Communications 101 (Dow)

Source-Based Writing Project

General Assignment

As outlined on the course syllabus, Essays 3 and 4 make up the Source-Based Writing Project. This project is designed to help you take the writing process to the next level and use information from reliable sources as support for a series of essays that approach a related topic from different angles and therefore are organized using different rhetorical strategies. In order for this assignment to both give you practice in source-based writing and hopefully be of value to you outside of the classroom, I have selected two general topics or subject areas from which you will choose the one that you will write about. I will also establish specific purposes for each of the three essays. As long as you work within these parameters, however, you have a great deal of freedom in terms of the specific topic of your project. Therefore, your first task is to choose a paper topic that interests you. While this may sound insignificant, keep in mind that this project will span over eight weeks of this course, it counts for forty percent of your grade in this course (essays 3 & 4 combined), and it is always better to write about something that interests you and that you care about. Ultimately, my goal is two-fold: that you leave this course with well developed source-based writing skills and with the satisfaction that you researched and wrote about something that you are better off for knowing.

For this project, you will be writing two essays that will require you to first research either . Each of these essays will ultimately enable you to communicate your own ideas on your chosen career or volunteer opportunity and to support your ideas with effectively integrated materials from outside sources. In other words, while these are primarily your essays, the research component will enable you to more concretely support your ideas and situate them within a larger context.

For Essay # 3, you will write a 2-page comparison-contrast essay in which you compare and/or contrast two of the sources you have located for Essay # 4.  The two sources may be of the same type (two articles), or they may be of different types (one book and one web site).  You are required to use a minimum of two direct quotations in this paper; be sure to carefully frame and document your source passages and place quotation marks around all exact words borrowed from sources.  The specific assignment guidelines for Essay # 3 linked to this page offer sample source evaluation criteria.

For Essay # 4, you will need to write a 6 to 8-page cause-effect essay in which you argue that a series of skills will result in success in this career or volunteer opportunity. You will be required to use material from four outside sources as support for this essay. Of these four sources, one must be a book, one must be an article from a journal or other periodical, and no more than one may be a reliable web site.  You may use your sources from Essay # 3 in this essay.

1.Unless approved by the instructor, all sources must be current.  In other words, start by looking for sources that have been published since 1990.

2.If you choose to use the United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook as one of your sources for Essay # 4, you will need to use an additional book source.  In other words, while you are welcome to use this source, it will not satisfy the requirement that you use material from at least one book in each of these research essays.

3.As stated in the course syllabus, students are required to type all of the source-based essays.  They must be double-spaced, have one-inch margins (standard), and use a 12pt font (standard).

4.Also, as stated in the course syllabus, students are required to photocopy the relevant pages from all source materials, highlight the specific sections used, and turn the copies in with the final draft of each of the source-based essays.  This rule applies whether the material is summarized, paraphrased, or directly quoted from the source document.

5.Students are required to properly document all sources using the MLA format for documentation.

Refer to the Course Calendar for the specific schedule of activities related to this project and the specific due dates. Please see me if you have any questions about the assignment or the schedule as we work through this project.