Essay #2 Inquiry-Based Research Essay (25%)

Goals for this Assignment:

For this assignment, you will write a 8-10 page (2,000-2,500 words) research essay. The objective in developing this inquiry-based research essay is probably not like other research essays with which you may be familiar. In an inquiry-based essay, the development of a research question is the cornerstone of the essay, providing a guideline for you to follow your research wherever the information takes you. The careful formulation of a solid research question about your topic is crucial to ensure your inquiry will be effective. Once you have developed a question–and that question has been approved by your instructor–you’ll conduct research that will help you answer it.

Format:

In order to answer that question, you will identify a source, either popular (such as a blog, or media, like Buzzfeed), formal (such as The New York Times) or academic (such as a scholarly article) to serve as a model for the essay you are writing. Your essay will take on the general shape and contours of that model essay. In class, you’ll perform a rhetorical analysis of your source article–its rhetorical situation, author, audience, tone, purpose, genre, medium, stance and language–as a way to mimic these aspects in the essay that you’ll write. Since each student’s model essay is unique, the essays each of you write will be different. Although all of the essays will be some version of a research essay, some will argue for particular positions, some will be explanatory or investigative in nature, and some will be intended to inform. Your sub-genre’s conventions–where the thesis goes and how it’s worded, how the claim/support structure is arranged, its visual presentation, and how it concludes–will determine, but not dictate, the arrangement of your own essay. Genres are socially agreed up methods of arrangement, but they’re flexible.

Once your research question is finalized, you will look for information that will help you explore and, perhaps, answer your question. Your aim here will be to make use of the research that you discover to help you to shape your essay. To do that, you’ll need to find a variety of sources that are relevant to your topic and read them carefully enough that you’ll be able to summarize their main points for use in your essay. You’ll want to be sure that you’ve included at least one opposing point of view.

The following types of research must be incorporated into your essay:

• At least 2 academic sources
• At least 2 popular media sources
• At least 2 first-person account or experience of oppression and resistance, relating to your topic from you or an outside source

Please note: This essay will be submitted for both sections of FIQWS

Length: 2,000-2,500 words (8-10 pages)

Submission: Through Blackboard

Evaluation Rubric, Have You:

1. included each of the types of sources in your essay?
2. modeled your essay on an existing publication, adopting its genre conventions for your own essay?
3. applied citation-style conventions in both in-text and end of text references?