ENGL 1302:037 Spring 2005
Due Thursday 7 April
30 points
Chapters 16-19 of Steven Pinker's Blank Slate discuss individual issues from the perspective of Pinker's synthetic ideas about human nature (developed partly in chs. 13-15).
Your essay assignment is to write a brief academic argument in one of the large categories of issue addressed in chs. 16-19: politics, violence, gender, or children.
The structure of your argument is largely up to you, but there are some constraints I'd like you to follow in the paper. You must use at least three sources. One of these sources must be Pinker himself; you must quote and use in some way (arguing for or against) a point that Pinker makes in chs. 16-19.
The two other sources that you use must be from academic journals or academic essay collections (edited books). You'll use all three of your sources as support for your argument, or as something to argue against. The argument should be made and supported in academic terms; you will either use your sources as evidence or models for your own argument, or you will critique them and show their flaws.
Your opinions and values are always important; in my section of 1302, at least, you may always use the word "I" and offer personal experience as a support for a claim. But this essay is primarily an academic argument. It is not going to succeed because the reader likes or trusts you, or because you have a certain authority, or because you can evoke certain feelings in the reader. It will succeed because you gather and arrange academic ideas well. If you use personal evidence, the personal evidence will be more relevant insofar as other people can relate to it and agree that it reflects their own experience, too.
Choose some limited issue and make a limited, testable claim. Don't just say "my thesis is that all people are naturally violent." Instead, say something like "my thesis is that playing violent video games [to excess (define that excess) / at all] leads to violent behavior [never / rarely / sometimes / always] in young [people / men]," or some other such relatively limited claim that seems in line with the claims that you see made in academic articles.
Aim for 5-7 pages; exact length is not important but shorter papers are unlikely to have enough scope to be successful.
