Messages Advertising Sends About Gender, Race, Sexuality, Age, Physical Ability, and/or Class

Discuss the messages advertising sends about gender, race, sexuality, age, physical ability, and/or class.  Be sure to provide close analysis of at least 3 different advertisements in your body paragraphs as evidence for your three specific supporting arguments.  Each body paragraph must also include at least 1 quote from the scholarly texts you found during your research.  Images of the ads you are discussing must be included in an appendix at the end of the essay.  Full publication information for these ads and the scholarly texts you reference in the essay must be included in your MLA bibliography.

This assignment requires students to write an argumentative essay that showcases the conventions of academic research.  For this essay you will conduct library research on your topic.  You must find and closely read at least 2 academic peer-reviewed journal articles that must be referenced in your MLA bibliography.  Part of this assignment involves identifying sources that are relevant to your topic and will help you develop your own unique perspective on the issue you are studying so be sure to conduct your research in a critical and engaged manner.   

This essay should be written in conventional essay format and must be thoroughly edited for grammatical errors.  Please note that this essay must provide a clear and consistent argument.  It is not sufficient to provide a general discussion of an issue.  Rather, your position on what you are discussing should be clear and supported with evidence from external sources.  You must also present unique analysis in this essay (i.e. it will not suffice solely to reiterate other theorists’ arguments).  Please remember that one of the best ways to develop unique analysis is through performing close analysis of the language used in quotes from the external sources you have selected.   

Each body paragraph of your essay must contain evidence to support your thesis and supporting arguments, including 1-2 quotes from the scholarly texts you find during your research and close analysis of the advertisements you found during your research.  Quotes must be properly contextualized, introduced, and analyzed.   

Please note that failure to document the essay according to MLA guidelines will result in a grade of zero; students who fail the Research Paper may not pass this course.   

Learning Objectives:

• demonstrate your understanding of and ability to bring together the different academic skills you have learned over the semester (i.e. active reading, researching, summarizing/paraphrasing, quoting, referencing as per MLA format, developing strong arguments, editing, etc)

• demonstrate your understanding of conventional essay format and the ability to present arguments and evidence in a clear and coherent manner

• demonstrate your ability to identify scholarly texts that are relevant to your topic and support the particular arguments you are making in your paper

• demonstrate your ability to properly incorporate quotes into body paragraphs

• reference properly using MLA format (i.e. include in-text parenthetical author/page citations and a bibliography)

• develop creative close analysis of advertisements and scholarly texts