Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.
Respond to one of the following options in an essay of 800-1200 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.). Raise a central question at the end of your introduction that the rest of the paper strives to answer in the persuasive format.
For details of the physical formatting of your paper on paper—margins, headers, titles, etc.—see the simple stuff page. For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotes and documentation page. All options require quotations from the readings, so a works cited page is necessary.
I encourage you to seek my help with your paper outside of class. If my office hours don't mesh well with your schedule, let me know, and we'll make arrangements for other times.
Works cited info: For bibliographic information on the handouts, see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages from which you loaded the Adobe .pdf files).
Note that you must submit the final draft in both hard copy (printed on paper) and electronic form (as an email attachment). I will not grade papers not submitted in both forms.
Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline just as we did for previous essays: begin the outline with the literal question your paper addresses, then give full topic sentences that answer the question directly for each primary point in your paper (i.e. for each body paragraph), just as they will appear in the essay itself, and conclude the outline with the paper's overall thesis, answering the central question directly and combining your essential points from the various topic sentences. See sample topic sentence outlines on my writing tips page and on the paper proposal assignment page. On the date of peer response, in addition to bringing a complete draft of the paper to class, you will turn in this topic sentence outline for reading quiz credit.
Options:
1) Construct an argument between at least three
different viewpoints in answer of the question, "Why do we work?"
(You may use this question, word for word, as your "central question" without
fear of plagiarism.) You may have one opposing view and two or more of your own, or two opposing views and one or two of your own, etc. While you are not restricted to views expressed in
our readings, you must quote at least two of the articles we've read
on work, and you must incorporate a bare minimum of four quotations from our readings into
your discussion.
2) Construct an argument in answer of the question, "Why are so many people such passionate sports fans?" (You may use this question word for word as your "intro question.") Here too you are not restricted to views expressed in our readings, but you must quote from our recent readings at least four times.
3) Analyze and explain different forces that lead people to behavior they know is immoral or unethical: consider what makes people behave in ways that they themselves believe are wrong, either by committing some particular action or by failing to act in a given situation. You may consider scenarios and types of behavior other than those we discussed in class, but you must include at least four quotations (total) from any two or more of the following articles: "Salvation," "America, Look at Your Shame," "The Singer Solution to World Poverty," and "The Insufficiency of Honesty."
Note that this option does not necessarily call for argumentation—you can raise a question in the introduction and then present only positive, direct answers that you agree with. In other words, an opposing viewpoint is not required with this option.
Every
topic sentence should answer the intro question directly.
Introduce all
quotes: see nugget 3.
Sweat
the details: use the Golden Rules, Nuggets, Simple Stuff, and Quotes
& Documentation pages and proofread carefully.
Offer
concrete evidence (quotes) in support of each of your major assertions.
Call
or email if you have questions or problems.
Use the ARC (Academic Resources Center)! I encourage you to see tutors for help with your papers at the ARC on either the Macon or Warner-Robins campus. We have well-trained tutors who can give you plenty of one-on-one attention with any aspect of the writing process. Be sure to take a copy of this assignment with you to any tutoring session, or show your tutor this assignment page on the web.