Expository Essay
DUE Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 5:10 pm
Submit online in Canvas in the assignments section.
Working alone, write a new 700-800 word expository essay in your own words using third-person voice (i.e. do not use "I", "we", or "you") consisting of a central idea supported by your own analysis and examples in which you address one of the topics provided below.
If this is your first college expository essay, then please learn more about expository writing by doing a web search on that key phrase using your favorite web search engine. One explanation is given HERE. You are encouraged visit the UCD Academic Assistance and Tutoring Centers so you can have your essay reviewed by a writing specialist.
This assignment is due at the beginning of class on the date stated above. For you to get full credit, your essay must be turned in at the beginning of class on the due date. Assignments turned in late will be penalized by 10% per day. Assignments late by more than 1 week will not be graded. Exceptions require either prior approval or doctor-validated medical excuse.
No copying, collaboration, or paying others to write your essay is permitted. No plagiarism is permitted; include citations to the sources of knowledge when you state informaiton that you did not invent yourself. You may use ChatGPT, but if it yields plagiarism then you may be disciplined for plagiarism, as it is your essay, not its essay. ChatGPT does not provide in-text citations to source articles, but you are required to do so in your essay, and ChatGPT is not a citation itself, as it is not a source of knowledge, but instead it is just a repackaging of other people's discoveries. All submissions will be reviewed by TurnItIn for plagiarism and also checked for evidence of having been written by anyone else.
Additional information on how to avoid plagiarism is available HERE.
Expository Essay Topics for 2023
You **must** pick ONE topic among the following two prompts for your essay.
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Using only the content in the articles by Guinn (1890) and Corringham & Cayan (2019), compare the narratives of floods and flood damages to society in California between historical and modern time periods.
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Guinn, J.M., 1890. Exceptional years: a history of California floods and drought. Historical Society of Southern California, Los Angeles (1890), 1(5), pp.33-39.
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Corringham, T.W. and Cayan, D.R., 2019. The effect of El Niño on flood damages in the western United States. Weather, Climate, and Society, 11(3), pp.489-504.
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Using only the content in the articles by Spencer (1994) and Glenn et al. (2006), compare the narratives of racial injustice between the 1927 Mississippi River flood versus Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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Spencer, R., 1994. Contested terrain: The Mississippi flood of 1927 and the struggle to control black labor. The Journal of Negro History, 79(2), pp.170-181.
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Adams, G., O’Brien, L.T. and Nelson, J.C., 2006. Perceptions of racism in Hurricane Katrina: A liberation psychology analysis. Analyses of social issues and public policy, 6(1), pp.215-235.
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Trigger Warning about Racially Sensitive Content: This assignment contains materials and discussions that may address topics related to race, racism, and racial discrimination. These subjects can be emotionally distressing or triggering for some individuals. Please be aware that engaging with this content may evoke strong emotional reactions or discomfort. If you find that these discussions may be distressing for you, please consider speaking with your instructor or a mental health professional for support or alternative assignments. Your well-being is important, and accommodations can be made if needed.
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Researching Your Topic
As of 2023, it is no longer feasible to expect students to engage in traditional essay "research" involving a literature review, because there is no valid means of evaluating student performance in this arena without direct visual observation of students as they work (which I cannot do) in the new age of generative AI. Therefore I have changed the way this assignment works. Instead of providing a broad essay prompt and allowing for explorative research into the literature over some days (for which students would now just put the prompt into ChatGPT and have the esay written for them in 15 seconds), I am providing a specific prompt with 2 thorough literature sources. Therefore, your "research" should involve reading those two sources thoroughly, possibly even a few times each. Make sure you understand all the vocabulary in each essay and what each author is trying to explain. Then, use your critical thinking to develop ways to compare and contrast the ideas between the two essays. You may work on your generative AI "prompt engineering" to try to figure out ways to get AI to do some thinking for you, if you prefer to puzzle out how to manipulate AI rather than puzzle out what you think the authors are saying for yourself. For a deeper understanding of the content and to recieve a better education preparing oneself for a successful career, a motivated student will also search online for other content on the topic to gain diverse viewpoints to help interpret the provided readings.
Essay Format
- Submit via Canvas' assignemnts page. It provides you a text box you can paste your essay into. I advise you to write it in a word processing program first so you have a copy of your essay saved in your files before submission. Then just paste your text from your file to the Canvas text box.
- On the first line type the title of your paper.
- Leave the second line blank.
- Begin your essay on the third line.
- The reference list at the end will not count toward your 700-800 words.
- This report constitutes 20% of your grade, so the more time you put into them, the better your grade will be.
Writing Your Essay
Begin your essay with an introduction paragraph that identifies the theme of your essay. This theme, also called a "thesis", is a generalization that you have gleaned from reading the variety of sources that you have researched. The introduction paragraph needs to be fairly short to leave space for the main arguments and evidence to follow. With a short essay like this, I suggest avoiding the use of personal stories for the introduction, because they take too long to unfold. The following paragraphs should provide supporting claims and specific facts, quotations, and other forms of evidence backing up your claims. End your essay with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes what you have explained to substantiate your thesis.
In your essay, use citations from the two source articles to back up facts and examples you state based on your sources. You are welcome to read, draw from, and cite other articles you deem relevant, but it is not required. Citations in the body of the text should be in a format such as (Author, Year, page #). In the reference list, use a format such as "Author. Year. Title. Publishing information. Page number". Essays lacking adequate citations and citation formatting of the two source articles will be penalized. Writing the exact words from a source is not permitted. Avoid using long quotes as well, as you need to integrate the information into your own ideas.
What Makes a Superior Essay?
An excellent essay is one that addresses the topic clearly, demonstrates a thorough critical understanding of the material, explores the issue thoughtfully and in depth within the allotted space, is coherently organized with ideas supported by apt reasons and well-chosen examples, has an effective, fluent style marked by syntactic variety and a clear command of language, and is generally free from errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics.
Extra credit is possible for additional supporting materials (not words, simple photos, or additional citations) that improve the quality of the paper, at the discretion of the professor. Extra content should be explained in the text; avoid peppering random photos into the essay. The sources of any additional materials should be properly cited.
