Essay 2: Rogerian Argument (750-1000 words)
For your Rogerian Essay, you will write a letter seeking a compromise between a stance you hold and an opposing stance expressed in an article from a reliable source.
Your introduction should identify the issue you are discussing, provide context, and indicate your target audience. This audience will either be the exact author of your source (“Dear James Madison”) or the group of people who hold the stance (“To those who believe school uniforms should be mandatory”).
The body of your paper should fairly summarize the audience’s views in a neutral way, acknowledge their values, identify common ground between your position and theirs, and respectfully introduce your own perspective with an invitation for the audience to address the issue with you.
Your conclusion should always indicate the significance of your discussion. For this paper, proposing a compromising position between your own and your audience, explaining how both sides can benefit from understanding one another, and inviting the reader to continue negotiation would be appropriate concluding strategies.
This kind of argument contains a delayed thesis. In this case, your thesis may come at the end of the penultimate (second-to-last) paragraph or the beginning of the last paragraph (conclusion).
The article you address should take a clear stance with which you disagree. You must cite TWO additional sources to support your claims in addition to your opponent. All information from a source MUST be cited. The source you address may be found through a search engine, but your supporting sources should be found through the Blinn Library. Ask your instructor if you are unsure whether a source is acceptable.
Sample Thesis Sentences
Regardless of whether abortion is seen as an acceptable method of dealing with unwanted pregnancies, society as a whole will benefit if we endeavor to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies that occur to begin with.
While you may never agree with me that drug users should receive no further punishment than they inflict on themselves, I hope you have come to acknowledge that standard imprisonment does not address the circumstances of addicts and that we can work together to develop alternatives more conducive to rehabilitation.
I understand your reservations about implementing free college education, but because I still think it is valuable I hope we can agree that if the community college program in Tennessee is still tenable after a year, we can implement a similar program in Texas.
All Formal Writing Assignments Must Include:
Correct MLA formatting as described in section MLA-5a of Writer’s Reference and shown
on the Sample MLA Paper (MLA-5c).
Appropriate formal tone and correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
12 point Times New Roman font
