Audience Segmentation

Length: The basic minimum length of your final draft (not including your name/section/assignment/date, bibliography and endnotes) is 1000 words. There is no maximum wordcount. I’ve found that the best papers are as long as they need to be to say what they have to say about a focused thesis statement or research question. Basic instructions Write an original research paper that utilizes the English composition techniques we have practiced this semester. Choose your own topic. It should have an orientation that could be considered, at the most general level, “Humanities” or “Sciences.” Use MLA style for Humanities, APA for Sciences. Thesis statements and research questions Your paper should address a thesis statement or research question focused on an original idea that has been discussed by professional academics in scholarly (peer reviewed) publications, rather than something that is simply definitional or informative; as an academic paper, therefore, it is not expected to have an obvious “practical application” to a general audience in “the real world.” Also, your research paper is not simply a written version of a speech to persuade or a speech to inform an audience of your college peers. If you liked Plank-Blasko’s Tetris article or Due et al.’s ASD article, you may derive a thesis statement or research question from either of those articles and use it as the basis of your research paper. Sources Your final draft should be based primarily on at least three scholarly (peer reviewed) journal articles published within the last ten years, each of which is at least six pages long. All three of these sources should be available in PDF full- text format in the Academic Search Complete database, and at least two of the three sources must not also be available for free on the Internet. In addition to the scholarly sources, you are free to use up to three other sources, such as books, magazines, videos (TED Talks, etc.), and websites, provided that these sources originated with a credible authority and have a unique relevance to the focus of your paper. Additional instructions: • Your final draft should contain between 10% and 15% direct quotation from your sources, using either APA- or MLA-style in-text citations; the rest of your paper should be written entirely in your own words, using summary and paraphrase to support your ideas. Quote single words and phrases, not longer than ten (10) words in a row. Use a variety of quotation styles. • Your final draft should contain at least two explanatory “endnotes” that provide additional ideas not central to your paper’s main discussion. One note must be at least 10 words long, and the other(s) must be at least 25 words long. • Depending on your thesis statement or research question, you may include the article you used for assignment #3a as one of your three required scholarly (peer reviewed) journal articles, provided that it meets the criteria explained above, under “Sources.” • Your final draft should contain a References or Works Cited section, prepared according to the APA or MLA style using the forms provided by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Do not rely on EasyBib to do this for you. If you use Academic Search Complete’s citation link, it is your responsibility to proofread it for accuracy and to make any necessary adjustments (e.g., upper- and lower-case letters, italics, author’s names, etc.).