PURPOSE & AUDIENCE

The purpose of this first essay is to demonstrate your skills in analysis and argumentation. You will be doing the critical thinking work of our rhetorical analysis assignments, but this time using your findings to build your own comparative argument. Your explicit audience for this essay will be the members of this class, but your argument should be one of value to all Americans hoping to interpret the meaning, efficacy, and value of political events.

PROMPT
The issue and conclusion for this argument is quite simple. You will be choosing one of the executive orders signed by President Trump and then identifying two arguments concerning that order: one in favor of, and one in opposition.

Your issue will therefore be: Which interpretation of the executive order is more logically sound?

To develop your argument, you first need to select an executive order, then identify two opposing arguments in response; you will begin by conducting some of your own background research on the executive order, then completing a thorough rhetorical analysis of the two articles you've chosen. You will be assessing each argument's assumptions, ambiguous language, fallacies, and use of evidence, as well as enumerating each's reasons and clarifying their conclusions.

Your essay should explain the executive order and provide any relevant background information your audience might need to understand it fully. Your thesis will assert which of the two argument is more logically sound and why, and your essay's body will support, in detail, that assessment using a compare & contrast structure that closely examines the two arguments (pro & con). Your conclusion should provide recommendations for the reader moving forward.

Remember, in order to accurately analyze things like assumptions, fallacies, and use of evidence, you need to have a full understanding of the order, so your background research will be crucial in helping your to assess the two arguments at the heart of your essay.

ESSAY EXPECTATIONS

Be careful to avoid any fallacies in your reasoning as you construct your argument. Your introduction should introduce the order in a way that is engaging and clearly demonstrates why it is important to your reader. Your essay should have an engaging introduction, narrowly focused and developed body paragraphs, a concise and compelling conclusion, strong transitions, and a variety of sentence structures and word choice.