Big Problem Today Enc1101 Critical Topics Paper

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Big Problem Today Enc1101 Critical Topics Paper

Your Mission: To write a 1,300-1,500-word critical topics paper based on one of the three topics discussed in class:

  1. Street Art
  2. Media and Stereotypes
  3. Civic Participation and News Literacy

As part of this paper, you are required to quote 4-5 times from one of the articles we read for class:

  1. Alex Boyd’s “In Defence of Graffiti”
  2. Roxanne Gay’s “The Oscars and Hollywood’s Race Problem”
  3. Oliver Bateman’s “Why Sexism and Homophobia in Old TV Shows Is Such a Big Problem Today”
  4. David Mindich’s “Journalism and Citizenship: Making the Connection”

Your paper will be graded based on how well you establish and maintain your voice while using quotes from the article. Write for a general readership. (You are speaking to the world, not to a class.) Your thesis/focus may be exploratory or argumentative. Your ideas and examples should play the major role in the paper. The quotes from the article should play a supportive yet meaningful role. Your voice should establish the focus for the paper in the intro paragraph, should begin and end paragraphs by linking ideas that connect to your focus, and should form a concluding paragraph with final thoughts on the topic. (In professional writing, conclusions DO NOT restate introductions and do not begin with “in conclusion.”)

Your paper will be graded based on polish. This means creating an informative and catchy paper title, indenting the first line of paragraphs, double-spacing your writing, using a professional font, writing in clear and complete sentences, capitalizing the first words of sentences, capitalizing and formatting titles, and structuring your paper into a cohesive discussion.

Your paper will be graded on using MLA methods. This means introducing your sources BEFORE you quote and discuss them. This means placing titles in proper formatting. (Article titles go in quotes. Newspaper, book, and website titles are italicized.) This means providing citations after quoting or paraphrasing. Citations include the author’s last name and, if there is one, a page number. If there is no author, the title of source is provided instead. *If you use any other sources, these sources must be properly credited in the paper and in the Works Cited page. Using a source without crediting it is a form of plagiarism. Plagiarism results in zero for a grade. Here is a link to the MLA Citation Guide: MLA Manual for Citation