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The Rhetorical Situation
For your Issue Proposal, you organized your preexisting knowledge on your issue and sketched a plan for research. You then compiled several sources and summarized their contents for your Annotated Bibliography. For this paper, you will map the controversy surrounding your issue by describing its history and summarizing at least three different positions on the issue—all from a completely neutral point of view before positioning yourself as an informed rhetor among them.
People cannot make an informed decision on a controversial issue until they know the history of the controversy and the range of positions available. Publications often meett this need by providing a neutral, unbiased description of an issue’s history and the main arguments made on all sides (e.g., The New York Times’s “Times Topics” section or Slate’s “Explainer” section). Imagine you are writing such an overview of your issue for a JCC student publication that offers analysis and commentary about politics, news, and culture. Your aim is to investigate multiple, varied, and nuanced perspectives from the major “players” in your rhetorical conversation of choice. _____________________________________________________________________________
Invention (i.e., discovering what you’re going to say in this paper)
1A. Your audience of JCC students will want to know some background information on your issue, so publish answers to the following questions:
• Explain the issue; what is it?
• What caused the issue?
• What prompted past and present interest in it?
1B. You will need to create a thesis statement that reflects your purpose for writing (your exigence). Since your purpose is to summarize, explore, and evaluate multiple perspectives on an issue in order to take a position among them, your thesis should be reflective of that in some manner.
2A. We need to listen deeply and fairly to the “major players” in the conversation. Where/who are the most vocal “sides,” or perspectives to the issue? Your audience will want to know the current, major positions on the issue, so reflect on the titles in your Annotated Bibliography, publish descriptions of 3-5 different positions, and identify which articles in your bibliography advocate the positions you’ve described. Remember, your bibliography is a “living document,” and, like the U.S. Constitution, it can be amended.
2B. Remember, there is a difference between a “side” to an issue and a “position” on an issue. “For, against, and neutral” are positions. “Sides” are experts with stakes in the game and it is they who produce positions. Once you have located a side, you will need to listen deeply and report back to your audience. Ask yourself the following to provide adequate supporting detail for your paragraphs:
• What types of people advocate for this position? What groups, organizations, political affiliations, or memberships might they have? Where do they belong?
• What are several values, traditions, and norms of this particular “side?”
• What are the main claims of those who advocate this position?
• What reasons do they provide for those claims?
• What evidence do they use to support their reasons? Where so they usually obtain their knowledge?
2C: Support your description by using an outside source (likely from your Annotated Bibliography). You will need to find a “representative” or two from your side to provide evidence that what you are saying about them is true. Make sure to apply the CRAAP test to these sources in order to test for efficacy. Remember, one source is minimally required for each perspective.
3. Repeat step 2 with a second and a third position, again supporting your description by summarizing and analyzing at least one source from your Annotated Bibliography (or somewhere else; the annotated bibliography is a living document).
4. Once you have listened to the major experts involved in your conversation, you will need to take one more step in order to tentatively decide where you fall among them. The last step to fulfill the claim you have made (“there are multiple perspectives on the issue, which you will explore before taking a position”). Once you have summarized three positions, highlight points of intersection and diversion, describe points of agreement and disagreement, and explain the reasons disagreements exist. You will not be able to voice a tentative position of your own until you locate your own allies and opponents. To do this, use the guided questions below:
• What is similar about these sides? What is divergent about them? Think of values and group norms as well as discourse produced.
• On what points do advocates of these positions agree, and on what points do they disagree?
• What are the reasons for disagreement?
• Where do you see possibilities for alliance? Which side is the most appealing to you at this time? Why?
5. Obviously, all essays need conclusions, so be sure to provide one. Remember, conclusions should re- state the purpose, summarize major sub-points, and leave a final impression on the reader. Conclusions do not provide additional reasoning or evidence.
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Remember, you are making an argument of your own; you are responsible for maintaining your own ETHOS. Think about how you’re going to come across to JCC students as a person of good character, good sense, and goodwill. Here are some tips:
• Describe the most significant positions across the entire field of the controversy; don’t simply describe those positions that cluster around the position you favor.
• Summarize sources fairly and analyze them carefully. Accurately identify their main claims, supporting reasons and evidence, and implicit assumptions.
• Maintain neutrality. The time will come for you to take a stand on the issue, but don’t do it now. Advocates of the positions you describe should feel that you have represented their views and arguments fairly, and your readers should finish your paper without any idea of where you stand on the issue beyond a tentative expression of alliance.
Remember, you are making an argument of your own; you are responsible for maintaining your own PATHOS. Think about the values and emotions that you share with fellow JCC students and consider how you might appeal to them. Here are some tips:
• Appeal to readers’ desire for information by presenting clear, well-organized, well-supported summaries that show you’ve read widely and closely and have developed a deep understanding of positions ranging across the entire field of the controversy.
• Appeal to readers’ sense of fairness by providing truly unbiased descriptions of all positions/arguments.
• Because you’re writing for publication and for readers you don’t know, you should adopt a more formal style and tone than in your first paper. This does not mean, however, that you need to abandon your unique ways of expressing yourself.
Arrangement (i.e., organizing what you’re going to say in this paper)
You’ll want to organize your paper in the manner you think will prove most effective with your audience, but here are some general guidelines:
• As was the case with your first paper, the conversation you’re responding to is the one surrounding the issue you’ve selected. Indicate at the beginning of your paper that you’re writing in response to that conversation, and then state a thesis in which you promise to describe the most significant positions on your issue and take a tentative position.
• Unlike your first paper, this one is unsolicited, which means you must work harder to demonstrate why your issue matters and to attract readers. Providing compelling answers to the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions is crucial.
• However you arrange the body of your paper, make sure you answer fully and in detail all the questions/requests in the Invention section of this prompt.
Style (i.e., choosing the appropriate language for your paper)
As mentioned earlier, your style should be more formal than in your first paper, but this does not mean you should write in a pretentious style that is not your own.
• All readers appreciate coherent, unified paragraphs, so your paragraphs should include a topic sentence that clearly states the main idea of the paragraph and supporting sentences that cluster around the main idea without detours.
• Document your sources properly according to MLA style. Consult the information in the modules and the Resources tab for formatting in-text citations and Works Cited entries.
• Proofread carefully; avoid errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and mechanics.
Other Requirements
It should be double-spaced, typed in Times New Roman font, with 12-point character size and one-inch margins all the way around. Your paper should be 4-7 pages PLUS the Works Cited page, THE WORKS CITED PAGE STANDS ALONE AS IF IT IS NOT IN THE PAGE COUNT.
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