Homework answers / question archive / Project 1: Academic essay assignment   RWS305W Writing in Various Settings--Holslin ______________________________________________________________________ First Draft:  200 points   Your first draft needs to be a complete paper

Project 1: Academic essay assignment   RWS305W Writing in Various Settings--Holslin ______________________________________________________________________ First Draft:  200 points   Your first draft needs to be a complete paper

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Project 1: Academic essay assignment   RWS305W Writing in Various Settings--Holslin

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First Draft:  200 points   Your first draft needs to be a complete paper. 

Final Draft, Optional: 100 points. This draft will be due two weeks after you receive my comments on your first draft. If you are happy with the grade on your first draft, you do not need to revise your paper. I will give you the same grade for your final draft grade.

Note: The First Draft and the Final Draft are two separate assignments, with two separate grades. 

NOTE: Please scroll all the way down and follow ALL of the assignment instructions.

Rhetorical situation: For this essay, you will imagine you have been asked to write an analysis of fake news and misleading information for students in San Diego, at community colleges and at universities. Your purpose is to write an informational and educational essay for an audience of your own college-age peers to teach them about how to recognize, evaluate and analyze media that we encounter online--fake news, misleading information and legitimate, credible media. You will follow the format and structure of classical rhetoric, in the lecture on Structuring Arguments. We will learn about argument structure in the beginning weeks of our class.

 

Driving questions:

What are the key eleven types and definitions of contemporary media listed by Zimdars?  

Why is it so hard to tell the difference between fake or misleading information and legitimate media?

What are the rhetorical strategies and means of appeal used in specific media pieces that produce a sense of authenticity and "believability?"  

How do we analyze misleading news and mainstream credible news using "objective" tools?

How do we avoid falling into the trap of simply pointing the finger and attacking "the other side?"

Examples: You should use at least three different examples taken from Zimdars's list of eleven types of news as the basis of your analysis. You may choose which ones you want to use. You must choose one specific media item or article, the identify the category (of Zimdars's eleven types). Identify what type of news it is accurately and correctly. Use the course materials, including the many module pages that explain Zimdars' eleven news types in detail. You must set up each example clearly by going over the rhetorical situation when you introduce it. (Author, Audience, Purpose, Setting/Place/Time, and type of text. You must analyze the examples using course concepts. Please do not use the dictionary or Google instead of the course materials.

Events vs. media  An event that happens is not the same as a news article that reports on that event. Please choose a news article and analyze the rhetorical strategies the writer uses and do not try to analyze an event to try to figure out "what really happened." For example, President Trump holds White House Press Briefings on a regular basis. These are legitimate, normal events that all presidents have held. Hundreds of media pieces will emerge after these press briefings that summarize and analyze the information and presentation of the press briefings. If you chose media from this topic, you would analyze a specific news article, NOT President Trump himself, not the event itself, and not his words. Trump's own words in a speech are not an example of the media, or of fake news. Trump is not a newspaper. Trump is a political leader.

Eleven types of news: You will be choosing your examples from Zimdars's list of eleven types of news. These types are developed clearly in the pages of the modules, and you will be expected to identify your source clearly and accurately. You should not accuse The New York Times of being fake news, for instance. Identifying one or more news types incorrectly will result in lowering your grade.

Images: Included in your paper, you should use at least 2 images that show examples of what you are discussing. You may use screenshots, video stills, images. Please choose images that you are discussing in the paper and analyze your images using course concepts.

Course concepts: Please do not use the dictionary or Google instead of the course materials. Do not use sources and concepts or paper assignments from other courses you are taking. Do not turn this into a research paper. Remember that you will write the essay using the concepts and activities you will learn in this unit, through readings and short writing assignments. You will be required to understand and discuss "the rhetorical situation," the relation between author, audience and purpose and design of the text. You will be required to use analysis of video & images, and you will be graded on how well you use and engage with the concepts we have learned so far. Analyze the way your example works by using the analysis questions on the five modes, the three means of persuasion and the ten techniques of documentary style. If you do not follow the assignment guidelines, and/or if you write a research paper instead of an analysis paper, you will not earn a passing score.  

Avoid attacks, sarcasm and passing judgment  The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to analyze news sources using rhetorical concepts. DO NOT take this as an opportunity for grandstanding or open attacks on the media in general, on news sources or specific news items. DO NOT use this as a forum to launch opinionated attacks on specific political leaders, Congresspersons, or the president, or their positions. Rhetorical analysis of the discourse of these leaders and the effects of this discourse is perfectly fine, and this is what we are trying to learn. But use of attacks and sarcasm in your paper will result in an automatic grade of C or lower. Attack is not analysis. 

Do not simply summarize and repeat what a news item is saying. Analyze the way it is presented using the analysis questions on the five modes, the three means of persuasion and the ten techniques of documentary style.

Requirements and Rubric

 

Please use this list as a checklist to make sure you have fulfilled the requirements of the assignment

1. 1500-2000 words in length, (you may write more if you want and you will not be penalized), double spaced, 12-point font (this paper should be 7-8 pages, including the images. But I will do a word count. If you have less than the required word count, you will lose points).

2. Your paper must have 6 sections and use subheading/titles to mark each section

3. Your sections 3 and 4 should be separate, and have various paragraphs in each one, each paragraph should focus on only one topic each. Pathos, ethos, logos, and/or the five modes of communication--linguistic, visual, aural, spatial and gestural.

4. You must use the conceptual tools of pathos, ethos and logos, and the five modes of communication to focus your body paragraphs 

5. This is an academic essay, and so, write this in a respectful, but not boring, academic style

6. At least three examples of fake news and misleading information and/or conspiracy theory

7. At least 2 images in your paper.

8. Cite your sources, use quotations correctly, include a works cited section at the end.

OWL Purdue University

9. Your audience is your own age, and so your style, diction and examples should make sense to them

10. You must include at least two images

11. Clear, well-structured body paragraphs, with good concrete examples   

12. use of quotations and correct in-text citation

13. use of concrete examples from the text, images and website

14. Use of evidence to back up your analysis. You may use personal experience as evidence to back up your opinion.  

15. You will use MLA style format for this paper. Please use the following style guide for help with

 

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How to organize your essay -- you will have SIX sections

 

Section 1. Introduction (Exordium)  (you may use more creative heading titles than this)

What you need to do:

• This section should probably have one paragraph
• gain your reader's interest by briefly alluding to the main issue (1-2 sentences)
• establish your own credibility and qualifications (1-2 sentences about who you are and why you audience should listen to you)
• signal your project and state your claim --tell your audience what you plan to do in your essay (see the assignment "the purpose of this essay is....")

 

Section 2. Setting up the problem (Narratio) 

• This section should probably be only one paragraph

• Presents information about the context of the argument, what is going on in the world? What is fake news and misleading information? What is conspiracy theory? Why is this an issue right now? What kind of problem is it? Moral problem? Health problem? Economic problem? Who is debating the issue? Who are the participants in the discussion?

 

The next TWO SECTIONS should have MULTIPLE PARAGRAPHS in each section.

For the BODY of the essay-divide up the topic, claim, what the issues are, signal to your reader what order the ideas will be introduced, support your claim in the sections indicated above 

 

YOU SHOULD NOT FOCUS on an EXAMPLE OF NEWS FOR EACH SECTION. FOCUS EACH SECTION on a RHETORICAL CONCEPT. Use the course concepts as the topics of your paragraphs.

Section 3.  Name the issues in dispute and to list the arguments to be used in the order they will appear.  (Partitio)

• Multiple paragraphs. (More than 1 or 2).
• This is a good section to map out your main sections, and define key terms.
• Pathos, ethos, logos, the types of news, and the five modes of communication are all terms you may want to define in this section. This will set up your analysis clearly by anchoring it in clearly defined terms.   

 

Section 4. The main body of the essay where you will offer a logical argument with your analysis as proof of your case.  (Confirmatio)

• Multiple paragraphs-- at least 5.
• Do not write one paragraph about each news example.  
• Do not write one paragraph about a means of persuasion. Write multiple paragraphs.
• Use the Questions for Analysis of News Types from the course materials.

 

These TWO sections should have many paragraphs-- 3-5 short paragraphs for EACH SECTION is good.

• BEFORE YOU WRITE: develop a clear outline of sections
• Use the course concepts as your topics-- you could have a section about Logos with multiple paragraphs. Or a section about Pathos or Ethos.  Or you could have a section about the Visual Mode of Communication with multiple paragraphs. The choice is up to you. But you do need to organize the body of your paper into clear paragraphs that each focus on one specific idea. 
• Briefly go over the rhetorical situation of each example of news that you are using.  
• Use the analysis questions and analyze your examples thoroughly. These sections are where that analysis will go.  
• Identify and consider the type of fake or misleading information you are dealing with
• Identify and analyze specific details in the examples you have chosen. Use your notes from your writing assignments
• Identify how the five modes of communication are being used in the news you are analyzing (separate paragraphs for each one)
• Identify pathos, ethos & logos in the news you are analyzing (separate paragraphs for each)
• Create subheaders for each section
• Use numbering (first, second, third) to show your reader how you have outlined and divided up and arranged your ideas.

 

5. Consider opposing viewpoints, weigh the validity of opposing claims, consider the reliability and relevance of evidence  (Refutatio)

• Considers the opposing arguments, evaluates claims and use of evidence
• Considers the people who are reading this information and believing it. What do we do to help them?
• Notes the advantages and disadvantages of these views
• You might weigh the opposing claims and use of evidence in specific paragraphs dedicated to one piece of news

 

6. Conclusion (Perforatio)   

• Considers the future consequences, what your audience needs to think about now, after taking into consideration the analysis you have just written
• May choose to end with a call to action or a directive of what your audience should do