Gender Stereotype You can imagine your issue either as a puzzle or as a disagreement. If a puzzle, your task will be to create a convincing case for an audience that doesn’t have an answer to your causal question at ready in mind. If a disagreement, your task will be more overtly persuasive because your goal will be to change your audience’s views. Goals for this Assignment 1. come up with a clear thesis; an engaging introduction; multiple, focused supporting paragraphs; a logical and effective organization of ideas; and a conclusion that opens up the argument to wider application 2. develop well-qualified claims with reasons and evidence that are appropriate to an academic audience 3. respond to arguments of others with rebuttals and strategic concessions 4. use reading as a tool of inquiry, for information, and as a means to build and support an argument 5. integrate quotations smoothly both for meaning and grammar with appropriate signal phrases and commentary on the quotations 6. understand and observe rules regarding plagiarism by documenting ideas from sources using MLA in-text citations and a Works Cited page Grading Criteria Clear, engaging, and sufficient presentation of the subject Convincing causal argument including o A clearly expressed causal claim o Examination of each cause and/or effect o Description and explanation of the relationship among any links, especially in an argument based on a series of links in a causal chain o Evidence that the description and explanation are accurate and thorough o Evidence to show that the causes and effects that you have identified are highly probable and that they are backed by good reasons o Consideration of alternative causes and effects, and evidence that you have considered them carefully before discarding them Logical organization: o An informative introduction that presents the subject and states the claim o Logically ordered paragraphs with clear topic sentences o Clear connections within and between paragraphs o A conclusion that shows the implications for the future. Clear and pleasant style: A style appropriate to an academic that is direct and lean, avoiding wordiness and repetition, with thoughtful choice of words and varied sentence structure. Observation of the conventions of written American English: prose that is edited for errors in sentence structure, usage, punctuation, and spelling. Careful use of sources: Using MLA guideline, all sources, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarize are introduced in the text, cited parenthetically, and listed on a Works Cited page.