Reference no: EM133597121

Assignment: Response Paper

In an essay of 5 to 6 pages, make an evidence-based argument in response to the following question: Considering the long relationship between women and the law, would you characterize the relationship as one that's defined by triumph or tragedy (or something in between)?

*my stance on this is in between or something else (a progressive transformation ten steps forward two steps backwards)

To support your argument, you should draw extensively from the evidence presented in our course's assigned readings, lectures, and primary sources. You should not incorporate outside research into your essay. You should try to incorporate evidence that comes from across our class. In other words, out of fourteen weeks' worth of evidence, you should cite evidence that's taken from at least seven different weeks.

Your essay must have a unifying thesis. You must develop that thesis across your essay. You must make decisions about how to develop your thesis through smaller claims. And you must make decisions about dividing your evidence into categories that can support and illustrate those separate claims. Your essay should be carefully organized and clearly written.

Expectations

Argument: Have you developed a sophisticated and persuasive argument? Have you clearly and effectively introduced your argument in the essay's introduction? Have you developed, foregrounded, and supported your argument throughout your essay? Have you revised your essay with a specific focus on the clarity and consistency of your argument?

Evidence: Have you supported and illustrated your argument through the effective use of specific evidence? Have you provided a compelling and thoughtful interpretation of your evidence and its significance for your argument? Have you included all relevant evidence that supports your argument, made careful choices about the evidence that is relevant to your argument, and accounted for evidence that might contradict your argument?

Structure: Does the order of your essay have a logic and is it organized around that logic? Have you constructed your paragraphs so that they introduce one idea, one subset of your essay's larger argument? Have you carefully concentrated on composing topic sentences that clearly convey the paragraph's argument? Does your introduction concisely describe your essay's topic, articulate your essay's argument, and provide a roadmap to your essay's organization? Does your conclusion reemphasize your essay's argument while gesturing to its larger implications?

Prose: Is your writing clear? Is your writing stylish? Have you written in active voice? Have you proofread and excised any grammatical mistakes or typos?

Mechanics: Have you properly formatted your citations? Have you been careful to introduce any quotations (rather than simply "dropping" quotations in)? Have you included a title and page numbers? Have you submitted your essay to the appropriate module on Canvas?

	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Thesis: Does it make a clear, specific, and refutable claim that answers a "how" or "why" question
Topic sentences: Do they make a clear claim that advances the paper's overall argument? Do they convey the purpose of the paragraph? Do they appear at the beginning of every paragraph?
Argument: Is it logical and persuasive? Is it well developed over the course of the essay?
Technical use of evidence: Have you properly incorporated and cited your evidence?
Analysis of evidence: Have you provided an analysis of your evidence and explained its relationship to your larger claim? Is your use of evidence persuasive and thorough?
Structure and organization: Does each paragraph develop only one central idea? Are the paragraphs ordered in a logical fashion?
Writing: Is it grammatically correct, clear, polished, and direct?
Presentation: Have you persuasively, clearly, and creatively presented your argument?