Note: again, the above page links in the pull down menu are for your convenience to find specific aspects of the assignment as you work on your essay.  However, I suggest you read through the entire page first, to get a good overview of what you're to do.  Furthermore, I imbed mini-lectures throughout the page.  I want you to learn from and reflect upon the assignment page, not just find out what you need to do.

Introduction

What's the difference between exposition and argument?

There are three basic purposes for writing to an audience:

Entertainment: to give an audience pleasure. Novels, poems, plays, short stories, movie scripts and such have entertainment as the primary purpose.

Exposition: to present your audience with insight, understanding, information and such about your topic, to help them see why your point of view is valid and to enrich their understanding of the world.

Argument: to convince your audience to think or act as you want them to.

The last two purposes are usually the primary ones used in academic writing.

However, all types of writing involve persuasion, the art of convincing others to accept what you say as so. Even in a novel, a writer wants to persuade a reader that the details offered are accurately presented, that the characters are believable, like real life people.

As you know, the essays for our class are exposition.

• You are not necessarily setting out to persuade us to think or act as you want us to.

• You are showing us why your position should be considered valid, among other possible positions or viewpoints.

• Though of course, you've probably already noticed in writing your previous essays that you want to persuade us to consider you as a credible writer and to consider your assertions as worthy because of the evidence and thoughtful position that you present.
  • And we all would like others to think as we do, or act as we want them to act even if that's not are main purpose.
  • And of course, we also want readers to enjoy what we read.

Think of the two primary purposes as existing on a continuum (of course I could include entertainment and create a three dimensional image, but let's keep it simpler this time!):

Exposition--------------------------------------------------------------Argument

On the farthest end of exposition is pure information presentation, such as a reporter might present on the recent Matthew Macon trial.

On the farthest end of argument would be a fully developed legal argument where an attorney focuses all of his or her faculties on convincing a jury to convict Matthew Macon.

What we're dealing with here is somewhere in the middle, academic writing that sets out to persuade others to consider our point of view as valid, but one among other valid positions. 

Remember our conversation scenario in essay 2 with our friend who likes bunnies? You are adding insight to the conversation that takes place among audience members, this class, the articles we read together, and other sources found in our broader society.

I realize the distinction between exposition and argument is a fine one at times, but I hope it is one that is worth considering.

We will not be dealing with argument in this class; you can delve further into the finer arts of argument by taking WRIT 122.

With this essay, you have the freedom to focus upon a topic of your choosing about popular culture, based on Common Culture (CC). So using your readings from CC AND at least two or more published sources outside of our text, I'd like you to develop a discussion about your point of view concerning some aspect of your chosen topic.

Again, as with the last essays, your primary purpose is expository, to give insight, to persuade us that your position is a valid one among many others in our society.

• Notice, as I'm sure you have been throughout the semester, the word insight.
  • The point you make about your topic must be worth saying, something significant, interesting or curious about the topic.
  • As I mention in the virtual lecture on academic essays, part 2, you want to avoid a reader saying SWWC--so what, who cares?
  • Your point should be something that readers don't already know, and would care about.

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Topic questions?

• I'm sure you will notice that I do not give you any suggestions for this essay.

• The reason is that I want you to develop your own. See prewriting below.

• If you're at a loss about what to write, explore the writing suggestions that you'll find in the CC chapter you've read from.

Again, you can focus on any aspect of popular culture based on at least one article from Common Culture AND at least two other credible published source from somewhere other than CC.

• However, make sure that you limit the focus of your thesis to a narrow aspect of your topic, one that leads to a fully developed discussion for a 800-1000 word paper. Review  Part 3 of the virtual lecture on Academic Essays.

In other words, again, focus upon a thesis statement that expresses something significant, interesting or curious about a specific, narrow aspect of your subject.

Click here to review additional comments about thesis statements.

• And do not forget to be generous with examples, observations, quotations, paraphrases, details and such to back up your general statements.

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Remember your audience

We, the members of this class, are your audience.  As I mentioned above, your goal is to give us insight about some aspect of popular culture.

To do so, you need to convince us that your point of view is credible and interesting.

Of course, there are many ways to do so that ID discusses throughout the text.  However, there are three ways to reach your audience that I'd like to highlight here.

1. Consider the points of view that class members make in class or Writer's Café.

For example, if you notice a class member saying  that the government should seriously consider censoring pornography web sites, how effectively will you communicate to him or her if you state that only a Nazi fascist would suggest censoring the net?

Of course this doesn't mean you can't disagree with each other.  Doing so is inevitable.

But doing so respectfully will get your audience to consider your position valid and worth listening to even if they disagree.

2. Another way to convince us of the validity and significance of your point of view is by specific, detailed examples from your own experiences and observations.

• If you can show us  expertise--

• by sharing an anecdote about your elf character in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) or

• by showing us details about your experience battling against gender discrimination in your town's Little League--

• then we are more likely to consider your point valid.

• And we are more likely to consider it interesting.

• Again, review part 3 of the virtual lecture on academic essays about developing paragraphs.

3. Finally, one other way to convince us of your point's validity is to use other sources.

If you find

• an informative discussion in a magazine article about the number of online courses being offered by colleges this year,

• a fact from a credible web page about the average number of hours that teenagers with computers at home surf the Web (see the web pages about evaluating Web sources under week 11 reading), or

• a relevant, well expressed, quotation from a newspaper about how movies use product endorsements in current films,

• you bring in other voices to your discussion that may enrich and convincingly support your position.

Note again, that you have access to reference librarians who would delight in helping you.  Click here for more information.

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Using Sources

Therefore based on the discussion above, this essay should include as support for your argument the following:

• One or more articles from CC

• Two or more published sources outside of CC

Also, make sure that when you do quote or paraphrase from someone you put the page number in parenthesis. See LPH 65+ and the virtual lecture on MLA parenthetic citations.

And include a works cited page that presents the sources you use, whether from CC or elsewhere.

• Do note that any essay placed in the portfolio that uses any sources will need to include a works cited page.  See LPH 65+ and the virtual lecture on MLA works cited. And do note that the virtual lectures take precedence whenever you find a difference in how to cite a source.

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Requirements

This paper is also to be

• 800-1000 words in length,
• formatted with MLA manuscript style (LPH 94  and sample in Course Files>Samples from Dan), and
• in RTF format.

And again it needs to include a works cited page for the sources you use--including those you use from CC.

Also remember: strive to accomplish the maximum number of words allowed on papers--shorter papers typically are not developed effectively with sufficient detail or with sufficient complexity of thought for a college level audience.

• Also, the more effective essays tend to use more than just the minimum three sources for support.

And make sure to keep everything you do in working this paper, including hard copies of the drafts you produce and sources you use, because I will need to see all of it if you choose the essay for the portfolio.

There are five steps that need to be completed as described below to receive full credit for this essay.

Due dates:

• Step 1--annotated bibliography: 11/3/07, Saturday midnight
• Step 2--prewriting: 11/3/07, Saturday midnight
• Step 3--draft: 11/10/07, Saturday midnight
• Step 4--audience response: 11/15/07, Thursday midnight
• Step 5--revised draft: 11/17/07, Saturday midnight

Step 1: Annotated bibliography