For your second writing assignment, you may choose one of the following rhetorical strategies to develop your essay: classification, definition, narration, or description.

Since you must write a standard college-level five-paragraph essay (at least), select your topic wisely. You may perform a Google search for college-level essay type topics. I have provided a few links for each type below. If you have reservations about one of the suggested topics below, please ask me for help and approval.

Classification

Remember: the classification essay requires you to classify nouns (people, place, things, ideas) according to a single basis of classification; for example, you could classify gymgoers based on their behavior at the gym, parents based on their discipline methods, people based on their personality types, or music based on the different genres.

Definition

Remember that the definition rhetorical strategy provides you with three types of definition:

1. Definition by synonym
2. Definition by class
3. Definition by negation

Regardless of the type of definition you choose, you will use one of the following to develop your definition essay:

• exemplification (very common)
• description
• comparison/contrast
• process
• classification

Narration

Narration essays (not fiction short stories) provide you with an opportunity to tell a story with the purpose of influencing your reader. You can incorporate elements of narration in other essays, but if you choose to write a narrative essay, you need to recount a story using an orderly and logical sequence of events.

Remember: you must have a purpose for your narrative. Do you want to recount historical events to highlight what some American generals learned about best warfare strategies? Do you want to recount a personal experience to illustrate something you learned about yourself, others, or life in general? Do you want to recount a first major event in your life as a means of recommending to others actions they should or should not take in their own lives?

Regardless of your purpose, you must not use first- or second-person pronouns: I, we, my, our(selves), you, your(selves). If you are discussing your own experiences, talk about yourself in third person. For example, I would write, Jennifer never expected the autumn of 1993 to set into motions a series of events that would forever alter her life.

Description

Description is a rhetorical strategy that you can use in all the other types of essays. The purpose of the description rhetorical strategy is to write in such a way that your audience can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what you – the write

– are describing. For example, instead of writing, “The dog was large,” you would give the dog’s height and weight.

As you search for college-level essay topics, try typing ‘college level classification essay topics’ or ‘college-level definition essay topics’ or ‘college-level narration essays topics,’ or ‘college-level description essay topics.’ Your results will include paper-mill links or advertisements, but you will also find some excellent topics to peak your interest. Please allow me to approve your topic to make sure you have you can develop it using one of the rhetorical strategies.

You may start your search at Gallaudet University’s tutoring center.

Paper Requirements

Now, regardless of your chosen rhetorical strategy, you must adhere to several requirements:

• Your essay must have at least five well-developed paragraphs in 1000 words (no more, no fewer).
• The introduction must have an attention-getting hook and effectively introduce your thesis statement, which you should place as the LAST sentence of the introduction.
• Each body paragraph must have an easily identifiable topic sentence (generally the first or second sentence of the body paragraph), substantial major and minor details, and transitional words or phrases indicative of the rhetorical strategy you have chosen. (Remember; each rhetorical strategy has its own set of common transitional words or phrases, except, of course, what we said in class about definition.)
• While you must indicate in your heading which rhetorical strategy you chose, I should have no problem determining the rhetorical strategy as I read.
• You must format your essay using MLA style.
  • Be sure to use one-inch margins all the way around (Word default)
  • True double spacing throughout your entire document (Remember to remove the extra space.)
  • Times New Roman, 12-point font size
  • An inserted page number preceded by your last name and one space.
    • Please see the MLA websites listed in Blackboard if you do not know how to format an MLA style essay.
• You must use 1 quotation from any published sources for this second essay, and use correct MLA parenthetical citation and work cited page formatting. Try to find a quotation from one of the essays we read in our textbook or google ‘quotes about .’ You can fill in the blank with your topic.
  • A word about plagiarism: If you copy someone else’s words or change only one or two words or copy someone else’s ideas without providing a parenthetical citation and quotation marks where applicable, you will receive – at the least – a zero for your plagiarism.

.