Assignment 2:  Persuasive Essay (10% of final grade)

DUE:  Nov 2. In class, Assignments 

Optional:  You may use 1-2 general sources for quotes, basic information, statistics, etc.  You may bring a general outline but not a draft.  No ChatGPT or other AI generative text tool.


Why this matters:  When you begin to read scholarly articles, you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of articles on your subject and intimidated by the expertise of the authors.  Your essay will keep you grounded in your own ideas and words.

As we’ve discussed, it’s important to see any writing, especially academic writing, as part of a process, not an event.  A critical part of that process is finding your voice, i.e., deciding upon a particular area of a broader issue that you have an opinion on and then building an argument around that particular area.

This assignment is the springboard for your preliminary research into a direction for your academic report.  So that you’ll be as productive as possible, build your essay around an issue related to the intersection of business and artificial intelligence (AI); it should be an issue that you already have some general knowledge of and that you care about.

Brainstorm first.Think about industry sectors such as hospitality, health care, telecom, consumer goods, consumer services, oil & gas, tech, finance, utilities, and materials.  Each of these sectors can be broken down into many specific business areas.  Look at some of the videos under Course Reading/Viewing, set aside a couple of hours for a documentary, discuss issues with friends. The examples that your classmates provided should help, too.

Your thesis statement and ideas are very fluid at this point.  They are not carved in stone; they are written in sand.  So it’s okay if they change.  In fact, they should change; otherwise, you’re not taking risks and growing with what you discover as you read and think. But still, try to get some value out of your classmates' responses to your Getting to Know You post and of their feedback in the Thesis Statement activity.

In the context of this assignment, the personal essay is, by definition, the author’s opinion.  Take advantage of this opportunity to think through your opinion. If you do use an outside source, it should be for very general purposes – a statistic or statement to back up one of your points.  If you do use a source, you should follow the Harvard Citation Guide to attribute it in the text and in a Works Cited.  If you use a source without fully attributing it, you have committed plagiarism, which is a serious offense against academic integrity. You may use only 1-2 outside sources if any at all.

Again, the point of an essay is to share your opinion. Plenty of time later for incorporating the opinions of others.

Your audience:  Your classmates and me.  Consider us open-minded, and interested, and reasonably well educated. We are ready to be persuaded and to learn something. We watched several videos together; you may, for example, consider broad knowledge from those sources now as common knowledge.

What you do: Your goal is to share your opinion on an issue related to the intersection of business and artificial intelligence and tconvince your audience to agree with you, or at least to see your point about the value of the issue.

Structure:  Provide an engaging introduction of 3-5 sentences that ends with a statement with an argumentative edge. Address counter-claims; provide examples. It should follow the Claim + Reason model.

Develop three distinct but related points for the body of your essay.  It may work out to have one paragraph per point, but if you have more paragraphs than three, that’s okay.  You should not, however, have fewer than three paragraphs in the body of your essay.  Each point should begin with a topic sentence, offer explanation and support, and, if helpful, include a brief summary.  

Provide details, examples, and evidence -- from your personal experience or from listening to the news, etc.  Build your argument around your ideas.  You may use one general outside source if you like (cited properly), but only one.   

Remember to include transition words between and within points.

Conclude by reinforcing the implications of your argument or proposing an action/solution.  Do not simply repeat or reword your thesis statement.  Some summary may be okay but go beyond summary alone; your essay isn’t long enough for your audience to need a long summary.

You may use first-person singular for this assignment.  Follow the conventions of correctness and clarity.

Length and format:   2 pages (+/-5%), Arial 12. 1.5 line spacing within paragraphs; justified left; margin; ragged right margin.  No indentation. Default margins in MS Word.

Criteria:  TS that follows the claim+reason model; well organized; well developed with persuasive support including examples, support, and addressing of counterclaims; easy to read in terms of grammar/mechanics, clarity, and sentence-level editing. Outside sources, if used, cited properly in the text and at the end.

 

 

 



Last modified: Wednesday, 1 November 2023, 10:49 AM