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Guidelines for Writing
Assignments and Take-Home Exams
Dear Students:
One of the most important
goals of IDL courses is to develop your critical thinking skills.
When the course TAs grade your written work, they will focus especially
on your ability to formulate a clear argument and explain your position
with supporting evidence. Of course, the TAs will also look at how
accurately and thoroughly you have understood the lectures and readings.
But you must demonstrate your mastery of the material by selecting
key points and organizing what you have learned into an argumentative
essay.
Many of the assignment questions
have no straighforward right or wrong answer. Rather, the idea is
for you to take a position on an issue after analyzing information
from the lectures and readings. Your goal is to convince your reader
of your opinion; the more you support your argument with evidence
and present your ideas logically, the more persuasive your paper
will be.
The following is intended
to help you develop an argument and organize your thoughts into
a written essay:
Building an Argument
- Try asking yourself: What do I want my reader to learn from
my essay? A direct and concise answer to this question will be
the main argument, or thesis statement, of your paper.
- Your argument must be based on solid evidence. Ask yourself:
What have I learned from the lectures and readings that supports
my position?
- In order for your argument to be convincing, it must be thorough
and logical. Ask yourself: What are the possible critiques of
my argument and how can I defend against them?
Writing the Essay - SAMPLE
ESSAY [html] [pdf]
The following are the main parts to an argumentative essay:
1. Title
- Does your paper have a relevant title?
2. Introduction
- Is your argument stated clearly and suggestively somewhere in
the first paragraph?
3. Body
- Is your argument developed carefully and logically throughout
the paper? Does each paragraph build and strengthen the argument?
- Is each paragraph unified around one main topic? Are the sentences
in each paragraph organized logically? Does each paragraph have
a beginning or topic sentence, body, and end?
- Are the ideas in each paragraph developed carefully and supported
with information from your sources?
- Do the quotations flow smoothly within the body of your paper
or are they left hanging? How does the quotation support your
paper? Remember, quotations do not speak for themselves. You should
not quote sources just to insert other people's remarks. Rather,
your purpose is to elucidate your points by making use of the
opinions of other sources.
- Do the ideas of your paper flow smoothly from paragraph to paragraph?
For example, you might begin a new paragraph with a phrase that
makes a connection to the previous paragraph such as "In
addition," "Contrary to the previous idea," or
"Similarly..." Can your reader follow your train of
thought?
- Are your sentences simple and clear?
4. Conclusion
- Does the conclusion simply repeat your already developed argument,
or does it push your argument further for its larger significance?
Does your conclusion reinforce the importance of your main idea?
You should also remember to cite your sources properly in the body
of your paper. Please see our rules
for citation.
IDL
101 Assignments
IDL 103 Assignments
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