Video games and violence Assignment
Video games and violence Assignment
BA 203 ARGUMENT CONTRUCTION ASSIGNMENT 2 1. NOTE: This assignment is a continuation of Argument Construction Assignment 1. It will pick up where last week’s assignment left off – with the claim you composed in support of the position you found more convincing. a. Nonetheless, this assignment must be written as a separate and independent paper. In other words, you cannot assume that your audience knows any of the information presented in last week’s assignment. You must start fresh from the beginning. b. You are free to repeat any material from last week’s paper in this week’s paper – even cut and paste selected if that suits your purposes. However, you should be very careful to correct or revise any material you reuse in light of comments you receive from your professor on that assignment. Repeating the same mistakes or weaknesses will not be a big help to your grade. 2. Write an essay in which you defend your claim. Your essay must follow the following outline: a. SECTION ONE: THE CLAIM. i. ii. iii. iv. Give a brief introduction to the topic. State your claim clearly and unambiguously. Explain any qualifiers you may have in your claim. Give a brief overview of the evidence you will be offering for your claim. b. SECTION TWO: THE ARGUMENT i. Give a full presentation of the evidence for your paper. Be very explicit about each major point of evidence you are presenting. It would be helpful to adopt some kind of clear pattern for denoting what these major points are; e.g., you could start a new paragraph for each new point with “In the first place” [or second, or third ….]. ii. Also be very explicit about how the different points of evidence relate to one another and how they build a case for the claim. (In doing so, you will be explaining your warrant.) iii. In general, be sure to spoon-feed the argument to your audience. Do not assume your readers will see connections – make them explicitly and clearly. Do not assume your readers knows what you mean – tell them what you mean. (Continued on next page) c. SECTION THREE: A REBUTTAL i. Present what you take to be a strong reason to reject your claim. (This point should be derived from the reasons you identified in last week’s assignment for the opposing position.) ii. Make sure you present this rebuttal clearly and fairly. Argue it as if you were a supporter of the opposing position. iii. Explain clearly why this rebuttal does not convince you to reject your claim. This explanation may use one or both of the following strategies: Reason(s) why the rebuttal itself fails – why it is not as good a reason for the opposing position as it appears to be. Reason(s) why your original argument is superior to the rebuttal. (In other words, reasons to accept your original argument even though you don’t have direct reasons to reject the rebuttal.)
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
