Presidential Canidate

Type of paper
Essay (Any Type)
Subject
American History
Number of pages
2
Writer level
University
Format of citation
MLA
Number of cited resources
2
BACKGROUND: Election years can become very contentious, with many candidates arguing about policy issues that affect all Americans. Even within a party, the presidential candidates may not agree how to approach policies like immigration, abortion, healthcare, etc. It is important to know where candidate’s stand on these issues, so you can inform your own voting in the primary and general elections. The basic idea for this essay is to research a political candidate, one or more of their issues, and then speculate how that issue would impact individuals and the country if that candidate became President. GUIDELINES 1. Assignment: You will write a 750-1000 word memo trying to persuade me, the Campaign Contributions Director, to support your chosen candidate: a. Choose any candidate currently running in the presidential election. He or she can be from any party (including third parties). Give a brief background of this candidate: what, if any, political office has s/he held and what is his/her professional background. b. Choose a policy issue that your candidate supports. The internet will be your friend here: I suggest looking up your candidate’s campaign webpage. Explain the candidate’s stance on your chosen policy, how/why people in the candidate’s party will support this position, and how to persuade others to support it. c. What if your candidate was actually elected President? How would this issue play out? (Yes, it is a guess, but it should be an educated guess.) Explain how this policy will impact various groups in Texas (different demographics). Does this policy benefit the population as a whole, or does it benefit only certain groups? What interest groups, if any, will benefit from this (be specific – look up some interest groups that may benefit). 2. This assignment is worth 30 points of your grade. I suggest you put some thought and effort into it. It is a persuasion piece, but you need to back up your ideas with FACTS and RESEARCH 3. Your paper needs to be submitted to the Essay dropbox, by Wednesday, November 18, 2015. 4. Formatting: a. Your paper needs to be between 750 and 1000 words. . i. This is an essay. Do not use bullet points or numbering to answer the questions. It needs to be in paragraph form. ii. Please double space iii. Unless you are using the ‘header’ setting, do not put your name or any additional information at the top of each page. Because we’re going for word count, don’t waste a bunch of space at the top of the page to make your paper look longer (yes, we KNOW when you do this!) b. Sources: i. As many as you need. ii. Only use academic, scholarly, news, or informational websites (candidate sites, political party sites, government sites, etc) 1. Scholarly = from a university source or academic journal (access these from the online databases on the library website – JSTOR is a great resource) 2. Online news must be from a REAL news source. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. (TheBlaze.com, IJReview.com, ThinkProgress.com, etc are not news sources. Please ask me if you have ANY questions on what constitutes an academic/news source) 3. Wikipedia is not a source. This is non-negotiable. 4. Blogs are not a source. If it says ‘blog’ in the url, it’s a blog c. Use in-text citation, APA style, with a complete Bibliography/Works Cited page (this is required). i. If you are using someone else’s words, in a direct quote, use quotation marks and a citation. ii. If you are paraphrasing someone else’s words, and it is not common knowledge, or information you learned in class, use a citation. iii. Use this for help: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ iv. If you are going to use the “synonyms” feature on Word, please make sure the substituted word fits in the context of the sentence!