Purpose: You will be writing to the general public, or a subset of the general public. Generally, scientists are terrible at communicating their scholarly research to the public. This assignment will give you practice at doing so.
For this assignment, select a narrow topic of something related to the stone age. Topics like “Stone tools” are too broad – make sure you pick something specific related to stone tools (or whatever topic you select); otherwise, your essay will be too broad and superficial.
Your essay can take one of several forms. You can envision this as a blog post for Buzzfeed News, The Huffington Post, Slate, or Vox. You can also envision this is the text for a museum exhibit (and attached images of the artifacts that would be displayed with your exhibits. You can also pretend the paper is a script for a documentary you are making about your topic. Feel free to be creative! You also get to choose the audience. You can write to the general public, to elementary school children, high schoolers, whomever!
Formatting: At least 4 pages in length; double spaced; Times New Roman; 12 point font; 1 inch margins. Note: Your header (name, date, etc.) do not count towards the 4 page minimum.
Citation Style: All assignments in this course should be in proper APA format (with the exception of needing a title page). You should have in-text citations each time that you quote, summarize, or paraphrase. Please see the resources on MyCourses for more information, or see https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html.
Sources: You are required to use at least 3 sources in your essay. These may be scholarly or non-scholarly. If they are non-scholarly, they should still be reputable from established publications/journalists. You should submit a bibliography at the end of your assignment.
Genre: This paper is a part of the non-scholarly genre. This means that it should be written in a relatively informal, non-academic tone. Your essay should be interesting and engaging. I should want to read your essay, not because I am your instructor and I have to, but because I am drawn into your paper. Use narrative, examples, and images liberally throughout the essay. I should never be bored while reading your essay. Note: Images do not count toward the 4 pages.
