III. Professional Rhetoric

Project Overview

  1. Your research topic must be on a profession, career, or discipline related to your academic major.
  2. Your objective in your research is to uncover a spectrum of perspectives on this career, including both positive and negative reports.
  3. The content of your essay must include all of the following:
    • history of the profession (identify major historic moments in the field, identify important founders, or identify major criticism on the profession)
    • career profile (what does a day in the life of X look like? )
    • critical issues about the profession (what are some of the ongoing debates that happen in and about this field? what are the best and worst practices in the field?)
  4. The content of your essay may also include any of the following:
    • job outlook (how do the jobs numbers read for this career?)
    • career planning (what experiences should you seek out?)
  5. Your argument will likely fall under one of two categories: (1) For me, the rewards of this profession outweigh the negatives, because of x,y,z; or (2) My understanding of this profession had been x, but in my research I discovered it was y, and am beginning to explore alternatives on z.

3.1 Research & Development: Compile a list of 8 sources on your research topic. Draw from a variety of sources, including journals, books, magazines, and web sites. At least 2 of your sources must be peer-reviewed. Submit your work as a works cited page in MLA style.

Submission: Due at 11:59pm on Nov 7. Upload to Dropbox as 3.1LastName.pdf

Include at least one paragraph of text that introduces us to your topic. (You might fall back on the work you did for the Find Your Why activity.)

Resource: Research Worksheet

3.2 Annotated Bibliography: Annotate 3 of your sources. Annotations include: a summary of the author’s argument and an analysis of that argument.

Submission: Due at 11:59pm on Nov 12. Upload to Dropbox as 3.2LastName.pdf

Resource: Annotated Bibliographies

3.3 Professional Essay: Generate a 2500-word research essay that draws upon your field sources from the invention mobs, your creative activity, and your scholarly research.

Resource: Using Research