Description

This week you’ll select a topic for your 8- to 10-page research project. The assignment is a prewriting activity that requires your detailed responses. Please use the Topic Selection template found in Doc Sharing for this assignment. The responses for almost every question should be written in two paragraphs. The completed assignment is due at the end of Week 1 and is worth 50 points.

1. ObjectivesGiven an essay or scholarly article in any media, develop an informed opinion which includes external evidence and personal experience.
2. Given persuasive rhetorical strategies, such as appeals to reasoning, credibility and emotion, demonstrate the strategies to advance an argument.
3. Given a student-selected topic, organize ideas through prewriting tasks and prepare a persuasive draft.
4. Given strategies for determining the quality of source material, evaluate scholarly articles and other types of source material to assess their appropriateness for a research project.
5. Given various strategies for presenting research, compare and contrast the ways to communicate research findings to an audience.
6. Given the conventions for attributing source material, create appropriate citations, such as through summary, paraphrase, in-text, and reference citations.
7. Given a sample of writing requiring revision, refine and develop ideas in order to convey new knowledge that reflects original thought.

1. Introduction
2. Attention-getting hook
3. Topic, purpose, and thesis
4. Background
5. Relevance to the reader
6. Body Logically presented, a point-by-point argument with evidence (the number of sections may differ by paper, but you should plan to have at least three)
7. Section 1 (2–5 paragraphs)
8. Section 2 (2–5 paragraphs)
9. Section 3 (2–5 paragraphs)
10. Section 4 (2–5 paragraphs)
11. Section 5 (2–5 paragraphs)
12. Conclusion

• Original writing of 8–10 pages created during this course

• Attributed support from outside research with in-text citations that correspond to the five required sources listed on the References page; a minimum of one source must be included from the Course Theme Reading List 

• APA 6th edition use of Title page and running headers, in-text and parenthetical citations, and References for all sources used in the project final draft addresses all professor and peer content and citation revision suggestions and concerns from earlier drafts; final draft of the Course Project is the result of revision and represents consistent improvement over the first draft

The objectives of the Course Project are to fulfill this course’s terminal course objectives:

Through the Course Project, students will engage in writing about a real-world topic that is aimed at a specified reader in the form of an argument.

Skillful argument-based writing will serve you well, in many ways, beyond this class. Both in other classes and on the job, the research paper you learn in this class will take on new forms, such as analytical reports, proposals, reports, and white papers. Writers who achieve success through these important kinds of documents know how to present an argument and support it logically and persuasively using relevant, attributed source material. 

The Course Project will address a topic within one of four course themes:  education, technology, family, or health and wellness. Each topic encompasses the potential for controversy, which means there is more than one valid way of looking at the issue and presenting the issue to an audience. The paper will introduce the topic, provide background information, present a main argument with evidence, and conclude in a way that clearly leads a reader to take desired or recommended action. 

After thoroughly reading and researching a topic, complete the weekly assignments addressing a topic from one of the course themes, leading to two drafts that are revised in a final 8- to 10-page research project.

The purpose of the assignment is to present an argument and support it persuasively with relevant, properly attributed source material. The primary audience for the project will be determined in prewriting tasks. The secondary audience is an academic audience that includes your professor and fellow classmates.

Course assignments will help you develop your interest in a theme and topic, engage in discussion with your professor and classmates, and then learn to apply search strategies to retrieve quality sources.

By the end of the course, you will submit a Course Project that meets the requirements for scope and which includes the following content areas.

My Topic is Bullying