Paper One ASSIGNED: A TWO-SIDED CLASSICAL ARGUMENT ESSAY ON THE ASSIGNED PROMPT (you must choose one side of the issue question below), a minimum of FIVE FULL PAGES, plus a sixth WORKS CITED PAGE, and at least FIVE UTSA database/Google Scholar online and/or print sources with NAMED authors.
You must have a named author(s) for any source you use and, of course, DO NOT EVER USE WIKIPEDIA for ANY of these research papers.
The paper will be typed, doubled spaced, and use MLA format and MLA in-text citation (examples of which are in your Writing Program Handbook and Writing Arguments textbooks).
And please, for your own sake, I will remind you again not to use ANY of their words, the sources words, without putting them in quotes and citing them or that is plagiarism which will result in a failing grade for your paper.
As said, Blackboard automatically checks your essays for plagiarism and I can easily check them as well so do be careful. Dont be shy in asking me ANY questions at all about how to summarize/paraphrase a source (using all of your own words) vs. how to quote a source (when you put any and ALL of their words you use into quotation marks) and how to CITE both in your paper.
PROMPT FOR PAPER ONE:
“Should there be more regulation of todays extremely large Silicon Valley internet and technology corporations such as Apple, Alphabet (which owns Google), Amazon, or Facebook/Meta (which owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR and more) due to their effects on society today?
For example, you can use the following reasons, or many others of your own, pro and con: privacy concerns, control and flow of personal and public information, monopoly power, destruction of competition, financial power, artificial intelligence, positive or negative impacts on politics, democracy, or the free exchange of ideas and speech and more.
PLEASE NOTE: Do NOT write a stereotypical, now old argument on the so-called pros and cons of social media or you will fail this essay.
This paper is about the issue question of whether or not we need to regulate (or even break up) these huge corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Meta/Facebook which are some of the biggest corporations in the world owned by literally some of the richest people in the world.
As of 2020-21 projections, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook/Meta was worth @ 100 billion dollars, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is worth @188 billion, Bill Gates of Microsoft, 113 billion. Alphabet, the corporation that owns Google, is worth a TRILLION dollars, and though Apples CEO Tim Cook is worth only a billion dollars, he runs a company, Apple, which in 2020 was THE most profitable company in the world today. According to recent 2020-21 stock prices, Apple was worth TWO TRILLION dollars.
So, do these corporations have too much power or what? Is this good for our society as a whole or not? You will do the research and you decide.
VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE NOTE: As with all persuasive writing topic questions in this class, you can argue ANY side of the issue question but you must choose just ONE side, one claim to answer the prompt issue question, a single claim (your side) followed by the word “because and then your three reasons which creates your enthymeme in your very first paragraph.
The ENTHYMEME is the foundation of your entire classical argument, the basis for the whole paper so it MUST be in the correct format AND in the very first paragraph of your paper. In fact, if you do not have an enthymeme in the correct format, the paper will quite probably fail. THAT is how important your enthymeme is. Your enthymeme is essentially a more complicated and sophisticated thesis statement for an argumentative essay. How to write an enthymeme is explained at length in your Writing Arguments textbook. That said, please remember: I will also post a pre-recorded lecture where I further explain your readings and tell you exactly how to write your enthymeme and a classical argument.
ALSO IMPORTANT: You MUST present @ 35 to 40% of your opposition, their argument, your oppositions claims, reasons, and their evidence in your paper. Remember, you are trying to persuade them, the people on the opposite side of your issue, in the classical argument formatfor example, there must be 1 s or 2 pages of opposition total in a five and a half to six page paper.
Your opposition must first enter the essay as one full paragraph by page two or you will lose points. Also, if you do not have the required amount of opposition in your paper you could lose even more points as these are NOT one-sided arguments. As explained in my pre-recorded lectures and in your textbook, the classical argument presents two sides (or more) of the issue question (the prompt I gave you). You are taking one side with your enthymeme in the first paragraph. Your support for your main claim and three reasons will make up @60 to 65% of the paper then and you will weave in the other @ 35 to 40% of opposition which you will try to either rebut, counter or, if need be, its okay (and good ethos) to even concede to a good opposition point that you cannot refute.
