This guide begins with a further examination of academic texts in class, exploring how writers in an academic setting combine personal experience with other kinds of data to appeal to their audiences. The first paper in Unit 2 is an exercise in evaluating sources, which combines rhetorical analysis with textual analysis and asks students to assess why a particular source will or will not be compelling to an academic audience. To complete this assignment, students will need to become familiar with the resources available in the CSU library.
The second assignment in Unit 2 is a second summary/response essay. Unlike the summary/response in Unit 1, though, this essay de-emphasizes summary and instead stresses the use of research and evidence from outside sources to support students' agreement or disagreement with an author's argument. The student is asked to determine which aspects of an author's argument s/he accepts and rejects and to evaluate both that argument and outside research in determining the position s/he finds most compelling.
Back to Unit 2: Using Sources