Civic Discourse and Presentation: Why Automation is Killing Workers
Writing
Note: I’ll be looking for an essay not more than 750 words and not shorter than 500 words (due in 8 days), presentation slides and an outline about each slide to talk about ( due on Mar 12). Plus an official outline to send to the professor.
Context
Academic arguments may persuade an intellectual, rational audience, but it takes a different set of values to reach other constituencies. This assignment asks students to see the nuances of persuasion, using tips and tricks from Jay Heinrichs’s Thank You For Arguing.
Purpose/Project Sequence
Our goal in this project is to take the exact same issue you argued in your first assignment and to compose an opinion editorial for an audience that would inherently disagree with you (more below).
Whereas the last genre asked for dedication to the Toulmin model and detached, empirical responses to previously stated arguments, opinion editorials allow for a firmer stance, emotional appeals, and personal experience.
To adapt your initial paper, you will need to:
- Consider what would persuade your new audience (detailed below);
- Gather data that is easily digestible for an audience of non-experts;
- Write and “publish” your document with effective supplementary rhetoric.
Audience
Image that you are publishing this piece to a reader who is roughly in the following demographic:
- age 35-49, male AND female;
- USA American by birth;
- not in your field of practice, so unfamiliar with lingo, norms, and “insider knowledge”;
- high school graduate, but not necessarily higher;
- politically ideologized (depending on your issue);
- against you (they will not share your assumptions about life or even reality).
- Paragraphs can (and should) be shorter and more numerous (the average length of a paragraph in an op-ed is 2.25 sentences; the average amount of total paragraphs is 15);
- Evidence can be presented in a journalistic manner (e.g., “According to Jane Doe of The Research Center, ‘Dogs can sense…’”) without parenthetical citations at the end;
- There does not need to be a Works Cited, but all sources must be both noted and hyperlinked;
- You should use images to appeal visually to your reader;
- It should be no longer than 750 words, no shorter than 500.
Differences from Assignment #1
This is not an academic text; this paper will take a different format, structure, organization, and register from your first assignment. Namely:
Project Submission
You will submit your op-ed through Turnitin. Additionally, one week after your assignment is due, you will submit a second part of the project — your presentation. This will be submitted as the following:
- A slides presentation with voiceover;
Your speech/presentation will be worth 100 points separate from the paper. You will also be required to submit an outline of the presentation or speech which shows dedication to the lessons from our unit readings! The outline can be in any form, as long as it is typed and organized, and it must show that you are engaging with the materials (whether through use of language from the texts/videos or structure from them).
