Advocacy

Craft a 2,000-word well organized, researched and reasoned essay intended to persuade readers to adopt a specific policy on a topic you select. Your policy proposal must be different from the status quo. In other words: don’t argue for something we’re already doing. Your mission is to convincingly persuade an audience to change the way they act or think about a particular issue. You’ll need to explain what the issue is (the national debt, immigration, Libya, etc.), why the current approach is unsuccessful and why your course of action is the best one available. Please provide us with relevant and credible evidence from 8-10 sources (cited in MLA).

Statements of policy are phrased like this: “The United States of America should immediately intervene in Syria because the US has an obligation to help end the human rights abuses and stabilize the Middle East.” Or: “Congress should pass a balanced budget amendment because of our rising debt.” You are advocating a position on an issue. Here are some ideas for getting started:

Step 1: Investigate an issue that engages you on some level (personally, intellectually, etc.)

Determine the problems associated with this issue. What’s the status quo? What needs to change? Why?

Step 2: Draft a proposal. Offer your statement of policy. Who should do what because why.

What concrete steps need to be taken? By whom? Why is it important to do so? How does the community (or sub-community) benefit from adopting this new course of action?

Step 3: Identify who your audience is. This is the who part. What agency, country, group or

individual needs to take action? Your argument must engage this audience.

Step 4: Construct your argument. Using the researching and outlining methods we discussed in

class, build an argument that will persuade your targeted audience to adopt the proposed course of action. Support your ideas with your research.

Try to incorporate the various methods and ideas from the previous weeks. But you can approach this assignment in many ways. Ideally, you should be engaged and passionate about the topic. This will translate onto the page. We’ll be discussing this assignment over the rest of the semester and you’ll be peer reviewing a draft in the upcoming weeks.