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Argument Paper (Final Assignment)

ENG 098-203 and 201 Sarah L. Dye

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DIRECTIONS:

Topic: Write an Argument Essay in which you argue about why a person should pursue a certain career field or area. Examples of career field topics would include medicine and/or health services; education; banking; advertising; engineering; auto mechanics; child care; government service; music; information technology; religious service; home service industry, and thousands of other fields. This is the only topic choice for this particular assignment though you may apply it to any sub-topic area you wish to work on and do the required research.

Length: 400-600 words (about 2-4 pages)

Presentation:

(A) Prepare one computer file (in either .doc/Word file OR .rtf/Rich Text Format file); this will be posted on our class website for everyone to see and will be worth 60% of the unit grade.

DUE: December 11(section 203) and December 12 (section 201)

(B) Make an oral presentation to your classmates on your paper on the final day of class; this presentation will be worth 10% of the unit grade, thus attendance on the final day is mandatory.

DUE: December 11(section 203) and December 12 (section 201)

RESEARCH PLAN – Visit each of the following for your research

• _____ ECC Career Center (SRC 107) to use its library of career materials

• _____ ECC Counseling Center (SRC 107) to use its library of educational plan

materials cont’d. next page

• _____ ECC library to search in Dewey Decimal Section 331 and perhaps others by particular disciplines like psychology (which is section 150 I believe)

• _____ ECC library databases (see databases with active links below)

|College and Career Databases |

|Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) |

|General periodicals index with some full text. |

| |

|Business and Company ASAP (InfoTrac) |

|Information on companies, markets and industries. Access business and trade journals, newspapers and company directory profiles with some |

|full text and images. |

| |

|Business Source Elite (EBSCO) |

| |

| |

| |

| |

| |

|Some full text. Covers business, management, economics, finance, etc. Select "All EBSCO Databases" and on next page click on the link |

|"Business Source Elite" |

| |

|Career and Technical Education (ProQuest) |

|Vocational and technical periodicals covering all aspects of the Vo/Tech curriculum. Some full text. |

| |

|College Source |

|View college profiles and catalogs. Search for schools by criteria such as location, tuition, major, etc. |

| |

|Expanded Academic ASAP (InfoTrac) |

|A general periodicals index with abstracts and some full text. |

| |

• _____ Online Career Websites (some possible examples of online places to look)

Occupational Outlook Handbook

(look under Occupations on top, right side)

Career Help Websites

PLAN FOR THE ESSAY

I. Introductory section

• Attention-getter/hook 3-5 sentences

• General description of the career including examples of the types of jobs available within the career 6-8 sentences

II. Body section

Preparation:

• Education and/or training (degrees, certifications, experience, courses, etc.) needed or required for the career 6-8 sentences

• (Optional) Internship, apprenticeship, etc. needed 3-5 sentences

Employment Forecast:

• Future needs and availability of jobs 6-8 sentences

• Location of jobs geographically and/or by industry 3-5 sentences

• Salary projections (1, 15, 30 years etc.) 6-8 sentences

(Beginning of career, mid-career, and end of career)

Personal Satisfaction 6-8 sentences

• Anticipated stresses and problems

• Retirement issues including perhaps how long persons generally remain in this career

• Satisfaction possibilities

III. Conclusion

Your recommendations concerning pursuing the career 3-5 sentences

IV. Sources Consulted page (IMPORTANT!)

You must list all the sources including people you consulted to gather the research for this Argument Paper assignment. You may do this by listing them in number order on a separate page at the end of your essay.

Please note that when you take ENG 102 and ENG 102 you will learn more formal, specific formatting rules for citing outside source material using MLA and APA Styles of Documentation. For this assignment, those styles are not necessary. A simple list will be acceptable. It is the research experience itself that I consider to be the most important aspect of this particular assignment, not attending to the specific and complicated, scholarly formatting rules.

That does not mean that you can plagiarize on this assignment without giving credit to your outside sources though. Make sure that you put the information you gather through your research in your own words (called paraphrasing and summarizing) or that you put direct quotation marks around exact wording from an outside source. If you present direct quotations inside your essay, you will need to indicate the number of the source inside parentheses at the end of the borrowed material. That number will correspond to the number listed for that source on the Sources Consulted page at the end of the essay. Be sure to title that page with Sources Consulted centered at the top of the page.

Optional:

You may include illustrations, charts, and/or maps in your paper and/or oral presentation.

____________________________________________________________

TOTAL LENGTH: 42 sentences – 60 sentences / 400-600 words / 2-4 pages

EVALUATION:

60% Essay grade (submitted electronically as directed)

30% Field and library research

10% Oral presentation

__________________________________________________________________

100% Argument paper unit grade

FINAL NOTE: As always, you are encouraged to consult the writing tutors in the Write Place (located across the atrium from our classroom). As the end of the semester comes nearer, the Write Place hours sometime change so check the hours before making a trip to campus for help. Also do not wait too late to seek help from the staff in the center because they get very busy at the end of the semester.

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