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Argumentative Analysis Essay Assignment

Final Paper - 10% of overall grade

For your final paper, you will be analyzing a text and writing an argument essay based on your analysis of the quality of the selected argument. You will choose one of the following essays to work with for this final paper:

Please select elements from the following list to analyze:

Then in your essay, use the analysis to:

You will write to an audience that has merely skimmed the essay and needs to know more about the Quality of the elements listed above. Your audience will be a section of CO300 but not this section. Your focus must be one of the "Argue" prompts above. Your purpose is to show your audience that the author's claim is not acceptable, that the author should improve his/her essay in specific ways, or that the author has presented a very effective argument for specific reasons.

The purpose of this essay assignment is to strengthen your critical reading skills and your text analysis aptitude. So, please review handouts with regard to summary, rhetorical analysis, and Toulmin Method of analysis from the first half of the semester. Don't hesitate to write informal summaries, REALM Analyses, and/or Toulmin Analyses to determine the Quality of the elements in the essay. I would suggest that as you begin working with one of these essays for the final paper, you drag out or take another look at the workshop sheets that we have used throughout this course to evaluate our own writing. Apply these questions to the essay that you have chosen to write on to determine the Quality of the elements.

Paper requirements:

This paper should be 3 - 5 pages long, double-spaced with reasonable margins. All drafts and workshop sheets must be submitted with the final draft in a pocket folder.

Due Dates:

One last note: Because both of these essays will need careful attention before an academic analysis can be made, I suggest that you read and re-read them several times over the weekend so that you are ready to start writing about them when you come to class on Monday, April 26th. You may also want to take a look at Esquire magazine and Natural History magazine over the weekend so that you are a step ahead with regard to the audiences these essays were written to.