Your research process helped you become an expert on the topic you researched. N

Your research process helped you become an expert on the topic you researched. Now, you’ll apply that expertise to creating an original argument on your topic. Your essay must be 8-12 pages long, include 15 cited library sources (mostly or entirely the same ones from your Annotated Bibliography, and no websites), double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font, plus a correct MLA works cited page, and must include correct MLA in-text citations.
Rhetorical Context:
An academic research essay presents original information, ideas, or analysis to academic readers. Academic readers are not necessarily your peers or classmates; instead, they are scholars studying your topic. They read not to be entertained or to have their attention grabbed, but because they want to know about the information in your essay and your perspective on that information. As the writer of an academic research essay, you join in a conversation about your topic with your sources—your essay, in other words, should be built with the intention of serving as a source for other writers, even though, in our actual writing practice, it may not ever be published or become accessible to those readers.
What to do:
Review our readings from throughout our class so far. Review the “magic sentence” from our Zoom/class exercise.
publish your essay. Include lots of examples from your sources. Make sure you use a minimum of 15 library research sources in your essay. At least 12, preferably all 15, will be the same library sources from your Annotated Bibliography. We’ll work on publishing exercises along the way.
Include in-text citations as you publish. Trying to add them later is usually a recipe for disaster.
Create your Works Cited page. You’ll use MLA citations like the ones you used in your annotated bibliography, but of course no annotations. Make sure the page is formatted correctly overall, and that your sources are organized alphabetically. Remember: your works cited page can only include the sources you’ve actually cited in your essay.
Revise, revise, revise, and submit to Academic Research Essay in Canvas as a .doc or .docx file.
Course Goals Accomplished:
Goal 1: “Create and complete research projects. This involves generating a research question, engaging in critical/analytical reading, developing an argument with evidence collected from both primary and secondary research, and documenting sources appropriately.”
Goal 3: “Employ critical thinking in evaluation, speculation, analysis, and synthesis required to evolve and complete a research project.”
Goal 4: “Use a variety of strategies to gather and organize information appropriate for the context and persuasive to the intended audience.”
Goal 5: “Use the university research library to forward their research agenda.”
Goal 7: “Employ format, syntax, punctuation, and spelling appropriate to various rhetorical situations in a stylistically sophisticated manner.”
Goal 8: “Collect, analyze, and organize research information in verbally and visually compelling ways.”
Goal 9: “Take initiative for the development and completion of individual and joint research projects”
Grading:
Academic Research Essays will be graded based on the rubric attached to the project in Canvas, which you are welcome and encouraged to preview.