Assignment research paper
Essay 4: Argument/Persuasive Assignment
Objective:
Write an essay that effectively argues your position on the prompt and presents evidence
from the texts as support. Evaluate and utilize outside sources, effective quoting and clear
analysis. Use and apply rhetorical strategies learned in your own argument.
Required Research/Readings:
This essay will require a minimum of
four (4)
outside sources, which you will need to
find. These source need to be reliable, credible and correctly cited in MLA. You need to
introduce these sources as you use them in the essay and correctly cite them in a Works
Cited page.
Length
:
6-7 pages (not including Works Cited)
Background:
If you have ever had to convince your parents to let you borrow the car or
stay out late, or convince a friend or a partner that you should get pizza tonight and not
sushi, you have (possibly subconsciously) used argumentative/persuasion tactics to
convince the other person to agree with you. One of the greatest tools that we have as
writers is the power to persuade others, a skill that will be useful to you far beyond
English class.
The main purpose of an argument/persuasive essay is to convince your audience to
take your side on an issue by presenting a logical idea and supporting it with specific
and appropriate researched evidence.
Prompt:
For this assignment, you will develop an argumentative essay that establishes a clear
claim, supports it with researched sources and refutes at least one counter argument.
You will have two options:
A. Choose a controversial local (San Diego County) issue and argue in favor of one
side.
Previous topics have included issues such as:
What should be done with Children’s Pool in La Jolla?
Should a new Chargers stadium be built? (over now)
How should the pollution in San Diego be controlled?
Should there be a casino in Jamul? (over now)
