Social Media: Argument.Criticize or celebrate a form of “Living Online” for its effects on culture.From Envision in depth by christine L.Alfano

Order Description

Create a titled, double-spaced, 12 point font essay of 1500-1700 words—this does not include the Works Cited page. Essays short of 1500 words or in excess of 1700 words will receive serious point deductions.

Match the format of your essay, the look of your essay, to the sample essay ED 210 (This student essay contains bold subject headers, which I do not require, but which you may utilize if you wish). Failure to follow MLA formatting rules will result in serious point deductions.

Utilize at least two outside, academically suitable sources, and cite them in accordance to MLA rules. (More than two is encouraged, but not required.) One source should come from one of COC’s data bases, which can be accessed via the Online Resources links under the Library Resources link at the Course Documents page. You need a password to access this when working off COC’s campus. Course Documents, as I note above, contains the information you need. You may use Envision essays, but make certain at least one of your required two sources come from someplace other than Envision.

Create a Works Cited page for your sources. I will evaluate the appropriateness of your sources and include my assessment of them in your overall essay grade. After including at least two outstanding sources, you may include other less academic and intellectually impressive sources as best suits your needs.

For guidance, examples, and help in getting started, refer to any of the sample student essays in our textbooks, and review the assigned pages over writing academic essays. Refer to the Course Documents page at BB9 for additional resources helpful for the creation of this essay and all English 101 essays.

Structure and Writing Principles:

Nearly every body paragraph should be focused around a single topic, a topic sentence. A topic sentence contains a topic and your opinion about that topic. Another useful tradition to adhere to is to place your topic sentence at the beginning of your body paragraphs.
The most successful essays will also possess a high level of unity, coherence, and development. (See Course Documents and assigned pages from our textbooks.)
Concise writing is always superior to wordy writing.
You must include at least one long quote.
You must include at least one semicolon, colon, and dash.
Avoid 5 paragraph essays (See Course Documents for explanation and argument supporting this direction–The 5 Paragraph Essay: Why 101 Writers Should Avoid It.)
Tips and Reminders:

Your method of development will vary depending on which essay topic you choose. See Envision “ “Strategies of Arrangement” for basic organization options.
• Be sure to back up your comments with specific details from the texts we’ve discussed in class and/or from your research sources. In other words, support what you are saying with paraphrases, and quotes from the texts. You will want to consult the information presented in Envisions on “avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources,” as well as the MLA handout distributed in class.

Audience: You are writing to a large group of Santa Clarita Valley residents. They will read your essay in a SCV publication devoted to improving our city, state, and country by offering stimulating and thought-provoking material on issues that are (or should be) important to all of us.

They—your audience–do not have to read your essay. Interest them in your opinions. Draw upon effective use of ethos, pathos, and logos strategies. However, do not interpret that sentence to the left to mean that you must use those terms in this essay. What it does suggest is that you should be thinking about the three rhetorical strategies and how effectively you are utilizing them in your own essay.

The essay is due on: (See Assignments Calendar).

Late papers will lose points (Late means any minute after I collect the essays at the start of the hour that they are due. Essay’s more than one day late will receive an automatic letter grade deduction. An additional letter grade will be deducted every 24 hours from then on. Failure to submit this essay within 3 days of the due date will result in an F for the essay.

The Final Draft of your essay is due to be submitted to Turnitin.com See Weekly Assignments for due dates.

See Course Documents for directions on how to submit your essay to turnitin.com. Attach your essay document, a recent version of Word works best. Do not attach a PDF or copy and paste the essay into the text box.
I told you about my “death and social media” research paper topic, right? (See previous Announcment). Today, I discovered that COC’s library just made a book available for check out that works perfectly for my topic. If I were actually writing an Essay 2, as you all are doing, I’d be hustling over there to check it out. It’s a great topic because it’s narrow enough and timely. Oh, I could write about how Facebook allows husbands and wives to connect with old high school sweeties, have affairs, and wreck their marriages. But that’s in the news all the time. What could I add to that conversation that isn’t already pretty well known?

I hope your doing your best to avoid sharing familiar ideas with your audience. They’re pretty sophisticated, knowledgeable. I read the Santa Clarita Valley (a big part of who you’re writing to—see assignment directions for more details) boasts one of the highest number of college graduates for any city in America. Keep them in mind at all times while crafting your ideas to share with them.

Here’s the book: Digital Death : Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age by Christopher M Moreman; A David Lewis. Summary: “This fascinating work explores the meaning of death in the digital age, showing readers the new ways digital technology allows humans to approach, prepare for, and handle their ultimate destiny”–
Your goal is to take my subject–social media/life online–and narrow that down to a topic suitable for a tiny little essay like the one you are writing. You’re tasked with “celebrating or criticizing” your topic. What that means is 70% or more of your essay will be a kind of “praise” or “attack,” yet most likely parts of your essay will acknowledge valid opposing viewpoints. Seldom is any issue 100% “bad” or “good,” right? Notice how the essays you’ve been studying tend to show an openness to various viewpoints, while still ultimately delivering their own assessments.

I came up with a great topic just now: how social media is changing aspects of the process of death and dying, grieving. 95% of you will write essays about how “Facebook helps us stay connected to friends, family, and others.” Yup, that’s about as bad a topic as you can find. Horrible thesis, too, right?

Find something your audience probably isn’t entirely familiar with.Catfishing? Please. Cyber bullying? Really? Social media can cause bulimia? That’s been done a million times. Do some work and find a topic off the beaten path. Focus on a specific demographic, perhaps? How the elderly are using social media to enrich their lives. Our textbook contained two essays about “teens” and social media. Narrow the topic and narrow the opinion, and you’ll be on your way to a more engaging essay, one your readers will find interesting. Don’t write another essay about how video games don’t cause violence, write one about how video games can teach empathy.

I think I just found another good topic for this assignment in this morning’s LA Times, titled “Can a Video Game Make You a Better Friend? ‘The Beginner’s Guide’ Tries.” As the article states, “Beginner’s Guide” is a video game that opens with an existential question rather than an objective: Is it possible to get to know someone by analyzing his art? Play the game, and over the course of its two or so hours a number of even more compelling inquires arise, all of them relating to the difficulty of maintaining friendships, fostering intimacy and recognizing selfishness. It’s an odd, thoughtful and beautifully surreal game, and its images — a door floating in space, a wormhole that opens during a self-help talk and a country café that turns into a prison — linger long after it comes to a conclusion.”

Here’s a link to the entire article if you’re interested:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-1002-theplayer-beginners-guide-20151005-story.html

There are so many undiscovered topics just waiting for you to discover. Go! Find! Them!