Compose an MLA -style persuasive paper that raises awareness of a frightening and problematic phenomenon, political reality, practice, or organization. This piece should work to persuade a hostile and uninformed, or hostile and misinformed audience to either act or consider a solution proposed in the paper. This piece should be governed by a strong and original claim that contributes meaningfully to the ongoing conversation. You should use a combination of research, argumentation, and rhetorical strategies to make your case, and avoid logical fallacies, moral panics, and unsupported claims. This piece should closely follow the classical template and be crafted to A, meet the needs and expectations of your target audience and B, adhere as closely as possible to the genre conventions of your chosen venue of publication. For example, if your chosen venue is the LA times, and you mean for your piece to be an editorial, the tone and style of your paper should match those observed in that venue.
***Audience and Venue:
Imagine this is an article that could be published in an existing journal, magazine, newspaper, or on a website. Above your title, briefly describe the audience and the venue.
Here are examples:
Example 1: “An article addressing parents who are opposed to allowing their daughters to participate in school programs such as ROTC or the police academy. This piece is to be published in the Daily Texan. Daily Texan readers are generally aware of the importance of such programs for teens but have many different opinions about their appropriateness for certain groups. it. Many don’t know particularly how these programs benefit students of all genders.”
Example 2: “An article to be published in Human Events (www.humanevents.com). Human Events readers tend to be very conservative especially on cultural issues.”
When inventing your arguments and arranging your essay, keep this audience and this venue in mind. This is your chance to finally say something about the topic you have been studying, as well as to employ the rhetorical strategies that we have discussed. The objective is for you to consciously use these tools to create the best argument possible for your purpose, situation, and audience.
Requirements:
Your MLA or APA-style paper should be six full pages or eight full pages, double spaced and written in 12-point, Times New Roman font.
APA papers should include appropriate section headers and come complete with a title page and reference list. Make certain to include at least four full pages of field notes.
If writing an MLA-style paper, make certain to include a proper MLA heading, an academically mature title, and appropriate headers. Here is a sample paper in MLA format –
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_sample_paper.htmlLinks to an external site.
You must incorporate and cite all of the sources you included in your annotated bibliography. Obscure /semi-credible popular and tertiary sources such as blog entries and Wikipedia cannot be included. Please check with me if you are uncertain about the credibility or appropriateness of one or more of your sources.
Remember that your paper must persuade as well as inform. This means that you should present your evidence in a way that will appeal to a hostile and uninformed audience.
More importantly, your thesis needs to do more than state a fact or declare that something or someone is right, wrong, good, bad, safe, unsafe, normal, abnormal, harmful, harmless etc. Rather, your paper should make an informed, informative, and persuasive claim. This means writing with rhetorical authority and avoiding the “me and this army” style research paper. In the midst of all of your source material, your voice must dominate.
MLA format paper
Constructing Rhetoric: The Classical Template
Classical Template
Note: The following structure is ***strongly*** encouraged. I will use it to evaluate organization and coherence when grading your final paper.
When you plan your essay’s arrangement, try to anticipate, and speak to your audience’s relationship to the subject.
Below, we lay out an old template (a classical boilerplate) that you may find useful. The classical template is a flexible arrangement strategy that was taught—in one way or another—by ancient Greeks and Romans and that guides—in one form or another—contemporary arguments. As we present it, the classical template has six major components: exordium, narration, partition, argument, refutation, and peroration. Each part can be configured to meet the needs and expectations of many different kinds of audiences.
Exordium
You’ve heard the term “introduction” before. Introductions typically accomplish a few things. An introduction may tell the audience the general topic that
the argument will cover. It may give background information that the audience needs to know. It may give the audience a reason to care about the controversy.
An introduction may also clarify any confusion that the audience might have. And it will probably state the argument’s principal claim or thesis. The classical
template’s exordium attempts many of the tasks assigned to contemporary introductions. But the classical exordium does a lot less and a little more than
the contemporary introduction. An exordium introduces the audience to the subject and the speaker.
Narration
The narration gives the audience the background information they will need in order to understand the argument that follows. The narration does not have to immediately follow the exordium. And bits of narration can be spread around the entire composition. You may find it more effective to insert narration at various points in the argument, giving your audience new background information as you introduce new ideas.
Partition
You already know about partitions, but you probably use different terms to discuss these elements of an argument. You probably call the partition the “thesis statement” or the “topic sentence.” A thesis statement is a very brief partition at the end of an introduction. A topic sentence is an even briefer partition at the beginning of a paragraph. In a long argument, the partition prepares the audience by forecasting the principal claim and the manner of argument.
Argument
As the name implies, the argument is the meat of any persuasive essay. After preparing the audience, narrating the background, and forecasting the arrangement, finally the speaker presents her reasons.
Refutation
This arrangement—first argument, then refutation—assumes that the audience is ready to hear the argument. They were either sympathetic when they began reading, or they’ve become sympathetic while reading the exordium and the narration. This arrangement further assumes that, after hearing the argument, the audience will be mostly convinced; all that remains is to push the opposition aside. But a hostile audience will be so committed to the opposing viewpoint that they will not consider an argument unless they first have a reason to doubt the viewpoint to which they’re committed. They’ll need to hear the refutation (or some mixture of refutation, concession, and rebuttal) before they hear the argument. In this case, you should lead with the refutation. For these reasons and many others, we encourage you to think of the refutation as a part of your arrangement that you can move around as needed.
Peroration
The peroration is the last thing your audience will read. Contemporary conclusions typically repeat the argument’s principal claim. In the five-paragraph essay, for example, the introduction and the conclusion both feature the thesis statement. Like exordium, the peroration is an optional part of the classical template. If you’ve made your case well enough, if it’s inappropriate to raise emotions, and if it’s impossible to prove any new claims, then you’ve done your best to argue a point worth considering!
The above was adapted for use in this course with the kind permission of Connie Steel at the University of Texas.
Criteria’s
OutcomeUrgency/Kairos/Importance:
