Summary ENG1503 Assignment 2 Answers | DETAILED ANSWERS

Summary ENG1503 Assignment 2 Answers | DETAILED ANSWERS ASSIGNMENT 02 Research-based essay We hope that you have been enjoying this module thus far. Now that you are done with Assignment 01, let us turn our attention to Assignment 02. This is a rather exciting assignment. It is going to inspire you to further develop your writing skills. We know that “exciting” is not a word usually associated with assignments, but we would like to encourage you to approach your assignments as challenges that will benefit you beyond this module and into your chosen careers. By now you have been made aware that academic writing is a specific and different style of writing. At university level, you are expected to write your assignments using academic discourse and be able to construct an academic essay. Assignment 02 offers you the opportunity to put your growing academic writing skills to the test. In this section of the tutorial letter, we will give you some guidelines on how to approach Assignment 02. For further assistance, please refer to Learning Units 3 and 4 in your 2022 Tutorial Letter 501 for helpful guidelines on essay writing. Before you begin writing your assignment, please complete the following table. There is no need to submit this table with your assignment, this is for your own personal use. I have read Learning Units 3 and 4 in my 2021 Tutorial Letter 501. Yes/No I have read Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 in my prescribed book. Yes/No I have reviewed the writing process as laid out on pages 26-to-32 of the Guide. Yes/No Once you have completed the required readings for your assignment, you should be ready to tackle the essay. Step 1: READ THE QUESTION CAREFULLY! We cannot emphasise this enough. Understanding the question is one of the main keys to a successful assignment/exam. You have no idea how many students mis-read and mis-interpret the topic. A student may write a brilliant essay but fail it simply because it was not what he/she was asked to do. Being able to follow instructions and understanding the topic is vital at this level. Step 2: Topic Analysis When you are given a topic for an assignment or even for your examination, begin by analysing your topic. You can ask yourself the following questions: • What is it that I have been asked to do? • Have I been asked to compare and contrast, discuss, argue, explore, analyse? In this assignment you have been asked to write either an argumentative essay or compare and contrast essay. NB: Your essay should demonstrate the conventions you have learned from the module about essay structure and layout. This includes forming a thesis statement, clarity of message, taking a clear position and stance, using the appropriate words for the type of essay; cohesion and logical organisation of information, proper paragraphing, correct sentence structure and referencing. Step 3: Do your research. This assignment requires that you conduct research on your chosen topic. You have been asked to find five valid academic sources. This means that you should have a maximum of five academic sources, some of which should be from a printed book or journal. Do keep this in mind. Students who submit an essay which presents, for example, three sources, will certainly be placing themselves in a disadvantageous position. Try and read as widely as you possibly can. We suggest that you do not limit yourself to reading only five sources. Read more than that and then select the sources that you find most valuable. There is a wealth of academic sources on the given topics which means that there is a lot to choose from. As you gather information on various sources, underline or circle anything that you think may be useful for your essay. You may find that as you read your sources, your initial claim or point of view is changing. Perhaps you had decided to argue that Covid-19 has changed the world for the better, but as you continue to read, you found that the writer’s arguments are persuading you to change your position. Or you may find that based on your readings, you have changed your mind on your initial standpoint regarding the impact of Covid-19 in the world. This is of course perfectly normal and is a part of the research process. However, it is a good idea to be aware of the various strategies that writers use to persuade and convince their readers towards a particular point of view. What techniques, devices and strategies do writers use to persuade their readers? Think back to a time when you had a point of view which was changed by a persuasive argument. What was the argument about that made you to change your position? Once you have done your research and selected your sources, you can begin to draft your essay. Your academic essay Each essay MUST have three elements to it: An introduction, a body/supporting paragraphs and a conclusion. Without these elements, you have not written an academic essay. The following additional pages from your prescribed textbook may be helpful to you as you put your essay together: • Thesis statement (pages 12-14) • Introduction (pages 37-38) • Developing paragraphs and writing a topic sentence (pages 83-84) and body/support paragraphs (page 42) • Supporting ideas (pages 21, 22, 49, and 87) • Concluding sentence (page 88) and connecting paragraphs (pages 91-94) • Conclusion (pages 45 – 47) How to submit your Assignment: The submission portal to submit Assignment 02 will open on the 1st April 2022. Please submit it on the ‘Assessment 2’ section of the ENG1503 site. Please see image below: You are only allowed to upload ONE PDF document onto the system. You are allowed a maximum of 3 resubmission attempts before we start marking. Make sure that your submission status has changed from ‘No attempt’ (see image above) to ‘Submitted for grading’ in green (see image below): Assignment 02 NB: Choose either Question 1 OR Question 2 below and write a research-based essay according to the instructions under each question.