The academic essay Assignment in this unit will be a written, cohesive argument for the change in your community or workplace that you have been writing about throughout the course.

The Assignment should take the form of a persuasive academic essay, in which you will provide reliable evidence from at least four sources to support the argument for change that you are advocating.

You will also need to address a counter-argument or misconception about your topic within the essay, as the ability to do so is a key component of a strong argument.

Essentially, the essay will reflect what you have learned about writing effectively, using research, and creating a logical argument to influence an audience.

In accordance with plagiarism policy, students must not self-plagiarize by submitting an Assignment for two different grades; therefore, you must not submit a paper for this Assignment that has been graded in whole or in part for another class, whether at Kaplan or another institution.

For further insights on self-plagiarism, please review KUWC's resource, "Self-Plagiarism" (podcast or transcript).

Podcast: https://kuportal-a.akamaihd.net/ascmedia/kuwc/podcasts/26selfplagiarism.mp3

Transcript: https://kucampus.kaplan.edu/DocumentStore/Docs11/pdf/WC/Self_plagiarism_podcast_draft.pdf

Your persuasive essay will need to meet the following criteria:

APA 6th Edition format for the document, including an appropriately formatted title page and References page

A thesis statement at the end of the introduction paragraph

Well-developed paragraphs that include evidence from sources to support your argument for a specific change in your community or workplace

Four reliable sources should be cited within the text of the Assignment; at least one of the cited sources should be either a book/ebook or a periodical article, preferably from the Kaplan Library.

All cited sources need to have full citations on a References page (except for any interviews you conduct, which only require in-text citations)

Standard American English and a formal tone throughout the writing

Only the third person point of view should be used

Achieving the above criteria should be your main goal with your academic essay. A strong and well-supported argument will be at least 4 pages (1,000 words long), not including the title page and references page.