Writing Assignment: INDUCTION ESSAY
Assignment: Because of the extra work required (i.e. data
gathering and the completion of a worksheet), this essay will
count 1 1/2 times as much as the regular essays we have done. Your
assignment is to do a survey on a topic of your choice and then
to present your results in an argumentative essay. Possible
topics include investigating political, religious, or geographic
backgrounds of a sector of the University of Akron student
body; attitudes or opinions about sports, drugs, music, sex, TV,
or other topics; choices concerning clothing, hair styles, or
cars; availability of services or entertainment; in short,
anything you can come up with that is interesting and easily
surveyable.
Audience: The other students in our English 112 class.
Length: 600-900 words, plus relevant charts, graphs, or
tables.
Format: The copy you submit to me should be double-spaced
and printed off or typed on regular 8 1/2" x 11" unlined paper. Do
not use onion-skin paper or erasable bond. Margins for the text
should be approximately 1" on all sides. Use the MLA style for
pagination, and fasten completed sheets with staple or paper clip
in upper left-hand corner.
Due Date: Monday, April 21.
HINTS FOR PROCEDURE:
- Be certain to limit the "population" you are going to
investigate to a manageable size.
- Decide on your method of gathering information. Try to
estimate how much evidence you can handle in your paper. If you
plan to use a questionnaire, don't indulge in biased questions
(e.g., "How stupid do you think Perot supporters are?")
- Make an accurate record of your evidence.
- Make generalizations based on your evidence.
- Write the paper and make up the illustrative charts, graphs,
and so on.
PAPER CONTENTS AND ORGANIZATION:
The paper itself should include the following:
- An accurate title.
- An introduction explaining why you believe your topic
to be worthy of investigation and why your audience should be
interested in your topic.*
- Definitions of key terms (e.g. University of Akron
students, grocery store, Baptist).
- The process by which you gathered the information.
- Problems you encountered in gathering information.
- Presentation of the evidence itself, in both
written and chart form. (You may put all illustrative
material at the end of the paper).
- Generalizations drawn from the evidence.
- Conclusion to paper: limitations of your conclusions
and possible areas or directions for further investigation.
*If you wish, you may include your generalization in your
introduction as well as at the end.
INDUCTION ESSAY WORKSHEET
Due Date: Monday, April 14. NOTE: Failure to complete and submit
this worksheet on the due date will affect your overall grade for the
essay.
1. a. General field of interest:
b. Specific topic I will survey:
2. Why is this topic worthy of consideration? (i.e., Why should my
audience be interested in this topic?)
3. What is my projected conclusion about this topic?
4. What are some terms I will need to define?
5. Whom or what will I survey?
6. How will the sample be chosen and why?
a. How will the sample be stratified?
b. How will selection be made random?
7. How will data be gathered?
a. Medium used?
b. Place(s)?
c. Time(s)?
8. If taking a poll, what questions will I ask?