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ENGl 111 English Composition |
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Paper #4 -- Summary and Response Essay Paper #4 for this course will be based on articles or columns you read from newspapers, magazines, journals, or other sources available on the Internet. For this paper you will need to briefly summarize two different sources on any social/political issue or event you find interesting and explain your own opinion on that topic. You will need to cite your sources according to MLA guidelines. The assignment has two parts: first, to summarize and compare what 2 different writers have to say about a current social issue or event; second, to explain your own opinion about that issue or event. Let's take the first part first: The sources for this paper should be 2 reputable, high quality articles from two different Internet periodicals or reference sources. Please send me the URLs for your articles BEFORE you start writing this paper. The purpose of this part of the assignment is to develop your ability to accurately summarize outside sources. If you already know how to summarize sources and how to use MLA sytle formatting to cite those sources, then this will be a snap. If you don't know how, this is where you'll learn. "Summarize" means tell us the main idea of each article without using more than a sentence or two of direct quotations. You'll probably need a paragraph or so to summarize the most important parts of each article. Go to the The University of South Carolina - Aiken `s on line writing lab for definitions and examples of both summarizing and paraphrasing without plagerizing. Also, the University of St. Cloud offers some solid advice on summarizing. Don't wait too long before looking for articles! There are tens of thousands of articles out there and it's easy to get lost and bewildered and overwhelmed. Spending 30 minutes looking 4-6 times for suitable articles is better than waiting until too late and spending 3 hours in front of the screen. If you keep a notebook handy and record the articles, periodicals, and Web sites that are and are NOT worth revisiting , you can save yourself a lot of time. You can also print articles for future reference. Here are some sites where you might start looking for texts: Newstand -- a list of on-line news magazines. Click here to go find out the conventions for citing a text using MLA style format. The second part of the assignment is to give us your informed opinion on the issue/event and the way it was reported. How did the reports differ and why? Why is this event/issue important? What does it mean? And then you'll explain and defend your analysis of the issue/event. Explaining your opinion means taking several paragraphs to explain what you believe and why you believe it and then providing examples and evidence to support your belief and convince us that you know what you're talking about. Finally, explaining your own opinion and analysis isn't always so easy. Here is an excellent place (The Roane State Community College Online Writing Lab) to find information on writing a persuasive paper. Look under Argumentation and Argumentative Essays. Or, visit the University of St. Cloud's site to learn about writing reaction papers. Or, visit Harvard University's site and use the questions posed for constructing a Critical Response to another text. Please remember to email me the URL of the sources you want to use in Paper #4. Other sources for information about persuasive or arugmentative essays: http://cougar.vut.edu.au/~dalbj/argueweb/contents.htm
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