Justin J. Bain
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
Syracuse University
315-443-1412
jjbain@syr.edu
• Philosophy
• Writing 105
• Writing 205
• Writing 307
• Writing 110
Critical Essay Assignment
Whereas the previous assignment asked you to draw on the work you did with your anthology entries, this assignment asks you to draw on the work done in your research logs. For this assignment you will need to pick one week of research and method to focus on. So, for instance, your group might choose to focus on Syracuse as a city and books/journals as method, or on your "home" and interviews, etc. About ten pages typed double spaced.
After you have chosen a focus, I’d like you, as a group, to write a ten page collaborative essay that critically engages the methods (in general), sources (in particular), and topics of research (particular to your group). If you’d like, you can divide your essay into those three sections.
Methods
• What can you say about the method you are focusing on?
• What is the most important consideration? What are the limits? Applications?
• How does method relate to subject? To subjectivity?
Sources
• Think back to what you did in your annotated bibliographies for this section, and refer to particular sources in your essay.
• What are the biases, audiences, publishers, authority, etc?
• Can you generalize about your set of sources?
Topics
• What has your group learned about your chosen topic?
• Why does this knowledge matter? To whom?
• How does this knowledge relate to your specific sources? To your method?