Your first step is to read all the articles in your cluster.
Read strategically. You’re looking for an opening in the conversation where you can insert your own claim. For example, you might decide to disagree with a claim made in one of the articles. you might decide to agree with a claim made in one of the articles but for different reasons; you might decide to agree and disagree simultaneously with a claim made in one of the articles. Or, you might locate a thread in the conversation that is not fully explored and make a claim that addresses it. The point is that you want to make an argument that advances the conversation and turns it in a new direction, rather than just reiterating or summarizing an argument that’s already been made in one of the articles.
You should also read strategically for material you can use as evidence. Underline or highlight passages that might serve as textual support for your argument.
Once you’ve read through the articles and settled on a claim, do some brainstorming to come up with at least three supporting reasons. Then, draw out the invisible warrants you’ve created by completing the following template for each reason: “If it’s true that insert reason here, then it must follow that [insert claim here].”
You now have a framework for your argument, but before you start drafting, make sure you have enough evidence for all your reasons and warrants. Don’t worry about providing evidence for reasons or warrants that represent beliefs UTA students already hold. But for all your other reasons and war-rants, make sure you can provide sufficient support through some combination of textual evidence from the articles, your personal experiences, your first-hand observations, and/or your own powers of reasoning. If you find you just can’t support a reason or warrant, modify that part of your argument until it becomes supportable.
Now you’re ready to start drafting. For each reason and warrant you need to prove, construct a paragraph or more of support that would persuade UTA students to agree to it.
You should produce at least three pages of content in this section.
Do some more brainstorming to come up with at least one naysayer who objects to some part of your argument. Draft a section in which you name and describe the naysayer. represent their objections fairly, make concessions to their objections if possible and answer their objections.
You should produce at least half a page or a page of content here.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
As you prepare a draft that you’ll share with readers, begin with an introduction (which need not be limited to a single paragraph) that accomplishes three goals:
Acknowledges what “they say”
Provides an “I say”
Answers the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions
If you chose to disagree, agree with a difference, or agree and disagree simultaneously with a claim made in one of the articles, your “they say” will be the claim to which you’re responding. If you chose a claim that pursues a point the articles fail to fully explore, your “they say” might be a more general summary of the textual conversation to which you’re responding.
Your “I say” will be your thesis statement, in which you state your claim and support it with at least three reasons.
The answer to the “who cares?” question is the UTA student body or at least a sizable portion of it. To answer the “so what?” question, explain to readers why the issue addressed in your reading-and more specifically, your take on it-matters.
Once you have an introduction in place, it’s up to you decide how to shape and organize your argument.
CHOOSING AN APPROPRIATE STYLE
You’re writing for publication and for a broad audience of readers you’ve never met, so your style should be more formal than in your first two papers. At the same time, you’re writing for a magazine, not a scholarly journal, so you don’t have to write in stuffy, academic prose. Try to imitate the style of the articles in your reading cluster.
Make sure you construct coherent paragraphs that include topic sentences and supporting sentences that stay on topic.
The first time you reference a source, introduce it within the body of your text and, if possible, hyperlink to it. If you reference the source again later, just mention the author’s last name. Make sure you enclose any quoted material in quotation marks. Don’t use a formal citation system (e.g., MLA) because that is not the convention for this genre.
You’ll want to stick mostly to Standard English because this is the norm in publishing. Proofread carefully to ensure that your paper reads the way you want it to and that you’ve corrected unintentional errors. The Purdue OWL website (https:// owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/) is a terrific resource for information on standard writing conventions.
