Instructions:
To practice critical, analytical thinking through the medium of writing, you will perform a text-wrestling analysis and synthesize your findings in an essay driven by a central, unifying insight presented as a thesis and supported by evidence. Our focus for this analysis will be on comparing and contrasting two sources and making a determination on which one is more convincing.
Select a text pairing and respond to one of the following for your thesis: Kenneth Goldsmith’s “Are You Wasting Time on The Internet? Is That Such a Bad Thing?”AND Jean Twenge’s “Has The Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?”:Analyze the arguments made by Goldsmith and Twenge. Compare Goldsmith’s view of technology’s impact on teens with that offered by Twenge. What is Goldsmith’s response to the idea that smartphones and social media are addictive and make teenagers antisocial and depressed? How does each author develop their position throughout each of their articles? Whose position on this issue do you find more persuasive? Why? Phrase your thesis as a direct response to the prompt question you chose.
Your essay should be thesis-driven, include quotes, and a brief summary of each source (no more than 3-5 sentences for each) as evidence to support your points. Be sure to revise at least once before submitting your final draft. If you would like more information on the structure of a Compare & Contrast Analysis Essay please review Writing for Success: Compare/Contrast from Lumen.
This kind of essay often values a polished, “academic” tone. Try to avoid colloquial language or slang. There is also no use of first or second-person voice permitted.
Requirements
- Essay must include a definitive thesis statement that responds to one of the prompts above
- Essay should clearly work to support the thesis statement
- Essay must analyze and interpret one of the source pairings included above
- Essay must include brief summaries of the selected sources
- Essay must be in MLA format (You can use the MLA Format Template to ensure you are meeting these requirements)
- Essay must include quotes from relevant parts of the articles correctly and use in-text citations
- You must discuss two assigned articles from the course and clearly state which author is more convincing and why
- Form your ideas into paragraphs with appropriate topic sentences
- Be clear and concise (avoid wordiness or extraneous information)
- Essay must include a Works Cited page
- The final draft must be at least 1,200 words