Assignment 7: A shot at a draft

To begin, look to your previous assignments and identify a central issue that is raised by the text and that is of interest to you. Then, think about how you might structure your essay to summarize the course text and pose questions for further research into the central issue you identified. Develop a rough plan for the content and structure of your draft (though you do not need to post it anywhere).

Then, put your ideas into writing.

This is only a rough draft (with one more draft to follow), but your aim is to produce a full-length draft that comes close to meeting the requirements below (tips on meeting the requirements are provided in blue!).

• Establish a central theme that grows out of an issue raised by the course theme text and provide a title indicating that theme (Identify a central topic for your essay, stick to that topic, and give your essay a title relevant to that topic)
• Demonstrate understanding of the course theme text by providing a clear, logically-structured, and thorough summary of the text’s content (Summarize the source text so that readers who haven’t read it will understand your essay)
• Provide relevant background and rhetorical information about the text (Do some research on the author and where her/his/their essay was published and include that information where it makes sense to do so; also, include information about the author’s rhetorical situation–audience, purpose, context. Note: you are free to use or build upon the insight into the source’s rhetorical situation that you generated for Assignment 4!)
• Identify the text’s central claims and evidence given to support those claims (Explain what the author of the text wants readers to think or believe and how she/he/they support that position. Note: you are free to use or build upon the insight into the source’s argument that you generated for Assignment 5!)
• Integrate and cite direct and indirect passages in accordance with the conventions of academic research (Include direct quotes and paragraphs, and be sure to format them properly, to include proper lead-in phrases, and to cite them according to MLA or APA conventions)
• Meet academic expectations for clarity, cohesion, organization, paragraph structure, grammar, and mechanics (Make sure your writing is clear, well-organized, on-topic, and grammatically-correct)
• Adhere to MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual of Style formatting guidelines (with the exception of a works cited page, which is NOT required for this assignment) (Make sure your essay is formatted properly and that it includes proper citations)
• Meet a minimum length of 750 words of revised, polished writing (Make sure your essay is at least 3 pages, double-spaced, one-inch margins)
• Pose critical questions for further research that grow out of the text and that encourage complex, debatable answers or are otherwise suitable for academic inquiry (Identify issues raised by the text that other researchers might/should be interested in, and frame questions that prompt further investigation of those issues; for help, see section in Chapter 1 of Critical Reading, Critical Writing, titled “Questions for Further Inquiry“)
• Word or Google doc, double spaced, 12pt font

Answer Preview-Assignment 7: A shot at a draft-ENGL-121-N201