Assignment 8: Shaping up

Begin by re-evaluating and subsequently revising your rough draft from the previous assignment, working your way from big-picture issues like the theme you identified, how you organized your draft, and the quality of the research questions you posed, to mid-level things like paragraph structure and the integration of the source text (including how you introduced it, included background and rhetorical information, summarized it, broke down its arguments, and properly cited quotes and paraphrases), and ultimately, to surface-level matters such as grammar and punctuation.

Again, the goal is to produce a summary and analysis of McCloud’s chapter Download McCloud’s chapter that demonstrates your ability to interpret and critically engage texts in sophisticated and academically acceptable ways, and to generate critical questions that invite further inquiry into issues that the text raises.

For help, it is highly recommended that you visit the Composition and Literature CenterLinks to an external site.. 

Here again is a more detailed breakdown of the requirements for the assignment, with tips on how to meet those requirements 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 5!)
• 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 6!)
• 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 8: Shaping up-ENGL-121-N201