At the minimum, your paper should be 1500 words (including in-text citations but not bibliography.) You should aim to include at least 1 primary source (perhaps from the primary source assignment); 1 multimodal source (photo, graph, chart, etc.: don’t worry too much about this yet; we’ll be discussing multimodality today in class), 1 academic source, and 1 popular source. (Remember that you’ll need to use between 6-8 sources in the final draft, but 4 is okay for now.) You should also have a Works Cited page for all the sources you cite in your paper, and a separate annotated bibliography in which you evaluate and assess these sources. Your Prospectus should come at the beginning of the document. Please make sure that multimodal elements work: links should be live, graphics should be clear. Remember that this is a rhetorical situation. You want to engage and delight the reader. Clear, legible, well-composed writing with obvious paragraphs and through-lines are a must. Every paragraph should have a thesis-support sentence. Don’t worry about making a big conclusion just yet. Just make your points, with support.

Please work on an academic title, which offers the formal construction of an argument or at least introduces the dynamic of the problem-failure thesis of your essay. No headlines, humor or puns. An academic or scholarly title generally has a colon separating the nature of the problem and its cause. You will also want to appropriately offer, introduce key words, subject, experts, and key players. Feel free to include an epigraph but not one that is too easy or general (Benjamin Franklin!) but instead perhaps something you have located in your research which points to and emphasizes the theme of the essay and echoes your “promise to the reader.”

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