Directions
For this assignment, you will explore the strategies you use to be an effective reader and writer of technical documents. Earlier in this course you composed an essay that explored a controversial issue. You explained your perspective and then used your information literacy skills to locate sources that supported your perspective. For this assignment, your focus will be more narrative and process oriented. You will explore your findings based on the topic you choose or the Obamacare topic provided below; however, you will focus more of your time on where you went to locate information, how you explored your sources, how the sources influenced your perspective, and how your approach influenced the way you read the documents and then wrote about them. Here are the specific directions for the assignment:
• In your introduction:
o Identify a controversial issue you wish to explore. It should be different from your previous essay assignment.
o Your topic could either be in your career field, a controversial issue that interests you in the world, or the specific issue of whether the United States should have a national health care system, currently known as Obamacare.
o You first need to establish a thesis of your debate and your argument (for or against and issue).
• First section of the essay
o Use your information literacy skills to locate one source that supports your thesis statement. Introduce the writer and the title of the article (Ensure citations are in APA format).
o Describe where the source came from, as well as the research strategy you used to locate the source (e.g. Did you use the Virtual Library? A Google Search? Social media?).
o Evaluate the source. Is it current? Reliable? Authoritative? What is the author’s point of view?
• Second section of the essay
o Repeat the same process as in the first section, only this time you will examine an article that DOES NOT support your thesis.
• Third section of the essay
o Describe how you read both sources and the influence both texts had on your perspective. Did you mark the texts up? Highlight them?
o Explain the key ideas you extracted from both texts.
o Summarize where you stand relative to your topic after reading both texts.
• Last section of the essay
o Restate your initial thesis statement.
o Then, revise your thesis statement based on the two sources you studied and the reflections you completed on both. If your thesis statement stays the same, that is okay.
o Relate why your perspective has not changed. If it has changed, whether minutely or significantly, describe how both sources changed your perspective and how the sources would influence you writing about this topic if you were to complete a traditional researched persuasive essay on this controversial topic.
• Conclusion
o Summarize what you learned about strategies and processes associated with reading and writing about technical documents based on this assignment.
Given the personal narrative nature of this assignment, it is appropriate to use first-person (“I”) references. You will use a research and writing strategy called an “I” search paper.
