Balanced - As a writer, you want a balanced approach, even if you are arguing in support of one perspective. You want to recognize opposing viewpoints and avoid subjective ideas. One way is to make sure you use clear support from your sources as evidence of your ideas.

7. Avoid Generalizations - While most people don't like rainy days, it is inaccurate to say "everyone hates rainy days." You want to be careful to qualify ideas appropriately and not assume "everyone" or "nobody" holds the same idea. Again, hopefully you see where being as specific as possible is always preferred over being too broad and general.

8. Analysis - One important feature of academic writing is analysis -- a very clear and supported explanation of your points. Your goal as a writer is to "prove" your ideas. Examples from your sources are good, but they don't do much until you explain how they work to back up your point.

9. Organization Matters - Making sure you have a flow or structure to your writing is important. It helps your reader navigate from point to point and establish your logical progression of ideas.

10. Format - The "look" of your writing needs to follow the prescribed format based on the academic discipline or course you are in. For English, we use MLA style. That means documents are double-spaced, in 12 pt. font, have 1" margins. You want to avoid different fonts, colors, sizes, and other attributes that are not "standard". We discuss MLA format more specifically in another module.