Essay 1 – Argumentative Essay – 120 points possible
Imagine you have been asked
Essay 1 – Argumentative Essay – 120 points possible
Imagine you have been asked to submit a 3-page academic essay to the Supreme Court on the topic of race in America. You will argue whether racism is or is no longer a significant issue for most Americans. While you will choose which side of this debate you want to argue, you need to offer support for your perspective by citing in your essay at least three sources. Most often, these sources will be articles written by knowledgeable and trusted experts. A collection of acceptable sources is being provided to you for this first essay.
Despite the recent protests associated with the killing of George Floyd and other African American men and women, it can be argued that America has made some progress on race relations. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed over 50 years ago and Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. These are positive steps toward racial justice and perhaps most Americans are not significantly affected by racism, but it can also be argued that racism is systemic in our institutions and justice system, and therefore racism is a significant issue for most Americans despite the color of their skin.
Essay requirements (120 points)
The length of the essay should be approximately three pages, double-spaced, approximately 750 – 880 words. Please limit the essay to no more than four and one-half pages, or 1,250 words maximum.
Use the MLA-formatted Essay Template located in Modules in Canvas to create your essay. Open the template and click “Save As” to rename and save the essay on a flash drive, a PC, or in the cloud. The template is perfectly formatted for MLA papers, so take advantage of this.
Your essay should include an introduction whose last sentence is your thesis, at least three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your body paragraphs should follow the 7-Step process described in Lab 2.
Your thesis will be either of these two statements:
Racism is no longer a significant issue for most Americans.
Racism remains a significant issue for most Americans.
As noted above, you need to refer to / cite at least three trustworthy sources to support your claim. You may use the sources posted in the Essay 1 – Racism folder in Canvas. (The term source means an article, a study, a book, a video, an essay, or other similar writings that offer ideas and research related to a topic.) Feel free to use other sources if you prefer as long as they are written by knowledgeable individuals.
Let’s practice writing in what is known as Standard Written English (sometimes referred to as Edited American English) using academic language. This type of English and language can differ from the day-to-day Englishes we speak because academic English is more formal and follows certain standards.
The ability to adapt to these standards in writing is a valuable skill, and many employers seeking to promote individuals into management positions expect candidates to be able to write in Standard English.
While some assignments in this class offer the opportunity to write in the type of English you grew up speaking and that is familiar and comfortable for you, such as in reflection papers, the academic essays in this course should be written in the style of English described in most handbooks, such as A Writer’s Reference.
Because we are writing in academic language in this essay, avoid the first person use of “I” or “me” in the essay. This keeps the focus on the issue and not on you. Avoid “I believe” and “I think” and other similar terms since your claim should be based on facts and evidence rather than your opinion. (See Lab 3 for more on this, and for an exception to this recommendation, see Personal Experience Paragraph.)
Avoid writing “you” when speaking to the reader. It’s best to speak collectively, such as “We can all learn from this example” or “We as a nation must take steps. . . .”
Use formal style, tone, and diction. Avoid slang, casual language, broad generalizations, and contractions in most cases. (See Lab 3 for an overview of academic language.)
Include at least three direct quotations from the sources and paraphrase other statements. (Direct quotations are when you place quotation marks around sentences that are word-for-word by a source. Paraphrasing means writing a source’s ideas in your own words.) Be careful not to quote a source for too long in the essay. Intersperse quotations with paraphrases of what the source has to say. (See Lab 4 for a lesson in how to integrate quotations into your essay.)
Please include a page at the end of the essay titled Works Cited to list all sources cited in the essay. A free online tool for creating Works Cited is Noodletools. Use the page break function to ensure that Works Cited is on its own page. (See Lab 1 for details about Works Cited.)
Be sure when citing a source in the body of the essay that whatever you place in parenthesis matches the first word of the entry in Works Cited. Most often this will be an author’s last name. (See Lab 1 for details on in-text citations.)
Take some time to review the sample essays in this Module to understand what is expected for this essay. Use the rubric as a checklist to be sure you are meeting the essay requirements. See rubric below.
Post-essay reflection
Before you submit your essay to Canvas, add a final page after Works Cited by pasting and answering the following questions:
Which aspect of your essay did you do the best on (for example, the introduction, the conclusion, a section of your essay)? What made this element successful?
How might you improve this essay if you had a chance to revise this essay?
Which activities or assignments helped you the most in preparing for this essay?
Did you learn new information about racism in America?
Describe what it was like to write this essay.