Personal Response Essay

Total Value — 5%

Due Date:

MONDAY/WEDNESDAY CLASS: 1/28/09

TUESDAY/THURSDAY CLASS: 1/29/09

TURNITIN.COM SUBMISSION REQUIRED, TEN (10) MINUTES OR MORE PRIOR TO BEGINNING OF CLASS ON OR BEFORE THE DUE DATE, AFTER WHICH THE PAPER WILL LOSE 10% FOR ONE CLASS PERIOD LATE, PER LATE WORK POLICIES ON THE COURSE SYLLABUS.

General Guidelines:

• Page count: 3 full pages minimum to 4 full pages maximum, plus an additional page, which is the works cited page. If your paper falls short of the minimum required page count, the grade will certainly suffer.
• In terms of what type of final grade this paper can earn, you should read the grading criteria (below) carefully, and before turning in your paper, perform a final proofread against the grading criteria.
• Make certain that the essay has a thesis.
• Use MLA Style Guidelines.
• Use the formatting guidelines established during class lectures.
• Remember to title your essay in the form of a two-part title. The two parts should be separated by a colon, and neither part should read “Personal Response Essay.”
• Remember that you are to write an argumentative paper, which means that you should choose an issue associated with the assigned topic, take a stance on the issue, frame your thesis as the final sentence of your introductory paragraph, and write a persuasive paper about it.
• Use a document header, as you should on all assignments, regardless of their length.
• Remember: this assignment is an argumentative essay, so it must have a strong thesis, which means that you must take a stand on the issue in your thesis. A thesis is a debatable claim.

Background:

• Consider the fluctuations in price of a gallon of gasoline over the last year, and America’s dependence on foreign oil. There are newly emerging technologies that may help to solve the problem. Begin by engaging the following sources:

Cars powered by air:

1. http://www.theaircar.com/acf/
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4w6aJMNXSk

Cars powered by electricity:

1. Tesla Motors: http://www.teslamotors.com/

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRd7ER7u-KU

CNN article on cars of the future:

1. http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/12/cars.of.future/index.html

Prompt:

• Students are to quote and paraphrase from the sources, using both in-text citations and corresponding works cited page citations.
• Students must locate two valid outside sources and quote and paraphrase from them, using both in-text citations and corresponding works cited page citations.
• Students are to devise their own thesis and argument over an issue related to these articles.
• Engage all of the above sources in their entireties, explore the websites, and be prepared for a class discussion on our second class meeting, and probably thereafter.
• Bring copies of the materials you feel are important to every class meeting until the final paper is due, for I will allow time for you to work on the paper during class.
• We will spend class time discussing the sources, so students do not have to work through an analysis on their own.
• Students are to devise their own thesis and argument over an issue covered in the sources.
• Students must locate two valid outside sources and quote from them. Below are the criteria for what I will consider valid outside sources.

Grading Criteria for your Prose Style and for Formatting (papers will also be graded on all other guidelines addressed in this prompt):

• Use a document header, as you should for all assignments.
• Use a two-part title separated by a colon, neither part of which should contain the name of the assignment.
• The formatting guidelines on the syllabus/class lectures must be observed.
• The paper should meet the page count requirements, and all other requirements of this prompt and the syllabus.
• Writing must be free—or predominantly free—of typos, awkward/unclear phrasing, and sentence level errors.
• Contractions are allowed.
• First person pronouns such as “I” “me” “my” are allowed.
• Second person pronouns such as “you” “your” “yours” are allowed.
• You may engage in personal stories, meaning stories of your own life experiences, or the experiences of friends, family, and so on.
• You may begin sentences with conjunctions: but, and, or, nor, for, so, yet.
• You may pose questions in these assignments.
• You may engage in forms of direct address to the reader, such as "think about the fact that . . ."
• You may use a casual or relaxed prose style, which might include sentences that begin with words like "well, sure, now, yes, no."
• You may use the phrase “a lot.”
• Although the objective of these papers is to find your own personal voice as a writer, do not make the mistake of assuming that grammatical errors are acceptable. Do not engage in sentence fragments, run-ons, misuse of capitalization, punctuation, or other types of sentence-level errors. The upshot is that even though these assignments are written in rather casual prose, do not mistake these guidelines for a license to write these papers as though they are text messages.

Criteria That Determines a Valid Outside Source: (we will go over this at length during class)

• For your two outside sources you cannot use newspapers, magazines, websites, or any web-related material that can be reached with just an Internet connection. In other words, you must use the OSU library interface to use databases to which the OSU library subscribes.
• Your outside source must be an article from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, and the article must have the equivalent of a works cited section at the end, which might also be titled as one of the following: references, bibliography, sources cited, and so on. Alternatively, there may be no such section at the end, but the article might be footnoted throughout, which is also acceptable if the footnotes give the publication information that is typically found in a works cited citation.
• The article must be a minimum of five pages in length, or it will be considered invalid.
• Do not use articles from anonymous authors, or they will be considered invalid.

Additional Sources (optional):

• Students may use additional outside sources beyond the two valid sources, and they may come from newspapers, magazines or websites, but do not use these to replace the two valid outside sources.

Other Important Points:

• In the final draft of your paper, quote from the your two outside sources, plus the CNN article and at least one of the YouTube clips, and use appropriate in-text citations and corresponding works cited page citations. As such, you are required to have at least those four citations on your works cited page.
• I have included some example works cited page citations below.
• You are required to turn in your paper in a pocket folder, along with printed copies of your outside sources. There is no need to turn in a copy of the CNN article. Failure to negotiate this properly will cost points. Do not turn in your project as a mass of papers stapled together, nor should it be in a three-ring binder or anything other than a pocket folder.

Example citation for a Work Cited Only on the Web:

Brandon, John. “5 Things Your Car Will Finally do in 2020” CNN.com. Cable News Network, 16 Mar. 2008. Web. 19 Aug. 2008.

Example citation for a Work Cited Only on YouTube:

“Air Car by Guy Negre on CNN”  YouTube.com. YouTube, 24 Feb. 2008. Web. 11 Jan. 2009.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4w6aJMNXSk>.

How to turn in this essay: a paper copy is due during class on the due date. Additionally, an electronic copy is due, ten (10) minutes or more prior to the beginning of class on or before the due date, after which the paper will lose 10% for one class period late, per late work policies on the course syllabus; it must be turned in to TurnItIn.com as a MS Word doc or docx file. Use the TurnItIn.com “file upload” method on the submit screen. You will be instructed during class about how to create a TurnItIn.com account, and how to turn in your work. Your essays will be considered late until both the paper copy and the electronic copies are turned in. All other rules for late work, as delineated in section six of the course syllabus, also apply. Moreover, your electronic turn-in must be an exact duplicate of the paper copy. In other words, no further corrections or revisions will be accepted. Also, if the electronic and paper copies do not match up it will have a negative impact on the assignment’s grade.

Another important point:

Remember that MLA Style Guidelines are a critically important element of this course, and if you negotiate them at an exceedingly low skill level this paper will receive an unsatisfactory grade at best.

Due Date:

MONDAY/WEDNESDAY CLASS: 1/28/09

TUESDAY/THURSDAY CLASS: 1/29/09

TURNITIN.COM SUBMISSION REQUIRED, TEN (10) MINUTES OR MORE PRIOR TO BEGINNING OF CLASS ON OR BEFORE THE DUE DATE, AFTER WHICH THE PAPER WILL LOSE 10% FOR ONE CLASS PERIOD LATE, PER LATE WORK POLICIES ON THE COURSE SYLLABUS.