Completing the Assignment:
Step 1: Choose one or two secondary sources from your Annotated Bibliography.
Step 2: Identify the larger issue these sources engage with (i.e. gender, class, nationalism, individualism, etc.), and brainstorm public conversations or debates related in some way to these issues. If, for instance, you’re researching masculinity for your ARP project, you will want to take the secondary source research you’ve been reading on masculinity and apply it to a public debate or conversation that’s been happening in our culture. Perhaps this debate concerns the representation of gender roles in contemporary films (or in children’s films). Perhaps it concerns gender within the workplace, or how masculinity is constructed over dating apps. Ultimately, your Op-Ed does not need to address your primary source, or have anything to do with cars at all. Whatever issue you end up addressing, you will probably want to get a more specific sense of what the public conversations are like and how people have been addressing these issues. To do that, look for other recent Op-Eds or even blog posts published within the past year or two. Consult professional publications, whether local newspapers such as Raleigh News & Observer or national outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, etc. These other pieces of writing could serve as a point of departure for your own, something for you to respond to in your own Op-Ed.
Step 3: Once you get a sense of which contemporary debates your research can speak to, determine exactly how your research allows you to add something new to the conversation. In other words, figure out how to use research to intervene in a contemporary debate on an issue of public interest.
Step 4: Write an essay for a public audience that discusses your secondary source research in terms of the contemporary debate you’ve settled on. Your essay should adhere to the genre of the Op-Ed. In the course of your essay, you should reference and/or make use of your secondary source(s) in some way—the goal here is to present secondary source research to a general audience, by making the research relevant to a broader public. Your use of secondary sources ought to be consistent with how research tends to be cited in public writing (see the example Op-Eds we took a look at in class). Remember, since you are writing an opinion piece designed to persuade the public, you will be taking a stand of some sort. Furthermore, while your essay should be professional, it should not be too formal: avoid jargon, complex wording, etc.
Step 5: On the day the assignment is due, you will share your essay with some of your peers, who will respond to your findings.
Op-Ed Components:
· A snappy Title
· A Hook at the beginning – to draw in your readers
· An effort to frame your essay as Timely and Relevant. This can be part of the Hook. You can point to a recent news story or event (local, national, cultural), you can refer to your own personal experience, or you can do both. This should come at or near the beginning of the essay, to frame your entire Op-Ed and guide the reader into your argument. You may use this as an opportunity to articulate a position you’re responding to—in other words, you could Enter a Conversation.
· A clear and concise Argument. Much like “Don’t Blame the Eater,” you may want to express your position in relation to what other people have argued—or might argue. This way, you’re entering a conversation (see above).
· Supporting Evidence, which can be drawn from your secondary source(s), as well as from your own knowledge, expertise, or background. Remember, too, that you can point to the well of general knowledge that you share with an educated public.
· A Conclusion that brings your Op-Ed full circle. You may want to reassess the Hook or opening remarks that make your essay Timely and Relevant. See the conclusion of “Don’t Blame the Eater” for an example of how to return to the opening remarks in such a way that the essay is “tied up” at the end.