The Argument Essay assignment takes off from the in-class writing you did during your first day of class, in which you began to formulate an idea of what is meaningful to you in the relationship between humans and animals. This assignment allows you to explore that idea further and to turn it into an effective expression of your position on the topic.

Aside from giving you experience in an important type of scholarly writing, putting together the argument essay will give you practice in backing up your ideas with research. Beginning to use CCNY’s online databases of scholarly and popular journals and books, you will learn how to access the kinds of factual data, scholarly articles, overviews, published debates, interviews, counter-arguments, and polemics that will help you craft an authoritative and convincing statement of your own. By familiarizing you with recent scholarship in your area of interest, the assignment will support you in carrying out your assigned tasks in your group’s public awareness campaign and help stimulate your thinking about the message of the campaign.

The aim of an argument essay is to assert and support a particular stance in a way that will persuade a specific intended audience. Key for such an assertion is a clear understanding of the topic and of the audience (e.g., their knowledge of the topic; their values; what will persuade/dissuade them). You will have to work carefully to join your claims, your evidence, and your rhetorical appeals. You will want to be sure to bolster your claims not just with evidence but with a response to counter-claims and counter-arguments.

The Purdue Owl Web site provides a concise and helpful summary of how to construct an argument essay.

Basic Assignment Information

Due Dates:
9/13–Library visit
9/20–Post Research topic to Blackboard
9/20–Class Brainstorm to create subject-groups
10/6–Post to Blackboard a list of five potential sources for your Argument Essay, at least three of which must be scholarly articles.
10/11–Post thesis topic to Blackboard and annotated links to 5 sources, at least three of which must be scholarly articles
10/18–Post Workshop Draft to Blackboard for in-class peer review
10/18–Peer review of Workshop Draft (bring three copies to class)
10/25–Post final draft to Blackboard by noon.
10/27–Post-Assignment reflection

Length: 1,000 words

Format:
MLA Style, 12-Point Times New Roman font, double-spaced.
Include page numbers, a title, and your name.
Document type: Microsoft Word (.doc. or .docx) only.

Sources and Citations:
This assignment requires that you draw upon five sources, of which three must be true scholarly articles. These sources must be referenced using the MLA Format with both in-text citations and a Works Cited page.

Suggested Organization:
My suggestions for the four-part structure below are adapted from the Purdue Owl Web site:

1. Thesis Statement – (One Paragraph) – a concise description of the rhetorical situation and of the stance you wish to argue for. After explaining the context, try to state your own position in a single sentence.

2. Argument – (Three-plus Paragraphs–the body of the paper). Here is where you lay out your ideas, bolstering them with evidence from your research. A convincing argument will not only include evidence in the form of factual information and quotations, but will directly address counter-arguments and theses different from your own.

3. Conclusion – (One Paragraph) – not just a restatement but a reconsideration of your thesis in the context of evidence and arguments you have provided in the body of the essay. The conclusion should synthesize the evidence, information, and arguments provided in the essay to present a more nuanced, supported idea.

4. Works Cited Page – (Separate Page) – list each of your sources in alphabetical order, following the MLA Format. For anything found online, you must include–in addition to the author, title, publication name, publication date, and page number (s) of the material–the date you accessed it online and the URL where you found it.

Additional Information

Choose at Least Three Scholarly Articles
Develop a research question based on your group’s theme or topic. Using library databases, find 3 (or more) scholarly articles that address your question. Resist the temptation to pick the three shortest articles; rather, try to choose ones that you believe are important and helpful—and that illuminate your topic in different ways. Remember that at these three sources must be true scholarly articles. If you are unsure about what constitutes a scholarly article or whether an article is helpful for your topic, please check with me! Your other two sources can be books or non-scholarly articles that will lend more complexity and context to your argument. Again, if you need help determining the worth of a particular article or book, please ask me.

Read the articles carefully—at least twice. Some articles are fairly clear and straightforward; others will be more complicated and even obscure. A solid understanding of the author’s argument will make it easier to respond to it in your own essay, and will help you formulate your group’s larger argument more effectively.

Evaluate your articles
Make sure you understand the stance of each of your five authors and the purpose for which they are writing. Don’t take the authors at face value. Ask yourself what the author’s “agenda” might be, and examine how they try to fulfill that agenda through the way they write the article. Do they write in a particular way to influence a particular audience? Again, try to choose articles that take different stances on your topic, so that your essay can be more convincing by addressing them.

Provide evidence to support your arguments
To make a convincing argument, you need to provide evidence and prove to your reader that you understand both the primary texts and the scholarly concerns surrounding them. This means quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing the information from your sources and properly citing not only the quotations but each instance in which you mention conclusions, ideas, or findings from the articles. Sometimes two or more of your sources will agree on a point; in that instance, both or all should be cited at the end of the sentence or block quotation.

Organize your body paragraphs around themes, not authors
In each paragraph, include the aspects of each author’s argument relevant to the theme of that paragraph. If authors disagree about the theme of the paragraph, be sure to include that disagreement. This will make the writing more interesting and give us a broader view of the topic in each paragraph. In each paragraph, compare and contrast your different authors’ approaches and conclusions.

Synthesize your findings In your final paragraph
Let your sources ‘talk’ to each other about your initial thesis from your opening paragraph. Whether they are agreeing or disagreeing, put them in some type of relationship and interaction with each other–a conversation. A successful argument essay will include arguments from different sides of a topic, and your conclusion will bring the differences as well as similarities into sharp focus to provide a more complex, nuanced understanding of your thesis.

MLA Style
I expect your essay to follow the MLA guidelines and to include both in-text citations and a Works Cited page.

In-Text Citations: after every quotation or text reference, include a citation in parentheses according to the MLA format.

Works Cited Page: On a separate sheet of paper attached at the end of your essay, titled Works Cited, list in alphabetical order, by author’s last name according to the MLA format, the articles(s) cited in your in-text-citations.

For information on how to create and format both in-text citations and ther Works Cited page, visit MLA Formatting and Style at the the Purdue Owl site. Be sure to scroll down through the whole Purdue Owl page as the in-text citations are described quite far down.

Grading Rubric:

	Score	Weight	Weighted Total
Conclusions from 5 articles including at least 3 scholarly articles		25.00%	0
Evidence to Support Arguments/Inclusion of counter-arguments		25.00%	0
Thesis/Synthesis		25.00%	0
Revisions from Workshop Draft		15.00%	0
Follow MLA Guidelines/Proofread		10.00%	0
Grade			0