Due: Monday, May 20, 2024 by 11:59 PM
Page Length: 3 to 5 pages
Grade Weight: 12.5% of total grade
Over the course of a year, major American newspapers publish hundreds, if not thousands, of op-ed pieces in their pages. An op-ed is an opinion piece that appears in a special section of the newspaper that is dedicated entirely to them. To write these contributions, the major papers solicit work from permanent and guest columnists as well as from experts and people with unique perspectives on the issues of the day.
This assignment asks you to write such a piece to be placed, hypothetically, in a major American newspaper. For your submission, you should first consider a particular issue on which Republicans and Democrats (or the right and the left) typically have divergent views. The topic should be a major issue, but one that is manageable for you and understandable to you, not one about which you have no particular opinion or knowledge.
For this assignment, the general issue areas I would like you to consider focus on globalization, human rights, and elements from the major theories that we’ve considered. I’ve formulated them into basic statements and questions around which you should begin your writing.
Globalization: Sovereign states are far less relevant in today’s era of globalization than in previous ones.
American defense spending: The United States allocates too much/too little/an appropriate amount to its defense budget.
Balance of power: Is the United States seeing the end of the unipolar world?
IGOs: How useful are the United Nations and/or other global IGOs?
China & the US: The US should take a more confrontational/less confrontational approach with China.
Human rights: What role should human rights and humanitarian intervention play in American foreign policy?
Ukraine: The United States should/should not continue supporting Ukraines war effort against Russia.
The constructed world: Race and identity based approaches offer important contributions to the understanding of American foreign policy / global relations
Each question is tied in some way to the topics and theories that we have or will have considered in the course. If you have trouble settling on a topic, please come and consult with me. Your op-ed should take care to include the following:
Your topic and your question. The reader should be able to tell at the start of the piece what you’re writing about and what the underlying query is about.
Your thesis — your main argument — is the most important part of an op-ed, so make sure it is easy to locate and understand. What is the main takeaway from your piece? Have you presented your opinion clearly? What solutions are stated or implied in your main argument?
The importance of your issue–why is this issue relevant and why should your audience care about it? What illustrates the importance?
What evidence are you bringing to bear? This is a very short piece and you can’t include everything that you find, so choose wisely. Think about the impact that your evidence will have. Think about a broad range of evidence from statistics to expert views to anecdotes. Given the page constraints, is there sufficient evidence to sway the reader?
You are free to structure your piece as you see fit, but you will need to satisfy the parts above. As you have limited space to write, you should include points that you find most compelling while again keeping in mind that you may not be able to include everything that you’d like to include. Whatever evidence you include should be cited as in a normal college essay, even if op-eds typically aren’t styled this way. Please consult the formatting guidelines from the first essay as to citation and page format. See me if you have any additional questions.
You should aim to write at least three full pages with a maximum of five pages, though four pages is a good compromise. You should absolutely feel free to consult online sources about writing effective op-ed pieces.
Also, remember what I said in the introductory session of the course: “No one is rewarded or punished for their political views expressed during the term.” Please keep this in mind as you write and don’t be swayed by what you think my opinion on any particular topic might be. I will evaluate your op-ed similarly to how I evaluate your first essay. I’ll consider the points above, but also your approach to the question, the amount and quality of evidence that you cite, the overall convincingness of your argument, and your citation/editing/style.
Your op-ed is due in about four weeks on May 20th, 2024, which is the first Monday after finals week. You are certainly welcome to submit something well before that, but this should give you sufficient time to turn out a quality piece.
The formatting guidelines are as follows:
Please write 5-7 pages. If you end on the fifth page, make sure the text goes to at least half the page.
Please use a standard 11- or 12-point font with one-inch margins all around (header, footer, left & right).
Double space the text of the paper.
Aim for at least eight good sources (beyond encyclopedia.com or Wikipedia, etc.), though having more will probably be better. If you follow my directions and look at the newspaper databases accessible via the Leatherby Libraries website, you will have no problem listing at least eight useful sources. I’ll also consider if and how the sources are used in the paper for those who might be tempted to simply cut and paste unrelated sources into their source list.
This is important–Please cite your sources using a recognized citation format (Chicago Style, MLA, APA, etc.) Make sure that anyone who reads your paper is able to match your citations to your sources and to pages in those sources, if applicable. See the citation guide posted on our course Canvas page. If you’re still unsure, come and see me.
Include a source list at the end of your paper. The source list page(s) will not count towards the page-requirement.
