Why Do We Work?

Read every word below carefully, more than once, before starting your essay.

Address the topic below in a carefully structured essay of 750-1100 words (in the body of the essay, excluding headers, name, date, title, works cited entries, etc.). Raise a central question at the end of your introduction that the rest of the paper strives to answer in persuasive format.

For details of the physical formatting of your paper on papermargins, headers, titles, etc.see the simple stuff page. For guidelines on quotation and documentation, see the quotations page. All options require quotations from the readings, so a works cited page is necessary.

I encourage you to seek my help with your paper outside of class. I cannot respond to whole drafts through email, but I will be glad to go over your paper from start to finish with you in person before you submit it for grading.  If my office hours don’t mesh with your schedule, let me know and we’ll make arrangements for other times.

I am neither expecting nor encouraging you to use any sources beyond those assigned as readings for this class. Understand that if you bring in quotes from web sources, you will still need to document citations correctly according to the quotations page, but they will not count towards quotation requirements for the assignment.

Paper proposals: Before you begin writing the essay, construct a topic sentence outline beginning with the literal question your paper addresses, then give full topic sentences that answer the question directly for each primary point in your paper (i.e. for each body paragraph), just as they will appear in the essay itself, and conclude the outline with the paper’s overall thesis, answering the central question directly and combining your essential points from the various topic sentences. See sample topic sentence outlines on my writing tips page and on the paper proposal assignment page.

Works cited info: For bibliographic information on any readings handouts, such as “Work, Labor, and Play,” “The Importance of Work,” etc., see the referring pages from our schedule of readings and assignments (the pages from which you loaded the Adobe PDF files).

The topic:
Construct an argument in the persuasive format between at least three different viewpoints in answer of the question, “Why do we work?”  (You may use this question, word for word, as your “central question” without fear of plagiarism.)  You may have one opposing view and two or more of your own, or two opposing views and one or two of your own, etc.  While you are not restricted to views expressed in our readings, you must quote at least two of the articles we’ve read on work, and you must incorporate a bare minimum of four quotations from our readings into your discussion.

Reminders:
blue bullet Make every topic sentence answer the central question directly.
blue bullet Introduce all quotes: see nugget 3.
blue bullet Sweat the details: use the Golden Rules, Nuggets, Simple Stuff, and Quotations pages and proofread carefully.
blue bullet Offer concrete evidence (quotes) in support of each of your major assertions.
blue bullet See me in the office or email if you have questions or problems.