DRAFT of the Advocacy Assignment (individual)

Learning to advocate is an important skill in your life. There are times when you need to advocate for or against something that has multiple points of view. This can include ideas, actions, or people. When you advocate, you may be advocating for a person, encouraging people to adopt and idea, or take action. Learning how to advocate is an essential skill in professional, and even, your personal, life. Examples of advocating can be seen in our everyday lives: convincing voters to increase their taxes to the benefit of schools, convincing city council to fund a new playground in an urban neighborhood, convincing a grant funder not to cut your grant funds for this coming year, asking for support for a new project, rallying public support against a real estate development project that would destroy wildlife, convincing a parole board, advocating for a child to be placed in foster care. The list goes on—learning to advocate successfully is a skill that can be developed with dedication and practice! What is it? To advocate is to take a stand on something—an issue, a policy, defend a person’s rights. You may have to argue for your insurance company to provide treatment for your elderly parent, or argue for or against a policy that would have a good or bad effect on your neighborhood, or convince a group of people to either accept a new idea, or stay with the status quo. To advocate is to “plead the cause of another” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary online), or “defend or maintain a cause or proposal” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary online). Structuring the Advocacy Assignment In order to effectively persuade an audience, the speaker/writer must be able to discuss and argue away the opposing side’s viewpoints with facts and reasons. Once you determine what your position will be, you will need to determine how someone might argue against your position. Step 1: Describe the problem Step 2: Explain what action needs to be taken or what policy must be changed a. Present facts that will support your position b. Provide emotional reasons as to why this would be the best position to adopt or bet course of action c. Write ~3 main ideas that should be developed in your paper d. Explain what change is needed or what action should be taken e. Conclude with a call to change or act Why is it important and how will this assignment help me in my future career" Throughout your life, you will be confronted with challenges and choices and you will have to take a stand. In your professional life, you will be required to advocate on behalf of another person, or you may be required to develop a policy or proposal that you want others to accept or adopt. Perhaps you want to become a non-profit organization development consultant and need to convince people to donate to a cause. You will find that it is not easy to get people to change their minds and adopt a new stance! Learning how to persuade and get people to accept your points will help you to plan your argument. Resources for writing the advocacy paper: https://sites(dot)google(dot)com/site/writingportfolio11/advocacy-paper http://learningtogive(dot)org/papers/paper40.html http://ctb(dot)ku(dot)edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1206.aspx http://www(dot)sasanet(dot)org/curriculum_final/downlaods/CA/Working%20Papers%20&%20 Case%20Studies/WP1%20-%20Advocacy_Skills.pdf You are encouraged to begin this assignment as soon as possible. How is it done? a. 5-6 pages of text with at least 8 references (3 of them scholarly references from peer-reviewed journals); each reference must be cited in the text of the paper b. Must be formatted in APA style c. You must clearly identify the advocacy topic d. You must identify both sides of the topic and then be able to argue away the opposition e. The structure of the paper should follow this format; i. Identify the problem and your position on the problem ii. Explain what position you want your audience to accept or what action you want them to take iii. Identify opposing positions in detail and why these positions have been accepted by so many others (this is the analysis portion of this paper, and your ability to thoroughly analyze all sides of the issue will be extremely important!) Provide evidence as to why the opposing position has not, or will not work or be feasible (or state what is wrong with the opposition) v. State why your position is feasible and why (provide evidence) vi. Restate what position you want the audience to accept/ or the action you want them to take What kinds of topics are suitable for this assignment? This assignment is suitable for a wide range of topics. It is important that the topic have a complex perspective. You may use the topic you have used for your paper in SOC 331 Research, Writing, and Information Literacy, or SOC 340 Applied Research Design, or PSY 340 Research Methods in Psychology. However, the paper must be revised to meet the requirements of this course! You cannot use a previous paper in its existing format. But you can take advantage of previous work you have done by developing the topic to fit this course. Here’s an example: if you wrote a paper in SOC 331 about the effects of having a positive attitude in recovery in breast cancer patients, you might create a policy position whereby insurance companies should provide for positive thinking training for patients undergoing cancer treatments. Sounds simple, right? But if you think about it, why would insurance companies be against this? What would they have to lose or gain by your proposal? Learning how to think about both sides of a position is what will help you structure your position and improve your chances of being an effective advocate. This is an individual assignment worth 100 points. How will this assignment be evaluated? This assignment will be evaluated using the following rubrics: https://sites(dot)google(dot)com/site/writingportfolio11/advocacy-paper http://learningtogive(dot)org/papers/paper40.html ;http://ctb(dot)ku(dot)edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1206.aspx http://www(dot)sasanet(dot)org/curriculum_final/downlaods/CA/Working%20Papers%20&%20Case%20Studies/WP1%20-%20Advocacy_Skills.pdf The first part of this paper is the draft. then the next part is the actual paper please separate the draft from the actual paper My topic is Financial abuse of the elderly