English 1101 Illustration Essay Assignment * Mr. Burdett * Fall 2020
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ENGLISH 1101 ILLUSTRATION ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
ESSAY PROMPT
Choose one of the following statements and write an essay developing the idea by presenting details, specifics, and concrete examples:
Art does not have to be beautiful to be good; good art can be ugly.
Actions can have unintended consequences: something you do may have results you didn’t expect.
Staying within one’s budget can be accomplished by frugal shopping.
Incivility has become much too common in public places.
Wanting more than you need can lead to serious problems.
Sleep deprivation is causing problems for many young people these days.
Modern technological devices, especially computers and smartphones, can do more harm than good.
Sometimes it is our response to circumstances, not the circumstances themselves, that causes problems.
(If you pick the next-to-the-last topic above, I encourage you to look up the definition of technology, and to be careful not to write your essay as though “technology” refers exclusively to current digital technology.)
For this assignment, you may not write about how you disagree with the statement. Be sure that you agree with the statement you pick as the topic for your essay, and that you write an essay intended to show your reader how it is true, not how it is false. (If you don’t agree with any of them, pick the one you can most convincingly pretend you agree with.)
Note also that you may not use your own topic. Pick from the list above!
ESSAY GUIDELINES
Your paper should be about 600 words long (an essay shorter than 500 words will not receive a passing grade), and should conform to MLA formatting guidelines (double spacing, indented first lines, etc.).
This essay does not have a research component; do not do research to include in your paper. Do not cite any sources, whether by quotation, paraphrase, summary, or a sources page. Everything in this essay should be your own writing—your own ideas, opinions, experiences, and examples. (Do not worry if other people have the same ideas or opinions, however; they do not have to be uniquely your ideas and opinions, just your own unique presentation of those ideas and opinions. Also, you may look up information to verify your ideas, confirm your memories, or check your spelling if you need to, but do this for background knowledge only; do not quote or cite any sources or present statistics or other data you discover while doing this background reading.)
Your essay must include these components:
an indication of the topic—above the title, repeat the exact statement you have picked from the list above
a title (not just the topic as stated above)
an introductory paragraph
a thesis statement (probably as the final sentence of the introduction)
multiple body paragraphs (at least two, probably three, but perhaps as many as four)
relevant concrete examples, with details and specifics, in the body paragraphs to develop the ideas
a concluding paragraph
When drafting your essay:
Develop an enticing title.
Use the introduction to pull the reader into your essay by grabbing their attention.
Try to tell your readers – in this case, your instructor and classmates – something they don’t already know, perhaps that they haven’t even thought of before. Keep them (us) interested!
Avoid addressing the assignment directly: don’t announce the fact that you are writing an essay; don’t make it obvious you are writing only because you have been given an assignment. For example, avoid any version of, “In this essay, I will show how modern technology can do more harm than good.”
Let the essay reflect your own voice. (Is your voice serious? Humorous? Matter-of-fact? Sarcastic?)
Avoid just telling what happens; SHOW your reader what happened, describing vivid examples with scenes and characters and perhaps even dialogue.
English 1101 Illustration Essay Assignment * Mr. Burdett * Fall 2020
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ESSAY CHARACTERISTICS
Grammar and Mechanics
Your essay must demonstrate your ability to write college-level American standard written English. It should not be marred by glaring usage errors—sentence fragments, subject/verb agreement errors, inappropriate tense shifts, arbitrary capitalization, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, misspellings, etc. An excess of such errors (more than five different kinds of error per paragraph) will result in a failing grade.
Tone and Point of View
College-level papers require formal (or at least semi-formal) language. Avoid slang, profanity, vulgarity, informal/inappropriate usages, and biases.
For this essay, you may use the first-person point of view (“I believe…”, “In my opinion…”, etc.). Contractions—can’t, didn’t, should’ve, etc.—are also acceptable, but don’t let your tone get too informal. (Also be aware that this is the only essay for this class in which you will be allowed to use first person.)
GRADE DISTRIBUTION AND SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Refer to the Course Assignment Schedule for the specific due dates associated with this assignment.
The grade for the final draft of the illustration essay is 20% of your overall grade. Your final draft must be a fully revised and edited document that meets all the requirements of this assignment. You must turn in the final draft to the Turnitin drop box in Blackboard. (Do not e-mail your essay to me unless I specifically ask you to.)
Note that if you turn in an essay late, you lose 10 points for every day it is late, and you can only turn in an essay up to five days late. If you make a mistake when you submit the essay and have to resubmit after the due date, you need to let me know via e-mail first, and your essay will be considered late based on the final submission date. However, you cannot resubmit if the essay has already been graded.
You must write a new essay specifically for this class; you may not submit an essay you wrote for another class, even if you revise and edit it heavily. If the Turnitin.com originality report shows an unacceptable degree of similarity to an essay already in its database, your grade will be zero.
Rough Drafts
In most cases, I give little or no feedback on rough drafts, and I don’t usually mark anything in the text. If your rough draft is complete, on an appropriate topic, and contains no plagiarism, you get full credit.
Even if there are no comments and you get full credit, do not assume your essay is finished! Remember that I look at it as a rough draft, a work in progress, which I expect you to continue to work on. You still need to carefully proofread and find and eliminate as many usage errors as you can. Also, you may need to refine or add to your introduction, thesis, supporting paragraphs, or conclusion, even if your rough draft meets the assignment’s length requirement. Finally, make sure the formatting is correct.
Plagiarism Detection in Turnitin
When you submit your essay to Turnitin, your document will be automatically checked for plagiarism. You can and should view the Turnitin Originality report. If the report shows issues with plagiarism, you need to correct and resubmit your work before the deadline.
CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS
Your essay must meet all of the following criteria. If it fails to meet any one of them, the essay will lose 25 points from the final grade, and the essay will lose an additional 10 points for any further criteria not met. Your essay must:
address one of the topics listed on the first page of this assignment
be at least 500 words long (remember that this assignment calls for “about 600 words”)
be appropriately formatted—it must at least be double-spaced, in an acceptable font with proper margins
be based on your own ideas and experiences, and not present evidence based on research
be submitted in one of the following file formats: .doc, .docx, or .rtf (not a .pdf file or .pages file)
In addition, your essay must be an original piece of work, written specifically for this class. If the Turnitin Originality report shows that it is not, the grade will be zero, with no possibility of a make-up.
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