Guidelines for Writing an Argumentative Research Essay

Task and Guidelines

Argumentative Research Essay (30%)

The research paper pertains to particular ideas or concepts related to an ideology.

Students will choose one of the essay topics from a list provided below.

Whichever topic they choose, students will present a clear argument and support it with compelling evidence.

Some Guidelines For Argumentative Research Essay

General Guideline on What to Do

Students will choose a topic from a “list of possible essay topics” during the first two weeks of the term.

Students wishing to choose an alternative topic will obtain approval from the instructor.

Students can either support the given position or argue for an opposite viewpoint. Regardless of their topic,

students need to include three elements in their essay - a clear argument or thesis in the intro, a strong

analysis supported by evidence in the body of the paper, and a forceful conclusion at the end.

Argument: An argument requires two elements: a clear position on the subject matter and supporting evidence (factors) that substantiate the claim.

? First, students will take a position on the subject. For example, if they choose topic 1 they can state something like this “Classical liberalism is more popular compared to modern liberalism today because...” Or alternatively you can state “Modern liberalism more popular compared to … because ...)

? Second, they will include at least three or more factors the reasons for making classical or modern liberalism popular) to support their argument.

Explaining factors: In subsequent paragraphs, they will explain these factors and demonstrate how they are related to their main argument.

? If students are working on an idea or a topic and feel that it has different viewpoints, they will take a position and support it with explaining factors (evidence). They can acknowledge the opposite viewpoint briefly in a paragraph or so before the concluding part in their paper.

Conclusion: In the concluding section, students will briefly summarize their findings and reinforce their position. At this point, they may include some suggestions or recommendations to make their argument more appealing.

Length of Paper

The paper will be about 1500 words (double spaced) long, no more, excluding the cover page and list of references. Include the ‘word count’ at the end of your concluding paragraph. Be concise and to the point.

Include what is relevant to the main argument and leave out unnecessary detail or background information.

(Note: The essence of writing a good paper is knowing not just what to include but what to exclude.)

TurnItIn Similarity Report

Once students submit their paper, it goes to TurnItIn –software designed to check papers for its originality. This software compares their paper with other papers submitted within the institution, checks it against other stored student papers, internet, journals, periodicals and publications in its database, and generates a similarity report on their paper. This Report alerts students about the areas of their paper where they have borrowed information from other sources but have not properly paraphrased and cited them. Students can borrow information from academic references, but they need to write them in their own words and cite them properly. Once these issues are resolved, they can continue working on other parts of their essay to improve their work before submitting the final copy to the folder again. The instructor will check the final copy for grading purposes. A revised and final e-copy of their paper is due on March 13th