The Community Advocacy Research Paper

(I WANT TO CHOOSE THE GAMING COMMUNITY, I AM GOING TO INCLUDE AN EXAMPLE PAPER IN A FILE FROM THE COURSE PROVIDED BY THE PROFESSOR, I WILL ALSO NCLUDE THE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW IN A SEPARATE FILE FROM AN ASSIGNMENT PRIOR TO THIS) Step 1: Select a community that is important to you. A community is a group of people who share something—like a place, a hobby, a struggle, a value, or a profession—that binds them together. Choose a community that matters to you (whether you’re a member of that community or just interested in it). You’ll study this community throughout Module 3. And yes, you can select, as your community, the discourse community you studied in Writing Project #2: The Annotated Bibliography! (I want to choose the gaming community) Step 2: Consider a few advocates who you might interview. Take some time to come up with options and carefully consider those options before making your interviewee choice. Step 3: Select a community advocate and conduct an interview. Select someone in your life—a friend, a family member, a teacher, etc.—who has written a text to advocate for positive change in a community. This “text” does not necessarily need to be a formally written document like a letter or email (although these are both viable options). A "text" could also be a video posted to a social media account, a series of tweets (twitter thread), or even a physical document like a flyer or poster. The main requirements are that 1) the person you interview wrote the text themselves, and 2), the text(s) was/were designed to create positive change. As such, someone who has composed a text in order to spread hate speech, conspiracy theories, and/or misinformation would be disqualified as this would not be composing for positive change. Step 4: Prepare for your interview. Conduct secondary research: find sources that can help you better understand the kind of advocacy your interviewee engages in (and the topics surrounding it) and/or the writing practices of advocates. Write interview questions: compose queries that will invite your interviewee to describe and reflect on the process they use to complete their advocacy writing. Schedule an interview: secure a time to actually pose those questions to your interviewee. Conduct the interview: record it, and take notes during the interview. Step 5: Conduct MORE secondary research. Continue to find sources that can help you better understand the kind of advocacy your interviewee engages in (and the topics surrounding it) and/or the writing practices of advocates. Step 6: Write the paper. Organize and compile your research into a traditional research paper that crafts and supports an argument about writing strategies and community advocacy. There are many different ways to structure a research paper, and there is no “right way” to organize one. That being said, there are best practices for doing so. For your paper, we are requiring you to follow a couple of those best practices (regardless of the structure you use). With that in mind, your paper should should do the following: Include an introductory section that engages your audience and announces your purpose and your argument (i.e., how and why writing is important/helps to create change in that advocacy) Include a section that provides background and context about the advocacy you’re looking at, as well as examples of writing in that advocacy Include a profile of your advocate and the kind of writing they do. You should provide readers with any contextual information they need to understand your advocate and at least two concrete examples of your advocate’s writing. These can be screenshots, textual evidence, etc. This section should also explain how the examples--whether directly or distantly--affect change for the target community. A conclusion that leaves readers with takeaways, insights, and/or paths forward for encountering, examining, or even doing advocacy writing. Adhere to formatting conventions according to MLA or APA standards. This is a formal research paper, and you should do your best to adhere to academic conventions, which include accurate citation and formatting practices. Criteria for Quality: This assignment is graded for quality, meaning that it is all about doing your best work as a writer–showing how, when you’re trying your hardest, you can (using learning materials) meet a project goal. Thus, your grade will be based on how closely you meet the project goals. Your research paper will be evaluated on the following criteria (view the assignment rubric for complete evaluation criteria): Clear focus on advocacy writing and its key components Your research paper should focus on advocacy writing and the writing of a particular advocate, as well as the role of advocacy in creating change broadly, as well as in the specific community of your chosen advocate. To reach this goal, your paper should include an introductory section, a background/contextual section, a profile of your advocate and their writing, and a conclusion as described above. Logical and easily navigable organization A good research paper will be clearly and logically organized. Your research paper should have an introduction, multiple body paragraphs and sections, as well as a conclusion that highlights the research paper’s insights and value to readers. Effective use of sources Your research paper should use both primary and secondary sources to support and complicate your ideas and the argument(s) you’re making. You will also want to make sure that you effectively integrate your sources/quotations into your writing and that you expand/clarify the relevance of your sources; your writing shouldn't assume readers will make the connections that you’re intuitively making in your head. Adherence to conventions of academic discourse/writing You will want to do your best to model academic discourse/writing. This means that your tone should be formal and collegiate and that your writing is crafted for a, mostly, academic audience. This also means that you should attempt to make writerly moves that are inherently rhetorical. Said another way, your writing should not only explore an advocacy/advocacy writing but persuade readers of something about that advocacy/advocacy writing. Further, you will want to make sure that your writing stays on topic and that you consciously and consistently relate your ideas and use of sources to a larger idea that you lay out early on. Polish of final product Academic writing is carefully revised, edited and contains few surface errors (typos, grammar issues, format issues, etc.). Therefore, your final draft should be free of such errors and adhere to MLA or APA format. Criteria for Completion While this assignment is graded for quality, it should still be complete. To be considered "complete," your submission must . . . Consist of a minimum of 1,250 words Employ a minimum of five credible sources (including your interview); note: you may re-use sources from Writing Project #2--but at least three of your sources should be new. Use either MLA or APA format