For 2-2 Assignment: Writing Notes, you created Writing Notes that helped you to consider how the following critical elements related to your persuasive essay topic:

• argument*
• key points*
• audience*
• goal*
• potential resources*
• evidence*
• feedback*
• revision*

Now it’s time to revisit your Writing Notes and revise your responses to produce a complete, polished document that addresses all of the above elements. By reconsidering your responses from your Writing Notes, you will construct a Writing Plan. This process will allow you to develop a potential structure for effectively persuading readers to agree with your argument. This plan will be helpful in keeping your thought process on track when you begin writing and revising your essay.

As you work on the Writing Plan, remember to refer to the assignment guidelines and rubric below to make sure you’re fulfilling each aspect of the assignment.

Assignment Guidelines and Rubric

“Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Overview: Persuasion is a constant in each of our lives. No matter where we look, what we read, what we see, or who we interact with, we are inevitably going to encounter some form of persuasion. Advertisements want us to buy things. Newspapers and television want to convince us of how we should feel about events. We are put into positions where we must defend our thoughts and beliefs to others, and the process we apply is typically some form of persuasion.

Persuasive writing is one of the most powerful forms of writing—it has the ability to influence one’s thoughts, and also the ability to change one’s mind about a particular issue. The persuasive essay is an ideal opportunity to support an opinion on an issue using researched facts and information. It also gives you the chance to recognize opposing viewpoints and refute it, noting that those who hold the opposing viewpoints are the intended audience of the piece.

Prompt: For this essay, you will identify an issue in your current major, a major you are interested in pursuing, or your field of work. You will then establish an argument and support that argument with research and relevant evidence.

Answer each of the questions below in a Word document. Your responses for this Writing Plan should reflect the new ideas that may have come about as a result of your work in this module on evaluating sources and annotating those sources. Each response should be one fully developed paragraph in length (5–8 sentences).

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Writing Plan: Use this writing plan as a way to gather your thoughts and determine your strategy for writing your persuasive essay. This process will allow you to develop a potential structure for effectively communicating and supporting your claim. This plan will be helpful in keeping your thought process on track when you begin writing and revising your essay.
   1. Describe the argument to be addressed in your persuasive essay. Explain how the argument relates to your major, the major you are considering pursuing, or your field of work.
   2. Determine three key points that will be helpful in supporting your argument.
   3. Identify the audience who will be reading your essay. What potential challenges will you encounter in supporting your argument with this demographic?
   4. Establish a goal that you hope to accomplish with this essay. What will this essay need to be successful?
   5. List potential resources that could be used as supporting evidence for your argument, and provide a brief description of each and how they will reinforce your argument.
   6. Align key points of your argument with supporting resources for establishing an effective essay structure.
   7. Based on your argument, determine at what points in the essay integrating evidence would be most effective, and explain why.
   8. Describe a revision strategy that would be most effective while writing this essay. Why would this strategy be effective?
   9. Review your writing notes assignment and the feedback provided by your instructor. How does this feedback influence your progress moving forward? What changes did you make to your writing plan after receiving this outside feedback?

Guidelines for Submission: Save your work in a Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins.