Paper

The course culminates in the production of an academic paper that responds to a CFP in the field of rhetoric. It should be approximately 3,000 words (or 10 pages) and in MLA format. Papers should incorporate no fewer than four external sources (although this criterion is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, it serves to underscore that scholarly work should orient itself within a conversation through reference to other material). Papers will be submitted as attached files.

Resources:

• Google Scholar
• Sage Research Methods Map (through Randall Library)
• The Distant Reader
• Rhetoric journals:
  • Kairos
  • Present Tense
  • Enculturation
  • Relevant Rhetoric
  • Rhetoric & Public Affairs
  • Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  • Rhetoric Review
  • College English
  • College Composition and Communication
• Citation managers:
  • Zotero
  • EndNote
  • Mendeley
  • JabRef
    
    

Possible Structure Options:

• IMRaD
  1. Introduction: Orients your reader to the subject, surveys relevant literature to identify a knowledge gap, identifies the research question that the paper investigates, and forwards the thesis that provides a response to it
     1. (sometimes a separate Literature Review section comes between the Introduction and Methods section, especially if there is a significant amount of material to address)
  2. Methods: Articulates how you answered your research question, such that another researcher could replicate or extend the process
  3. Results: Presents what you discovered by applying your methods to your research question
  4. Discussion: Interprets what the results reveal
  5. Conclusion: Discusses how the paper contributes to its subject's research discourse and outlines where future studies could go from here
     
     
• Ciceronian
  1. Exordium: the paper's subject and purpose, including its claim
  2. Narratio: the current situation, including what others have said about the topic
  3. Partitio: the division of parts that the rest of the paper will follow
  4. Confirmatio: the evidence in support of the paper's claim
  5. Refutatio: the refutation of arguments against the paper's claim
  6. Peroratio: the conclusion that sums up the paper