Instructions: Please carefully read the following assignment details in its
entirety. There are many components to this particular assignment, and each
component is graded.
This essay should be 900 words, excluding the required annotated
bibliography.
The Toulmin essay will help you practice what you have learned so far in
this course. First, you will choose a topic of interest. Make sure that you
choose a public debate with clear sides and staked. Then, you need to
research that debate in order to narrow the topic’s scope, so it can be
easily discussed in 1000 word essay. For example, you may be interested in
learning more about traffic issues in the United States. However, that
topic is too large to cover in a 900 word essay. After researching peer
reviewed articles that discuss US traffic issues in general, you may
discover that the metro system in the District of Columbia is underfunded
and underutilized. Through your research, you found that you could make a
claim that more funds should be made available in order to upgrade the
metro system, which would improve traffic issues in the District of
Columbia. This would make for a stronger, specific argument. Attached below
is a PDF on sides and stakes that can help with this process.
This should be a thesis-driven essay, and it should be in the third person.
This essay must include a minimum of five sources. Three should be
peer-reviewed
sources. From the library welcome page, click on Advanced Search at the
bottom of the page and then check the "peer reviewed" sources box filter.
This* video * <http://youtu.be/rOCQZ7QnoN0>will hopefully clarify the term,
"peer-reviewed". You may use eBooks; however, as discussed in your
textbook, books generally are not as current as peer-reviewed articles.
You may also use primary sources (interviews, statistics, etc); however,
these primary sources should be obtained from experts within that field.
Note: Consider your audience as laymen in the field with only general
knowledge of your topic.
Make sure to include the following sections in your essay:
an introduction and claim,
background,
body,
and a conclusion.
Within the body of your essay, make sure to include the following in any
order:
support for your claim,
opposing or alternate views,
the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents' claims,
and your rebuttals of their claims.
After you have written your essay, please make sure to revise the content
of your essay. Lastly, be sure to edit your essay by checking grammar,
format, and smaller technical details. Please make sure your essay is
written in third person.
The Annotated Bibliography
An annotated Bibliography (AB) is due with your Toulmin essay. Using the
MLA guide, list each source as it will appear on the Works Cited page of
your essay. Summarize each source in two or three grammatically-correct
sentences, and indicate how it will be useful to your project. These short
discussions are the "annotations."
The following is a sample of an annotated bibliography entry
Clark, Irene L. *The Genre of Argument*. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace,
1998. Print.
Clark's textbook identifies the major steps to developing a well-researched
and well-written argumentative essay. It is older, but still contains much
useful material on process. Professional essays are included in the text as
models. It will help me mostly with writing and organization, since
internet research has changed since 1998.
GeneralEssayUndergraduate
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