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This essay, sources, and notes all together are worth 150 points, and they are d
This essay, sources, and notes all together are worth 150 points, and they are due on Wednesday, 4/17 at 11:59 pm.
The essay, sources, and notes can be turned in until Sunday, 4/21 at 11:59 pm without a point penalty. After that, I will not be able to accept the assignment.
Prompt:
Write an essay in which you evaluate a documentary as an argument.
“Evaluation” is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “the making of a judgment of the …value of something.” The judgment must be based on particular criteria. For example, suppose you are a manager of a retail establishment. In that case, you may need to evaluate your salespeople on the quality of their customer service, stocking ability, handling of money, and punctuality. From that assessment, you may decide they are either of value or not of value to the company and take further action if necessary.
Film Criteria:
The documentary you will evaluate must be at least 70 minutes long and cannot be more than ten years old. Also, it should not be about a specific person (not Becoming), a specific place (not Scotland on a Budget), or a particular historical event (not Ken Burn’s Civil War).
You can find documentaries in many places, such as Netflix, Amazon, broadcast television, or the school/public library.
Pre-writing:
Once you have decided which film you wish to analyze, you will need to watch the film at least twice to make sure you get all the information you will need.
As you watch the film, you need to answer the following questions. Your answers to these questions will be turned in as part of the assignment, so even if you handwrite them while watching the film, you will need to type them up in MLA format and turn them in to the link, “Submit the Evaluation Essay Notes to Canvas.”
What is the film’s thesis? In a film, that will not be stated explicitly, so you will need to infer that from the film itself.
What is the subject or big-picture issue the filmmaker is exploring?
What is the filmmaker’s purpose?
Who is the intended audience for this film?
How does the filmmaker present evidence? Do they tell you their sources? Do they provide any kind of information about their sources?
Does the filmmaker make assumptions about the material and/or about the audience?
Does the filmmaker consider all relevant factors? Are there areas where information has been omitted to make their point more effective?
Does the filmmaker use humor, sarcasm, and/or fear, and are those devices effective?
Does the filmmaker consider an opposing viewpoint? If not, what is the opposing viewpoint to the ideas presented?
How is the film organized? It is linear (beginning of the story to the end) or does it bounce around in time or place?
Directions for the Essay:
Now that you’ve watched the film, taken notes, and done your research, you are ready to write your essay.
Your introduction paragraph will need to explain why you chose the film you did and provide a brief summary that ends in your thesis statement. The introduction only needs to be 5-7 sentences, including the thesis. The thesis should be at or near the bottom of the introductory paragraph.
Make sure to have a thesis that encompasses all elements to be presented. The following is an example from the film Food Inc.: Made in 2008, Food Inc. is a well-done documentary that examines the problems of food production in this country, both at the production and consumption levels, and it shows how political food is in this country, even today. You cannot use Food Inc. for the essay since it is too old, and I will be using it as an example.
As I stated previously, I want you to evaluate the film as an argument. To do that, you will need to explore the following in your body paragraph.
Please note: Body paragraphs should be 6-10 sentences long.
Who? Who is the filmmaker? What are other films they have made? Is there a familiar arc in all their films? What are their politics? Have they made those known in the film or outside the film?
Where? Where does the film take place? Does the topic the film explores only happen in that place? Why is that?
When? When was the film made? What time frame is the film exploring? Have there been significant changes on the subject over time? Have there been significant changes on the subject since the film was released?
How? How was the film made? Was this film low budget, or is it an expensive major studio film? What impact does that have on the viewing experience? What tools did the filmmaker use that you found effective and what was not as effective?
The questions I ask above can be combined into two or three paragraphs. For example, many students combine the “who” and “how” together in one paragraph, and then the “where” and “when” in another paragraph. Some need a whole paragraph just for the “who” questions, but they do the other three in one paragraph. There are several iterations. It depends on your movie and the subject.
The question below, though, is the bigger one, and this will take at least three body paragraphs if not more.
What?
What did you learn about the topic through your research? How has the argument around this topic changed (or not) and what is the implication of that? Explain.
What are examples of ethos, pathos, and/or logos used in the film? Is their use effective? Why or why not? Explain. When you discuss these terms in your essay, you need to name the term, explain the meaning, and then connect that to a specific event in the film.
Does the filmmaker offer an opposing view to the argument they are making? If the film does not, why do you think they made that choice? What would the opposition to the film say and why? Explain.
Do you recognize any logical fallacies in the film? What are they? Explain. See my logical fallacy lecture note for more information.
Finally, in your conclusion, you will need the following:
A topic sentence that restates the thesis but doesn’t use the same words.
Tell us where you fall on the issue, and whether or not you agree with the filmmaker and why or why not.
The conclusion should be 5-7 sentences long.
Essay Requirements:
Your final draft must be 1500-2000 words. Put your final word count at the end of the essay but before the Works Cited page.
The essay must be in MLA format.
You need to highlight parts of your essay as follows:
Highlight the thesis and all of the topic sentences in light yellow. That way I can see what you think is the thesis and which sentences you feel are the topic sentences, and then I can verify that.
Highlight all quotes, including citations, in light green. Direct quotes are often necessary and can provide a real impact; however, they should be used sparingly. An essay with too many direct quotes lacks development and will be marked as such. So, again, having that information highlighted gives a visual cue if you are using too many quotes.
Highlight all summaries, including citations, in light blue. I have you do this because one of the issues you need to be careful that you do not provide too much summary of the film. As for the secondary sources, you will need to summarize, and that is fine, but you do not want too much summary or it takes away from your own ideas. Either way, highlighting in blue gives you an easy visual to see if you are offering too much summary.
Highlight the following terminology in light pink: ethos, pathos, logos, opposition, and logical fallacy(ies). You just need to highlight the word leading into the definition and then the explanation. I am having you do this so that, again, you can visualize easily if you have all of the required elements.
You must use two to four legitimate secondary sources for your essay.
If you get your sources from the library database, they will be legitimate, but sometimes you will need to look beyond the database. When doing so, be careful that the source is reputable.
You cannot use Wikipedia, or any wiki, as a source. Also, general-subject encyclopedias are not allowed, but single-subject encyclopedias will be a great source for this essay.
Using any kind of essay writing website or Cliffs Notes-type source is not allowed.
Also, using AI or any kind of essay-generating software is not allowed.
I would like you to avoid film reviews since this assignment is supposed to be your analysis of the film, but sometimes film reviews can give information about the filmmaker, the writer, the setting, etc. Still, if you are going to use a film review, please limit it to only one of your sources.
Whether you summarize, paraphrase, or directly quote from a source, you have to cite where you got the information in the essay and provide a full citation of that source on the Works Cited page.
Make sure to properly cite your sources using MLA 9th editionActions (this will open as a PDF) within your essay and include a Works Cited page. The Works Cited page starts on a new page and does not count toward the word count; however, it should be part of the document you create. In other words, if the actual essay ends halfway through page 5, you need to do the Works Cited on page 6.
The Works Cited page needs to include the film as well as the secondary sources.
The way to cite a film is as follows:Name of the film. Director of the film. Distributor, Year released, Platform where you watched the film, date watched, URL.
Ex: 13th. Directed by Anna DuVernay. Kandoo Films, 2016, Netflix, 6 Apr. 2021, www.netflix.com/13thLinks to an external site..
Note that the film’s title and platform are both italicized. Also, in my example, I made up a URL, but you should include a real URL.
The essay must be saved as .doc or .docx. The links to submit the essay, the note, and the sources are under Assignments/M2/Due by Wednesday, 4/17. The essay, notes, and sources can be turned in up to four days late with no point penalty. After that time though, I cannot accept them.
Along with submitting the essay and note to Canvas, you must also submit the outside sources used in the essay. Below are the directions for how to save, label, and post your outside sources. Part of the requirements for this class is that I make sure you are using sources correctly. By having you upload your sources, I can confirm that you are doing so, and if not, we can work to correct the issues.
Once you have found a source that will work for your essay, copy and save that source to your computer in Word or Google Docs. If you use Google Docs, you will need to convert it to Word before submitting it to Canvas.
Save the document using your last name, the author’s last name, and the first two words of the article title. For example, if I had an article by Jack Smith titled “Bridges and Buses Are Not Sexy, but They Need Help,” my document title would be “Goldbar Smith Bridges and.docx.” You can save the sources as .doc, .docx, or .pdf.
Highlight the section(s) you summarized, paraphrased, or directly quoted and used in your essay. Then, note on which page of the essay you used this information. To make the notation, you can go to the “Review” tab in Word and add a “New Comment” with that information.
Or, you can type in the actual article where you used the information in the essay
See the sample source below. It shows both options:Goldbar Abrams Take Climate.docxActions (This links to a Word document.)
Save the document again and post it to Canvas under the link titled “Submit the Evaluation Essay Sources to Canvas.” You can post multiple documents to that same link. So, if you had two different sources, then you would save each as a separate document and post both to that link. DO NOT put all the sources into one document.
If you are using a hard copy of a source, you need to scan the page(s) you used into your computer and follow the same directions as above. When you scan, you want to save the document as a Word document so that you can highlight it. However, if that is not possible, highlight or underline the section you used before scanning it into the computer.
Do NOT scan in a whole book, journal, magazine, etc. Just scan, highlight, and label, the page(s) you reference in the essay.
If the page(s) you scan does not have the author’s name on it, type or write it in.
Please Note: These are the actual sources you used that you are posting. This is not just the Works Cited page which should already be a part of the Evaluation essay document. Again, I want to see the sources so that I can make sure you are citing them correctly.
Let me know if you have any questions as you are going through this process.
Grading:
The essay is worth 120 points, the sources are worth 20 points, and the notes are worth 10 points.
See the rubrics for each under their respective submission links.
Special notes:
Direct quotes are fine but should be kept to a minimum. Any essay that relies too heavily on direct quotes will be considered to lack development and will not meet the required word count.
In your essay, you can use 1st person (I, me) or 3rd person POV (he, she, they). However, you don’t want to use 2nd person POV (you, your) unless you are quoting someone who uses it.
Whether you summarize, paraphrase, or directly quote, you have to cite where you got the information in the essay and with a full citation on the Works Cited page, and it must be in MLA format. Failure to do this is plagiarism, so it is important that you carefully review your essay before submitting it to make sure you have cited everything that is required.
Check your essay for grammar, spelling, and/or punctuation issues before submitting it to Canvas.
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