You must tell a story from your experience. Write about something that happened in your life that helps explain or reinforce the central idea or point of your essay. For the purposes of this assignment, recalling thoughts, feelings, and impressions does not go far enough.
Stay on topic. Your essay must remain engaged with a topic that is directly related to higher education.
Give your paper a meaningful title that forecasts the content of the paper.
Provide reasons with supporting evidence from your experience and research for your position on the issue.
Connect your central idea to an ongoing conversation.
Cite and document all sources that you use according to MLA 8th Edition. Cite information that is not common knowledge and when you use someone else’s ideas, arguments, language, or other materials. See EA chapter 27 for guidance crediting sources and avoiding plagiarism.
To connect the point of your essay to a broader ongoing conversation, you must locate, evaluate, and integrate at least one source that is appropriate for college-level writing. Your project will probably require additional research in order to discuss the issue in depth. Assigned readings, other course materials, and readings from the textbook do not count toward your minimum; however, you may cite and discuss these sources in your essay.
Each source appearing in your works cited list must be cited in the body of your essay with a signal phrase and/or parenthetical in-text citation that points unambiguously back to the entry in your works cited list. See EA chapter 28 for guidance on writing in-text documentation and preparing your list of works cited.
Ensure the length of your paper is at least 1800 words, not counting the list of works cited.
Format your paper according to MLA 8th Edition. See EA chapter 28 for guidance on formatting a research paper.