t’s time to put your research into action! Create a final project that shows off your ability to synthesize and analyze research about an approved topic of your choice. Your project can be a paper, a long-form video essay, a podcast, an interconnected series of short videos (think a longform series TikToks or Instagram stories), a set of infographics, or any other creative format you can think of. Part of the evaluation for this project is how well you can focus your chosen topic into a scope that is manageable for this project length, as well as how effectively you prove your claim. Remember that your claim needs to be a debatable opinion, it needs to be specific, and it needs to be appropriate in scope for a 6-8 page essay, even if you aren’t choosing a written essay as your format. That means that one two-minute video isn’t likely to cover an appropriate amount of information, but a three hour video would likely be too long.
Here are some guidelines for project lengths. Please remember that these are guidelines, and you should get your project approved in advance.
* 6-8 page essay in MLA format. 12 point, double spaced with 1” margins
You have already done a significant amount of research for this paper in your annotated bibliography and your outline. You should incorporate that research here. No matter what format you are using, you must have properly cited sources. Those can be text overlays for video content (think about TikTok captions, or the way John Oliver cites his sources on screen), verbal for a podcast, or standard citations of essays or infographics.
projects, regardless of format, must include:
* A clearly-defined claim that is supported by a sufficient amount of reputable evidence and logical reasoning.
* At least six appropriately-cited outside sources. If the statements that you make are not common knowledge or commonly believed, you will need sources to support your statements. This includes anything that you quote, summarize, paraphrase, or borrow the idea.
* A variety of rhetorical techniques such as counter argumentation, pathos, ethos, and logos appeals.
* Fully-documented and cited in MLA format on a full Works Cited page.
You may not use generative AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, predictive writing, etc.) for the writing of this assignment.
Common Mistakes:
* There is more than one claim or the claim is not clearly presented in the introduction paragraph.
* The claim is not debatable. The claim may be something that almost all readers would agree with, something insignificant to the degree that no readers would care to debate, or just impossible to debate given information availability.
* The author has chosen a controversial topic that is difficult to prove (e.g. religious doctrine, reproductive rights, gun control, etc.). These topics are difficult to argue because of firmly-entrenched beliefs that are not likely to be persuaded by one 6-page essay. Many readers will have already been exposed to a mountain of evidence from both sides.
* The evidence does not sufficiently support the claim OR the evidence reflects poor scholarship.
* The evidence is not properly cited in MLA format.
No matter what format you choose to do for your project, you must turn in a properly formatted Works Cited page. If you are choosing to do a video, series of videos, or podcast, please include a link to your video/audio file.
