Staking Your Claim: the Researched Argument
| During winter quarter, you will continue to work on your writing skills (see WCT goals) and to develop your knowledge of rhetoric, which will give you the ability to make your claims believable and to resist manipulation by others. Focusing on four aspects of argument--audience, purpose, context, and persona--you will develop a researched argument of 3,000-to-3,600 words in length. Through a series of stepped exercises--topic proposal, working bibliography, annotated bibliography, position paper, and initial draft --you gradually will build up a foundation for the final version of this project. Your researched argument will utilize documentation from outside sources (i.e. library, personal interviews, surveys, on-line research, etc.), documentation you then will synthesize and critique with the intention of arguing an opinion based on its implications. In all, you will write about 5,000 words in this course; you also will meet with the instructor outside of class three times during the quarter (see Policies: "conferences"). To help you develop your skills in public speaking, you will deliver to your peers a ten-to-twelve-minute oral presentation grounded in your research. In addition, you will lead at least one class discussion of an assigned reading.
You are encouraged to investigate and write about some aspect of disability (public policy or cultural representation), but you are not confined to this topic. In fact, you may choose any subject, providing that it is circumscribed enough to allow for ample treatment in the format and length indicated and assuming that it is contestable. The subject of the researched argument should be something about which you have sufficient enthusiasm to ensure engagement for the ten weeks you will be working with it. This occasion probably will be the only time during your undergraduate Stanford career that you will have the luxury of spending an entire quarter investigating a topic of your choosing. |