Assignment We will begin by reading a number of essays that consider the ways students use research in their academic writing (Randall McClure’s “Examining the Presence of Advocacy and Commercial Websites in Research Essays of First-Year Composition Students,” James M Lang’s “It’s not You,” Howard et al.’s “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences,”). We will then use these essays as a way to reflect on our own source use and research in college. This assignment then asks you to argue a position on student source use in the academy using at least two of the above readings and your own experience as a college writer. This “position” doesn’t need to offer a solution or take a definitive stance; it may, for example, argue for the two main challenges to students finding and using quality sources or for the central dilemma in student plagiarism. Requirements: The essay needs to be no fewer than four full pages. It will need to correctly cite and/or paraphrase passages from the texts in correct MLA form. You must refer to the following two writers: Randall McClure, Howard et al. This essay can and should include personal experience and/or field research in addition to the scholarly sources read in class.
