Essay: Position Essay

Purpose: The position essay will introduce you to argumentative writing. Throughout many of your college courses and writing assignments, but specifically with all of your essay assignments in this course, you will learn to construct an arguable claim, identify reasons and evidence that support that claim, and consider the opposition's view. You will also learn to utilize the rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos as the means of supporting arguments.

Description of Assignment: To successfully complete this assignment, you will:

1. Identify a specific non-profit or service organization.

2. Take a position that your chosen organization deserves and needs community support.

3. Research that organization and find appropriate resources to develop and support your position that this organization is providing a valuable service to the community it serves, and thus needs support.

4. Address the opposing side's views (such as those who are apprehensive to support the organization for various reasons or those who think that the organization is not worthy of support), and refute those opinions with logic and reason.

5. Demonstrate an awareness of your target audience and appropriately use rhetorical appeals for that audience to persuade them of your position.

Source(s) Required: You will be required to consult at least four(4) sources that should come from various resources, such as journals, books, magazines, newspaper articles, or other reference materials. The "News and Current Events" database category might be especially useful for this essay. All sources should be timely, unless you need to present a history of the topic as part of your argument.

Audience: You are writing to a target audience with comparable knowledge regarding the topic. You should identify and demonstrate an awareness of the target audience based upon the topic selection. If you are struggling with identifying a target audience, you can consult Chapter 16 in Baker College Composition.

Format: 4-6 double-spaced pages, not including title page and reference page, using APA format.

Additional Information: This essay will be graded on the above components, as well as the fundamental elements of position essays and the general essay writing basics described below:

Introduction - As with all essays, your introduction should entice readers and grab their attention. Depending on your topic, maybe setting a scene would work best. Maybe statistics relating to the organization's purpose would be attention grabbing. Following the attention grabber you must transition into the topic, making the focus of the essay clear. Your thesis should then be stated at the end of the introduction. The thesis should make it clear that you are soliciting your audience to support this organization due to the good that it does for society.

Definition - The organization that you are arguing for should be explained to your readers. This means that you should include information about the history, purpose, mission, vision, etc., explaining the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this organization. You will most likely use resources like the organization's web site, a pamphlet from their office, and/or a governmental web site to gather this research. 

Reasoning/Evidence for Position - To justify your claim that people should support this organization you need to provide reasons, and support those reasons with evidence in the form of examples, statistics, and expert testimonials. Also, phrases such as "In my opinion..." and "I feel..." do not provide valid evidence or support in a position paper and should be avoided. In fact, all first person pronouns should be avoided in this type of essay unless you choose to include any personal experience you have with the organization or what they support.

Organization - Your points/reasons/evidence must follow a logical pattern of organization. I will share with you possible outline guides for organizing your essay, which you can follow if you choose, or you can create your own organizational plan.

Paragraphing - Paragraphs must be unified, developed, and coherent. For more information on paragraphs, search for paragraph information within Pearson Writer. One good source is titled "Shaping Paragraphs." You must also make use of paragraph transitions in order to move the reader from one paragraph to the next and connect all information presented.

Word Choice - There should be vivid details and descriptions in this essay. The reader should be able to easily picture the organization, the people involved, the people needing these services, etc. Use creative writing techniques whenever possible and make higher level, academic vocabulary choices.

Conclusion - Reinforce the thesis (that this organization deserves and needs support), summarize key points, and leave your readers with something to think about. Examples could include an anecdote that illustrates a key point, implications of the information you have provided, a quotation that expresses a main point vividly, a call to action, a projection into the future, a reference back to your attention grabber, etc.

Surface Features - Carefully proofread and edit your essay before you submit your final draft. Use the Review features in Word. Use Writing Review in Pearson Writer. Have someone else read the essay to check for these errors. Visit the Writing Center for a conferencing session with a writing tutor. Read the essay out loud, slowly, to catch more errors. Do whatever it takes to ensure that surface features do not detract from the quality of the content of your essay.