Tag Archives: final project

Descriptive/Reverse Outlining (Class 11/27)

More detailed directions here: Descriptive Outlining Instructions (from Kim Liao)

For this Peer Review Day, you and your group will be making “descriptive outlines” or “reverse outlines” of each other’s papers. It’s called “reverse outlining” because instead of outlining a paper before you write it, you are outlining a paper that already exists. It’s “descriptive outlining” because in addition to outlining the content of the paper, you also describe the rhetorical purpose of each paragraph.

Choose whose paper you will outline first. For EACH paragraph, the other group members should collaboratively discuss two things/answer two questions:

  1. What is the paragraph SAYING? (One-sentence summary of the paragraph)
  2. What is the paragraph DOING? (The paragraph’s role/purpose in the paper as a whole)

The writer should write down what the group members decide for each one, even if the writer disagrees with their answers. The writer will then have a reverse outline of how their paper comes across to readers.

AFTER that, if you still have time, you can discuss other aspects of the paper as a group.

Final Paper Rubric

Partial Draft Due: 11/25 (Monday by 8:00am)
Full First Draft Due: 11/27 (Wednesday by 8:00am)
Final Draft Due: 12/4 (Wednesday by midnight)

For a word doc version of this rubric, please click here: Final Paper Rubric

General Guidelines

For this assignment, you will compose a 6-10 page paper in which you synthesize research on the topic of your choosing to answer (or begin to answer) your inquiry question(s).

In your essay, you should:

  • Leave the reader with a clear understanding of the answer(s) [or lack of clear answer(s)] to your inquiry question. Stay focused on your inquiry question throughout the paper.
  • Develop and support your statements with evidence drawn from your research
  • Make rhetorical choices appropriate to your rhetorical situation (writing a formal research paper).
    • Choose two rhetorical devices that we have studied to use in your paper
      • Use each device at least twice and underline the usage
    • Appeal to your audience’s sense of ethos, logos, and pathos
      • Either label where you use these rhetorical appeals or write a summary paragraph explaining how you used them
    • Utilize both academic sources and non-academic sources for a total of at least 6 sources (may or may not be the same 6 as in your annotated bibliography) and document these sources appropriately using APA style
    • Follow the structural and stylistic conventions of academic writing

Final Paper Rubric (100 points)

  1. Turned in drafts on time and participated in writing workshop. (25 points)
  2. Incorporates research effectively and appropriately to support the argument (15 points)
    • All claims are backed up by evidence as needed (5 points)
    • Quotes or paraphrases from sources are well-integrated into the paragraphs (no naked quotes) (5 points)
    • All information from another source is correctly cited using APA-style in-text citations (5 points)
  1. Paragraphs and sections follow the structural conventions of Standard American Academic English (25 points)
    • Paper includes an introductory section that establishes the topic, the inquiry question(s), and the writer’s preliminary answer to the question(s) (5 points)
    • Body paragraphs stay focused on individual claims supported by relevant evidence and use topic sentences and transition phrases (10 points)
    • The paper includes a conclusion that explains why the inquiry is important and what readers should take away from the paper. (5 points)
    • The overall organization of the paper is appropriate to the topic, inquiry, and assignment (5 points)
  1. Paper is formatted in APA style (15 points)
    • Title page with name, title, school, page number, running head, and author’s note if needed
    • Abstract with keywords
    • Running head and page number on subsequent pages
    • References page is formatted correctly
  1. Follows the stylistic conventions of Standard American Academic English (10 points)
    • Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, Formatting, Capitalization, Formality
  1. Other Requirements (10 points)
    • At least two rhetorical devices are used at least twice and are underlined
    • Uses of all 3 rhetorical appeals are marked or summarized
    • Paper meets the length requirement
    • At least 6 sources are used

Some Examples of Outlines

There are many ways to outline a paper. Some are formal and highly structured, and some are very loose, and most are inbetween! An outline can be mostly or entirely textual, or it can include visual elements. An outline can be a graphic organizer for essay writing that you find online and fill in.

I realized that you might have never written an outline before, or not really know what to do for this assignment, so I’ve compiled some examples for you. These are only SOME of the ways you can outline.

I will just be grading your outline on completion (did you do it), timeliness (did you turn it in on time), and detail (did you actually put time and effort into this based on your research so far), not on any specific form or formatting.

An outline might not make sense to someone else who is reading it, because it’s notes the writer is leaving their future selves to help with the drafting process. As long as it makes sense to you, that’s what matters.

Outlines from Person 1

Okay, these are some of mine from my sophomore year of college.

Outline 1: Witchcraft Outline
I like this one because of the color-coding. I wrote the main ideas/section headers in black, all of the things I wanted to talk about in that section in blue, and the names of the authors I wanted to cite in red. I also wrote out my thesis in full at the top to always remind me of what I was trying to argue. It helped keep me focused.

Outline 2: Amanda Palmer Project Outline
In this one, I didn’t use color coding, just loose nests of bullets and main ideas. However, you can tell when I copy/pasted a quote from a source, because the font and coloring is different. I did this to remind myself of what quotes/examples I wanted to use as evidence in each section.

Outlines from Person 2

These are from a colleague of mine, also from her early years of college. Notice that she uses a much more formalized structure of headings and subheadings (numbers, capital letters, roman numerals, lowercase letters, etc.) than I do. In one case, she wrote her entire introduction as part of the outline.

Islam outline

ps35, paper1 outline

Outline from Person 3

This person uses the standard structure of a scientific paper (Intro/Methods/Results/Discussion) but then added sublevels of bullets to her outline based on her specific topic. (This was for an advanced research course where psychology majors had to design and conduct their own studies.)

APA Study Outline

Once she had her outline, she wrote her paragraphs in the same document underneath each subheading. By the end, she had almost an entire paper and just had to paste the paragraphs into another document and add transitions/formatting.

Same outline with paragraphs: Copy of Outline

Scripted Interview Instructions (11/18)

Today (11/18) we will be working on the “Scripted Interview,” one of the 8 assignments the English department requires from all 101 students. If you are unable to finish this during class, please complete it for homework (Due Monday 11/25 by 8:00am).

Instructions

  1. Review the sources in your annotated bibliography (by re-reading your annotations and reminding yourself of what each one says!)
  2. Choose two or three sources to work with for this activity
  3. Write an imaginary conversation where you interview the authors of your sources about the topic of your final project.
      • You should ask at least three open-ended questions that allow the authors to give complex, interesting answers (3 points)
      • Each of the authors should respond to each of your questions, giving a complex, interesting answer (6 points)
      • One of the authors should respond directly to the other author’s comment at least once (1 point)
      • The assignment should be turned in on time (2 points)

Total: 12 points

For people who conducted their own interviews: Don’t rewrite your actual interviews with the people, but ask new questions in this assignment and imagine what your interviewee might have said based on their responses to your real questions.

To complete this assignment, you must think seriously and carefully about each author’s point of view (based on what they wrote/said in your source) in order to imagine (as accurately as possible) what they would think/say about your questions.

It also might help to consider, if you were actually interviewing those two people, what would be interesting to hear both of them talk about?

Format the interview like a script. For example:

Scripted Interview Formatting Example

Olivia: What is the most important thing you have learned in college so far, and why?

Student 1: I learned that I have to be really careful about planning my time, because it’s easy to get behind, and if you’re behind, you don’t have time to do a very good job on your assignments or think about them a lot. So you learn less, even if the material is easy.

Olivia: I agree, that’s super important!

Final Project Proposal Instructions

Proposals Due: Monday October 21st (via email or handed in during class)

Often, both academics and writers outside of the university do not just write an essay and submit it. Journalists pitch article ideas to their editors, and others might need to propose a topic before getting approval to write it.

For example (and this is 100% true), I recently applied to be part of a collection of essays about the TV show Riverdale, but I didn’t need to write my entire essay first. I sent them a proposal describing what I intended to write about, and only if I was accepted (I wasn’t) would I need to write the entire essay.

What does a proposal look like?

  • A proposal is typically about 2 pages, although it can be slightly longer
  • You can use “I” (like “I plan on investigating ______”)
  • Use a formal academic style (1 point)

What should you include in this proposal?

  • The general topic you are interested in researching and writing about (1 point)
  • Two or three “inquiry questions” relating to your topic that you would like to research/answer/find out more about. (2 points)
    • These should not be questions you already know the answer to, although you can have a hypothesis about what the answer will be.
    • They should also be specific, focused, and answerable/arguable within the  scope of the assignment
  • A justification for why you chose your topic and why these inquiry questions are worth investigating (2 points)
  • Explain which of the inquiry questions you will probably choose for your paper and why (although it’s okay to change your mind in this early stage) (1 point)
  • A research plan (1 point)
    • What do you need to find out in order to answer your inquiry question(s)?
    • What information is important to find out first before you investigate other aspects of your question(s)?
    • What stumbling blocks do you anticipate in your research?

 Grading

Meeting the Above Requirements: 8 points, distributed as noted in the guidelines
Turning the Proposal In On Time: 2 points
Total: 10 points

What is an Inquiry Question?

An inquiry question is something you genuinely do not know the answer to but would like to find out. It must be complex enough to require research and careful thought. Generally, you should avoid questions with simple yes/no answers. “How…?” “Why…?” and “In what ways…?” questions are typically better.

You’re allowed to have a hypothesis about the answer to your inquiry questions, but you should also be open to being wrong.

As you develop your questions, think carefully about scope. If your question is too big/broad, it will be impossible to answer it between now and the end of the semester, and impossible to describe your research in only 6-8 pages. (Some inquiry questions are so big that they require years of research and entire books or series of books can be written about them!). If your question is too small/specific, you will have trouble finding enough to write about. What seems feasible for you to:

  1. Research thoroughly so you have a solid (although beginning) understanding of the issue in only a few weeks
  2. Write about in a coherent and comprehensive way again in only a few additional weeks

An example of a too-big question: Last year, I had my students write a more substantial rhetorical analysis essay than I’m having you do for your “analysis of an ad” projects. One student’s inquiry question was essentially, “What’s up with Trump’s rhetoric?” That’s WAY too big of a topic for one essay! Trump says more things all the time! I encouraged him to just pick one speech or one set of tweets.

Final Research Paper/Project Guidelines

These are up for discussion/negotiation/revision. Please either leave a comment with your questions/suggestions or remember them to bring up in class.

For a .docx version of these guidelines, click here: Final Research Paper Assignment Overview

For the last half of the semester, we will be writing toward our final research papers. The final research paper is worth 20% of your total grade in the course, and the process assignments leading up to the final paper are worth another 20%.

Topic

Choose any topic you wish to research that relates to one of the chapter themes in Weapons of Math Destruction (algorithmic modeling, college admissions and rankings, online advertising, criminal justice, job applicant systems, scheduling workers’ shifts, credit scores, the insurance industry, Facebook and politics). This is a broad range of topics! I’m open to you taking this project in a variety of directions.

Remember: Choose something you find interesting enough to hold your attention for the next several weeks. This is a long project process, and it will be very hard if you’re bored by your own topic.

Overall Task:

Write an argumentative research paper (perhaps 6-10 pages) that answers an inquiry question you have about one of the topics above. You should include some discussion of the use of algorithms/Big Data in relation to your topic, but that does not need to be the main focus.

Schedule of Assignments

 October 21 (Monday): Proposals Due

October 28-30 (1 week): Learning Research Skills and Computer Lab Time for Research

November 18 (Monday): Annotated Bibliography Due
November 18 (Monday): In-Class Process Assignment—Imaginary Interview

November 20 (Wednesday): Outline Due

November 25 (Monday): Partial Draft Due, first day of Peer Review

November 27 (Wednesday): Full First Draft Due, second day of Peer Review

December 4 (Wednesday): Final Draft Due

December 9-11 (1 week): Presenting our projects to each other

December 16 (Monday): Portfolios Due, All Revisions of Previous Assignments Due