10 May EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE AND THE MAIN POINT OF THE EDITORIAL YOU DISCUSS
You will NOT discuss your own opinion or make your own argument on the topic of gun control that the editorial discusses.
Rather, you will analyze the argument the editorial makes, and assess whether or not it makes an effective argument for that demonstrates the qualities of “responsible reasoning.”
Brief Assignment Description:
Your essay will need to do all of the following (these points are explained in more detail below):
1. Introduce your topic for a General Audience of readers who are not in our class and who do not already know the purpose of your essay or the assignment you have been given;
2. State a Thesis about the quality of the reasoning in the argument made by the editorial you write about (This is the point about which you must take a position in your essay. You will not take a position about the issue the editorial is discussing (i.e. gun control), but about whether or not the editorial’s argument exemplifies
responsible reasoning);
3. Explain the purpose and the main point of the editorial you discuss;
4. Summarize the argument (briefly, but comprehensively) made by the Editorial to support its claims;
5. Provide any necessary background information about the issue your editorial is discussing that your audience needs to know to fully understand its argument, main point, and purpose;
6. Place your editorial in the context of the overall public debate over the topic it discusses (i.e. where does the editorial fit within the range of arguments made by the writers of other editorials on the topic, and/or where does it fit on the political spectrum – liberal, conservative, moderate, or something else);
7. Analyze and Evaluate the argumentation made by the editorial, including pointing out any logical fallacies and analyzing whether or not it is an example of “Responsible Reasoning,” according to the four criteria listed in the Aims of Argument.
Essay Organization:
This is an outline of how this essay should be organized:
Paragraph 1: Introduction – Your first paragraph must introduce the topic of your paper, including the following (not necessarily in this order, except for your thesis statement, which should come at the end of your first paragraph): Introduce issue the editorial discusses, introduce the editorial itself (including the name of author, title, and place of publication), provide basic background and/or context for the issue or editorial’s argument, attract reader’s attention, and end with thesis statement explaining the main point of your paper – for Essay #1 your thesis will argue either that the author does or does not make an argument that meets the criteria for responsible reasoning in his or her editorial.
Paragraph 2: Offer a comprehensive summary of editorial’s argument;
Paragraph 3: Evaluate whether author exemplifies first quality of a responsible reasoner in his or her argument (For example, the topic sentence should state either that the author successfully argues from a well-informed perspective or that he or she fails to argue from a well-informed perspective). In the body of the paragraph, in addition to providing detailed evidence (including direct quotations) from the editorial to support your evaluation, you must also summarize and quote from Crusius and Channell to explain this quality of a responsible reasoner for your readers (who have not read Aims of Argument). Remember, your goal is as much to explore what qualities make an argument responsible as it is to show whether this editorial argues responsibly.
Paragraph 4: Evaluate whether author exemplifies second quality of a responsible reasoner (open with a clear topic sentence and quote from both the editorial and from Crusius and Channell to support your evaluation);
Paragraph 5: Evaluate whether author exemplifies third quality of a responsible reasoner (open with clear topic sentence and quote from both the editorial and from Crusius and Channell to support your point);
Paragraph 6: Evaluate whether author exemplifies fourth quality of a responsible reasoner (open with clear topic sentence and quote from both the editorial and from Crusius and Channell to support your point);
Paragraph 7: Conclusion – emphasize the main point of your paper and leave readers with a final thought — about responsible argumentation, about the author’s argument in particular, about gun control, or about any combination of these topics — or otherwise give your paper a sense of ending.
Now, you do not necessarily have to evaluate the editorial’s argument according to all four of these criteria, if one of them does not seem to apply to your analysis of author’s reasoning directly enough. However, otherwise, this is the basic organization you want to use.
Note: You want to write a unified, coherent essay, but your editorial
may meet some but not all of the qualities of responsible reasoning. You must decide whether or not, on the whole, the author makes a responsible argument, but you should not try to prove it meets qualities it does not (or that it fails to meet qualities it does posses). So, part of the challenge for some of you may be in how to fairly evaluate the argument according to the four criteria while still making a unified argument about its reasoning.
Audience:
As is the standard practice for formal college essays, you will write your essay for a general academic audience, not for your classmates or instructors specifically. Academic essays are always written for a “general-skeptical” audience who does not know you, is not in your class, and does not know the purpose of your essay. This means your essay must convey all of this basic information to your readers.
First, you will summarize an editorial that your audience has not read. Your goal as a writer will be to help your audience to comprehend and critically assess the argument made in the “Opinion” editorial you select. You will write your essay with the assumption that your readers have not read the text you are writing about, which is the conventional practice of academic essays.
You also must establish credibility with your audience by . . .
Writing a clear, thoughtful essay that has been carefully revised, edited, and proofread;
Using logical reasoning ;and
Taking your audience’s needs as readers of your essay, possible attitudes towards your subject, and knowledge of your topic into account.
You must present yourself as a reliable source of information and a fair judge of logical reasoning so your readers will trust you.
Process:
Given that we have been focusing on process for the first month of class, this assignment is as much about the process we will use to develop it as it is about the final product.
Process: For Week Four, I will be assigning a series of specific journal exercises intended to prepare you to write the first draft of your essay in Week Five.
We are using this analysis of an “Opinion” argument as a way to practice pre-writing and planning processes, which become more and more important as the research projects you will work on in college get longer and more complex.
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