Helpful Info for Revision Plan Assignment

FOR ETUTORING SUBMISSION:

The final paper will be a 10-12 page document that: 1) uses a variety of sources ( between 10-15, including 8 professional and/or academic) to explore a well-defined topic; 2) articulates an informed position on an issue, making a clear and reasonable argument based on your analysis of the research; 3) documents correctly the use of sources; 4) directs diction, voice, tone, evidence, and English language conventions (grammar, spelling, syntax) to a reasonable, interested, diverse, academic audience. The paper’s topic must focus on a particular historical event or moment. The term “historical event” might be understood very broadly here—you may write about anything political, cultural, scientific, natural, or anthropological, sociological, psychological, or economic—as long as your argument is centered on a particular moment or era in time. Remember that history, and specific events in history, can be interpreted in a variety of ways. These interpretations ARE arguments. We will discuss forms that your argument may take over the next several weeks.


This is a significantly revised version of your final research paper. Since the focus of the course is researching, writing and revising this paper, you will be expected to produce a much higher quality of writing than might be expected for research papers in other courses.
Please remember the following:

1. This project should reflect a topic that interests you and that is informed by a variety of sources, including professional and academic treatments of the subject. This is an academic research paper, and so you will need to rely on more than personal experience or knowledge, or on general resources like popular periodicals, encyclopedias or websites. You should use sources from a variety of different publications, organizations and perspectives. Your final works cited should contain between 10 and 15 sources.

2. Articulate an informed position on the issue, and address your argument to a general academic audience. You must make an argument in the paper that reflects the information you have gathered in research, as well as your assessments of the arguments and research presented by others. Keep in mind that you want to discuss viewpoints that may challenge your own; making concessions to good arguments by those with opposing points of view is good for your ethos. Use an academic tone and present reasoning and evidence. You should assume that your audience is general, diverse and educated. You should not assume that your audience is made up of experts on your topic or people who necessarily agree with your position.

3. Structure the paper according to your own reasoning. Use your sources to help you formulate and complement your own ideas, but follow your own sense of logic and organization. You should have a clearly defined thesis. Use topic sentences and transitions to make the organizational principles of the paper clear to your readers. The paper should not read like a source by source summary of articles on your topic. You have chosen the research—it is up to you to show your readers how this information goes together. In addition, remember that you can have entire pages without citing sources IF the ideas you are presenting are your own and are necessary to ensuring structural unity, integrity and rhetorical effectiveness.

4. Use spelling, grammar and punctuation that reflect American English standards.

5. Use MLA conventions for signal phrases, in-text citations and works cited. PRECISELY.

  REVERSE OUTLINE INSTRUCTIONS:    Reverse Outline Directions

What is a reverse outline? A regular outline is one that you write before you write your paper, usually to give you a sense of direction and to keep you focused. A reverse outline is an outline you write to describe a paper after you have written it.

Why would I write a reverse outline? A reverse outline can give you “the big picture” of your paper. It will tell you if you: 1) need to reorder paragraphs within the document; 2) have a number of paragraphs that contain too much information and don’t fit together; 3) write multiple paragraphs that contain repeated ideas.

Preparation: Number each paragraph in your paper. You may do this on a separate piece of paper or in the margins of the paper itself. Read each paragraph carefully and write down the main idea of that paragraph next to its number (If you can’t find a main idea, write that instead. If there are multiple ideas, mark that as well). When you have taken these steps, you will have an overview of the whole paper.

Ask yourself these questions: 1) Are the paragraphs properly focused? Or are multiple main ideas competing in one paragraph? 2) Now that you have identified the main point of each paragraph, does each topic sentence support the main idea of each paragraph? 3) Are there some ideas that are extraneous (unneeded) to the paragraph? Can they be removed? 4) Are there some ideas that can be moved to a different part of the paper? 5) When you look at the outline as a whole, does the organization of the paper reflect what you promised in your introduction and thesis to the paper?

  ETUTORING LINK:    Clark link for etutoring