Writing Assignment Part 1: Analyze Sources

The purpose of this assignment is to aid students in analyzing sources. Students are to evaluate several potential sources that could be used for an essay. You will need to judge the quality of the eight sources given below. In a paragraph or two for each source, the student should describe it and evaluate its quality. The student should not just ascribe a high or low quality to the source, but discuss the reasoning behind those conclusions. Hopefully, after reading and analyzing these sources you will also have a good handle on the topic and some of its major arguments and issues.

The 8 Sources for Govt 2305 & 2306 Fall 2018 Writing Assignment topic of Regressive Taxation in Texas:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/in-texas-the-joys-of-no-income-tax-the-agonies-of-the-other-kinds.html

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tax-cuts-are-big-texas-not-low-income-residents

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Brown-Texas-has-a-revenue-problem-and-it-s-11091993.php

https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/17/states-income-taxes-surprising-inequality-burden

https://forabettertexas.org/images/BT_2013_03_PP_WhoPaysTaxes.pdf

https://www.texaspolicy.com/library/doclib/2006-02-PP-taxincidence-bs.pdf

https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/15/pf/taxes/poor-state-taxes/index.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/01/30/regressive-taxes-are-neither-new-nor-good/#2940ffe45f15

Writing Assignment Part 2: Developing a Thesis statement; Outlining an argument; Preparing the Works Cited.

The purpose of this assignment is allow students to practice forming and outlining their argument and understanding the elements of a traditional essay.

Students will produce an outline for an essay, which eventually you will turn into your final essay. As a preparation for writing that essay, the student should focus on formulating their argument. The sources from assignment one are to be used in the outline, and if you desire, additional sources can be used as well. Students must attribute (cite) all of their sources used in the outline. You will use MLA style, which is the system taught in WC English courses. Remember the list of links located in the introductory module of Canvas to help you with your formatting and preparation of your works cited.

You will turn in an outline (including a thesis statement, topic sentences, evidence to support topics, and a concluding statement). Also, you will include a Works Cited (bibliography). We will talk more about this in class as the semester progresses.

Writing Assignment Part 3: Final argument construction – Your Essay

For this assignment, you will write a well-formulated and organized essay. Specific emphasize should be placed on synthesizing information and making well-supported conclusions. Utilizing the information from the Part 1 sources assignment and the outline from part 2, write your essay in which you discuss thoroughly the question being asked. The final essay needs to be 750-1000 words (3 to 4 pages), not counting the Works Cited portion. You may add your Works Cited at the end of your essay, so that you will have only one file document to upload into Canvas. Remember, I cannot read pages, so if you do not have Word, please upload your document as a .pdf file.

There you go! If you put in the time at the beginning and I would recommend you take notes while doing the source evaluation exercise, and then complete assignment 2, your essay will be all but written up, and you will find that the largest part of this process is the quickest, if not the easiest. I want you to also express your own opinions and attitudes but remember your position needs to be backed with facts from the readings.

While I encourage students to discuss amongst themselves these common assignments, I expect everyone to turn in their own, original work. Plagiarism will not be tolerated- whenever you are expressing someone elses ideas, words or positions, you MUST give them the proper credit through a citation reference. Remembering this when you are taking notes will make it easier when you are writing your final paper.