The topic of this paper will be obedience--or its opposite. When is it more moral to disobey than to obey? How likely are you to go against the norms of society when you feel it is morally correct to do so? How likely would you be to "buck the crowd" and go against what your friends are doing if you believed it was wrong?These are the kinds of questions you will answer in this paper. Your claim/thesis for the paper should directly reflect an answer to one of the above questions or questions of a similar nature.If the paper does not clearly and directly address this topic, it will receive no credit.
Start by looking through the readings in Chapter 9 of the Revel 14th edition of WRAC (Chapter 15 of the 13th edition, hard copy). Choose several that seem interesting to you to start your research for the paper. It is likely at least one will become a source for your paper.The readings should spark some ideas for you so you can begin formulating a claim on the topic.
***PLEASE NOTE:any essay you use from Chapter 9 of WRACmust be treated as a separate work. You CANNOT just cite WRAC itself.Each essay from chapter 9 will, for MLA citation purposes, be treated as "a work in an anthology." You can find examples for this in your grammar handbook, in the document found under "MLA Help" in the main menu, at left, or on the website Purdue OWL. Failure to treat each separate work from chpt9 as individual works will result in the loss of a massive number of points.
--This essay will be 4-6 pages long, not including the Works Cited page.
--It will have a minimum of 3 sources,at least one of which must come from the OhioLINK databases that you can access through the Owens Library web page. When you open the Owens Library web page, you will see drop-down menus for accessing the databases. I recommend you start withAcademic Search PremierandLexis Nexis, two very large, general databases.
--It will contain a clearly identified claim and identification of the kind of claim it is. You will do this by underlining the claim and indicating after it (in parentheses) what kind of claim it is. If this is not done, or if it is done incorrectly, it will result in an automatic loss of up to three points from the "Development/Argumentation" section of the grade sheet.
This essay will be the first time you will build your own argument: from scratch, as it were. In the previous assignments, you either summarized someone else's argument (the summary paper) or summarized and critiqued someone else's argument (the critique paper). It is true that when you critique something you are building an argument, but in the upcoming paper you have the opportunity to "start fresh," in a manner of speaking.
In the summary paper, you were like a structural engineer, looking at the structure of Margaret Mead's "house" and telling your audience how it was built--describing the structure, as it were.
In the critique paper, you were like a building inspector, inspecting Michael Moore's "house," and then commenting on how well or poorly it was built.
So now you need to think of yourself as a building contractor, building a new house with new materials. You get to decide what kind of roof (claim) the house will have. And you get to decide what is the best material for the walls (support). And of course, you will have a foundation, though you may not discover what kind it will be until you have gathered the materials for your roof and your walls.
It will be to your advantage to maintain a working relationship with your group so you can get feedback from them on your drafts.
I recommend you start with the roof (claim). Figure out what you want to prove about your topic. Keep in mind that your claim may change as you go along. But if you start with a working claim, i.e., if you know what you want to prove, that will tell you what kind of support you need to find. This will simplify your research efforts considerably, because you will know whether you need to find articles that contain evidence or appeals--or both (which is the most likely scenario).