Here’s the scoop: The theme of our section of GEW 101B is self-care, which hopefully comes as a shock to no one reading this assignment prompt. Together, we have read and discussed various perspectives on self-care, often within cultural, political, socioeconomic and/or gendered constructs. Individually, through writing reflection and reading journal posts, forum posts, and ancillary assignments, we have worked to develop our own understandings of self-care while clarifying definitions, exploring processes, and challenging popular messages. Before you ever clicked to open our class’s Cougar Courses page for the first time, you were already an expert on the subject of self-care, by merit of all the experience you gained while caring for yourself for your life so far. Now, having read more than sixty pages on the subject, you have educated yourself even more. You have all the preparation you need to contribute your voice to the scholarly discourse regarding the concept of self-care.
Here’s what I expect of you: While I am not providing an outline for you for this assignment, I will point you to the following clues:
Check out the name of this assignment: “Research-Based Argument/Analysis Paper.” Your essay will need to include all three elements—research, argument, and analysis—in fairly equal parts. You will need to analyze a specific message related to self-care, and then you will need to provide enough evidence—in the form of field research, current event research, and library research—that your readers will take your argument seriously.
This essay is a formal academic argument. I strongly recommend that you carefully read Chapter 17 in Everything’s an Argument as you consider your approach to this assignment.
Go back and read what you wrote for your Week Eight reflection journal post, guided by the notion of “stasis theory” as explained in Chapter 1 of Everything’s an Argument. Stasis theory can suggest a basic structure, or recipe, for your essay.
Here’s how to do it right:
Read Chapter 17 and Chapter 1, in that order, from Everything’s an Argument.
Review the assigned readings on self-care, looking for connections to things you’ve personally experienced or witnessed in your life, as you generate a claim. A claim is an explanation of perspective that can be supported by evidence; a claim is neither a fact nor an opinion. As you are generating your claim, ask yourself these questions:
In this essay, what am I trying to prove?
What is my perspective on self-care? Is it important to share this perspective? (If your perspective is not important, I predict that you will struggle writing this essay.)
How does self-care relate to my own or someone else’s positionality or identity?
I know who will be reading my essay. Is it likely that these scholars share my same perspective before they even read my essay? (If your readers already agree with you before reading your research, your argument may be too obvious, verging on fact, and therefore probably needs some strengthening.)
Where in popular culture media (like film, news, branding/product packaging, or social media) have you noticed inconsistencies, discrepancies, or flat-out lies?
Am I presenting some kind of problem? Can I propose a solution to this problem? Is anyone making any progress in solving any part of this problem? (Academic arguments tend to get their weight from presenting serious problems. This problem may not have a solution yet.)
Can I provide sufficient credible evidence to demonstrate my perspective?
Now that you have an idea of what you are trying to prove, how are you going to prove it? Read everything that you have written so far for this class, including reflection and reading journal posts, discussion posts and replies, and ancillary assignments. It might be helpful for you to copy/paste all of it into its own document, one assignment after another.
What material have you already produced that you can use as you quilt together your essay?
What similarities or patterns have presented themselves in your writing?
How can you fill in the gaps with field research, current event research, and/or library research?
Do you have any specific experiences or observations from your own life that are relevant to your claim, that would establish you as an expert on your topic, and that would help your readers to connect to the reality of your claim?
Is there anything that you need to define so that your actual readers will understand your perspective better? (Your actual readers are your Writing Group members and me, plus potentially Writing Center tutors and/or librarians.)
Where, when, and how are you making assumptions that would benefit from deeper exploration and stronger support? Always keep in mind that strong writing is specific writing.
Connect your research with your own ideas and your own experiences in order to forward an argument about self-care’s relationship to physical health, mental health, spiritual health, or financial health.
Here’s how to do it right:
Formulate a strong, clear, specific thesis.
Demonstrate original and insightful thought.
Follow a logical pattern of organization, i.e. each paragraph will centrifuge around a single idea and will be arranged according to a discernible order.
Cite from and correctly document at least 8 total sources. You may include some non-scholarly sources, as long as your scholarly sources outnumber them.
Write as much as you need to in order to argue your thesis effectively. It’s doubtful that you could accomplish this task in under 10 pages.
Avoid second-person “you.” (First-person “I” is okay when you are providing firsthand evident, but phrases like “I think” or “in my opinion” will undermine your authority.)
Follow proper MLA format.
Use Times New Roman 12-pt font & maintain consistent double-spacing.
