Project Text Assignment

Argument Essay (200 Points)

7-8 pages of argument essay on a Global Crisis.

More specifically, in this progression, you will investigate an issue, debate, problem, controversy or a question pertaining to global crisis of your choice. You are required to use primary and secondary, scholarly and popular, and print and digital (online) sources in your essay. You are also expected to treat your research participants and sources ethically. When you research and develop your argument, you do a number of things simultaneously: extend a conversation, historicize, make a new claim, complicate an existing claim or established fact, find a gap in the studies done and propose a solution or offer an alternative perspective. As a college-level student writer, you also make moves that academics make in their essays: state your thesis or theses at some points in the essay, make general or specific claims, and furnish evidences for the claims made. I am aware that it is almost impossible to come up with some grand universal claims or some irrefutable thesis or set of theses in a paper of this length, but you can and have to attempt to present a tentative claim or set of claims in this paper corroborated by the data or sources you retrieve through different research methods. Even though it is an academic essay and you might have been schooled to avoid personal in your academic essays, I am open to you implicating yourself in the essay i.e. using “I” or bringing in relevant personal narratives or experiences from your life. In other words, your essay should ideally be a combination of personal and academic, experiential and empirical, and facts and narratives. Rather than a prose in mechanical form, it should be a record of lively and deep dialogue between yourself, your personal location, carefully chosen sources, and the ongoing conversations in the area or topic of your research. So, make your essay an exploration or journey into an unknown and try to make it known to an academic audience using the strategies and techniques (such as narrowing the focus, evaluating print or online sources, or dialoguing with sources) you learn in this progression.

Source Requirements

  1. Primary research data (gathered through interviews, field visit, questionnaires, survey or observation)
  2. 2-3 scholarly sources (books, journal articles, book chapters etc.)
  3. 2-3 relevant still images
  4. 2-3 popular sources (videos, blogs, songs, cartoons, documentaries, websites, magazine articles or recorded TV or radio programs/talk shows)

The sources should be carefully chosen. I will provide you with some guidelines/criteria (such as relevance, currency, authority, credibility etc.) to evaluate both the online and print sources. I want you to follow them strictly as you decide on the sources for this assignment.

Your essay should be carefully edited; it should include accurate and consistent MLA citation, and it should reflect your perspective, viewpoint or position, your voice, your active presence, and deep and genuine engagement with your chosen topic.

 

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