ENG1102 Addressing United States Obesity Epidemic Research Paper

Assignment 6A-6F: Argumentative Research Paper

In tandem with work on your fifth essay (Annotated Bibliography (5A-5B), you will be following the writing process to construct an insightful, in-depth argumentative paper on a topic of social importance with more than one side to it.

Your assignment will be to write an essay with a clear argumentative stance that you support with the use of academic sources (five or more). Be sure that your thesis establishes a social problem or issue as its topic, then presents an argument to solve this problem.

Topics will need to be approved by me as part of your Assignment 5A, but chosen topics should follow these criteria:

They should be arguable (i.e. there’s more than one side out there)
They should be relevant (i.e. they should involve current social issues that impact our lives today)
They should be researchable (i.e. you should be able to use factual evidence from scholarly research to back up your arguments. Arts and entertainment topics, as well as personal biography topics should be avoided as a result).
They should be addressed to a general audience (i.e. arguments should be hung on research and objective facts, not on personal, political, or religious beliefs).
They should be solution-oriented (i.e. topics should introduce an important social problem or issue of the day, and your arguments should present a supportable solution to those problems).

Sample Topics:

How to solve the bullying epidemic

How to fix the American economy

How to solve the problem of the two party political system in the United States

How to win the war on terror

How to deal with drug use and abuse in modern society

How to fix higher education
How to address America’s obesity epidemic

Banned Topics:

Abortion
Capital Punishment
Marriage Rights
Religious/Racial/Gender/Other Persecution
Performance Enhancing Drugs
Paying College Athletes

Specific Criteria and Instructions for Each Individual Assignment will be on the following pages.

See Course Schedule Announcement for IMPORTANT DUE DATES.

EN 1102 Argumentative Research Paper

Assignment 6A: Pre-Writing

Your first assignment in the creation of your Argumentative Research Paper (6F) is to do a Pre-Writing exercise (6A). For this exercise you can choose one type of Pre-Writing we discussed in class, such as:

Asking questions
Listing
Brainstorming
Freewriting
Clustering
Bubbling
Informal Outlining
Annotating

At the top of the first page of your assignment, list the type of Pre-Writing you chose to use from this list.

Your goal is to think of a serious social problem (not on the banned topics list) and generate ideas on what you know about this problem and how this problem might be solved or at least addressed by our society. To do this, use your chosen Pre-Writing activity. Your Pre-Writing activity should be at least one full page in length.

At the bottom of the last page of your assignment, write down a one sentence description of your narrowed topic for this paper. Ideally it will identify your social problem and give some general idea of your proposed solution.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Bring one copy to class on the assigned date (see syllabus).

EN 1102 Argumentative Research Paper

Assignment 6B: Thesis Statement

Your second assignment in the creation of your Argumentative Research Paper (6F) is to create your thesis statement (6B). For this exercise you should use this sheet as your guide and create a printed one page assignment that identifies your TOPIC, your STANCE on that topic, and three SUPPORT POINTS that you will use to back up that stance in your paper. Make sure your thesis clearly identifies a social problem as your topic and argues for a solution to that problem in your stance and support points.

Thesis Statement Breakdown

Topic:

Stance:

First support:

Second support:

Third support:

Sample Layout

Due to/Because of

1) (First Support Point)____________________________________________________,

2) (Second Support Point)__________________________________________________,

and

3) (Third Support Point)___________________________________________________,

4) (Topic and Stance)______________________________________________________.

(Example: In order to address the problem of plagiarism, colleges must leverage better detection resources for teachers, more in-depth preventative education for students, and stricter penalties for cheaters.)

Thesis Statement Due: In Conferences (bring printed copy) (see Course Schedule Announcement).

EN 1102 Argumentative Research Paper

Assignment 6C: Formal Outline

Your third assignment in the creation of your Argumentative Research Paper (6F) is to take your thesis statement (6B) and expand it into an outline (6C). For this exercise you should use this handout as your guide and create a printed 2-4 page assignment that outlines a five paragraph structure for your essay based on an introduction, three support paragraphs, and a conclusion. Per our discussion in class, the three support points from your thesis should be the basis for your three support paragraphs.

Since you’ll be including source material for this paper, you can record key quotes or paraphrases (and their in-text citations) as examples where appropriate. Make sure to include your explanation or analysis of the source material you choose to use.

Please include your name, date, etc., as you would on any other assignment and bring one hard copy to conferences (see Course Schedule Announcement for dates).

See the next two pages for a helpful breakdown of how to assemble a complete outline.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Outline Breakdown

Introduction

Hook___________________________________________________________________

Background______________________________________________________________

Point 1) _________________________________________________________________

Point 2) _________________________________________________________________

Point 3) _________________________________________________________________

Thesis __________________________________________________________________

Support One

Topic Sentence ___________________________________________________________

Example or Citation 1a)____________________________________________________

Analysis/Explanation 1b)__________________________________________________

Example or Citation 2a)____________________________________________________

Analysis/Explanation 2b)__________________________________________________

Example or Citation 3a)____________________________________________________

Analysis/Explanation 3b)__________________________________________________

Explanation (relates back to thesis) __________________________________________

Transition _______________________________________________________________

Support Two