ASSIGNMENT 3: RESEARCH PAPER WITH VISUALS Length: 6-7 double-spaced pages (featuring one-inch

ASSIGNMENT 3: RESEARCH PAPER WITH VISUALS

Length: 6-7 double-spaced pages (featuring one-inch margins and using a 12-point serif font) Format: MLA format

Your final draft must be either .doc or .docx format.

Overview

For this assignment, you will write a coherent, effectively structured, grammatically correct essay in which you develop a compelling argument on a subject of your choice. You will also use at least two visuals to help you make the argument. You can either find or create visuals—whether a graph, chart, photograph, or drawing—that will enhance or complement your argument. The visuals and the research paper must work together.

Objectives

In general, your paper should

provide a context for your topic;

state a thesis that articulates your argument;

paraphrase, summarize, and quote at least four sources; • acknowledge and address counterarguments; and • incorporate at least two visuals.

Your research should demonstrate

the ability to find and use credible sources, three of which must be academic sources;

the ability to pursue a topic through the research process;

an awareness of the different types of sources available to researchers; and

an awareness of the ability of good research to build one’s credibility as a writer.

Research

As an essential part of the end-of-term essay for an upper-year Writing course, your research process will involve many steps:

Choosing a subject for which you can find adequate research material and narrowing this subject to a manageable size for a research paper

Researching your topic, gathering a range of sources (some of which you will discard as irrelevant to this project)

Reading primary and secondary materials carefully, making detailed notes about the thesis, the types of evidence employed, and the usefulness to your essay

Making a detailed and formal outline for your essay, showing how you plan to organize your thoughts

Understanding how your sources relate to your own thoughts (e.g., to establish a context, to support a point, or to develop a counterargument)

Integrating sources correctly, summarizing, quoting, paraphrasing, and citing your sources both in the body of your essay and in your bibliography

Drafting the body of your paper to put your outline to the test and to evaluate both the strong and weak points in your argument

Revising and editing the preliminary drafts to produce the strongest possible final draft

By completing these steps, you should establish credibility with your readers.

Visuals

Your paper should include at least two visuals (e.g., photographs, images, graphs) that help you to develop your argument. The images need to be explained and framed accordingly. The purpose is to use the images to strengthen your argument, so you will not drop them indiscriminately into your text. Make the images’ purpose clear to your readers.

Proper use of the visual involves three primary considerations: choosing the appropriate visual, labelling it thoroughly, and integrating it correctly.

Choose the visual that best serves your purpose (e.g., to display proportions of a whole, use a pie chart; to track changes over time, use a line chart; to display an object accurately and in detail, use a drawing; to document an event, use a photograph).

Label each part of the visual: open with a title (“Fig. 1” plus a brief caption), identify the units and quantities on the x and y axes, cite the source of both the data and visual (if you have created the visual, the source is “Primary”), and (if necessary) include a legend identifying colours and symbols.

Integrate your visual into a body paragraph, treating it as you would any quotation or paraphrase. Do not leave your visual stranded between two body paragraphs.

Correct integration of a visual involves three steps:

Introduce the visual with a sentence identifying its by its number (e.g., “Figure 1 indicates …”; do not include the entire title of the visual), and give a brief explanation of its contents.

Place the visual after the introductory sentence.

Comment on the significance of the visual. Although the visual simplifies a large body of (usually numerical) information, you should still comment on its significance to your argument. Completing this third step will prevent you from leaving the visual between two body paragraphs.

Structure

This assignment is a persuasive essay, so each stage of your essay should reflect your purpose:

Your brief introduction should conclude with a specific and detailed thesis. To be specific, it must make present a viable argument about its subject. To be detailed, it should include a forecast statement, a brief overview of the main subjects discussed in the body paragraphs.

Your body paragraphs should each open with a topic sentence reflecting your purpose. Like your thesis, each topic sentence should make a claim about a specific subject, a claim related to your thesis.

Your body paragraphs should develop your claim (the claim that appears in the topic sentence) in relation to compelling evidence.

Each body paragraph should conclude with a sentence that sums up your discussion without merely repeating your topic sentence. Each concluding sentence could plausibly begin with the phrase “as a result.” Do not, however, use this phrase mechanically to open each concluding sentence (when drafting your essay, you can use it as a prompt to guide your thinking about the summing-up sentence).

Like the concluding sentences of each body paragraph, your concluding paragraph should neither repeat your introduction mechanically nor summarize the argument developed in the body paragraphs. Instead, it should bring the discussion to a close, for instance, by speculating on the positive consequences of increased compliance or on the negative consequences of unimproved compliance. The conclusion also allows for personal reflection on a subject (if you happen to have any personal experience involving the subject: while such anecdotal evidence is not appropriate for body paragraphs in formal writing, it is acceptable in your conclusion).