1200-1500 words
In this essay you are going to identify a specific disaster or accident (either one that has happened or one that may happen) and write an essay exploring and explaining how cause and effect are connected to a social system and how analyzing that system allows us to better understand what happened (or what might happen).
You should feel free to think about a wide range of possible cases to use in developing this essay. It could be something very large and systemic (like the impacts of a tsunami on thousands or millions of people) or something much more localized (the effect of a landslide on the residents of a remote valley). Since it is a disaster or an accident, though, it should be an event that nobody intends to happen but that happens anyway. Also, better essays usually have more specific material to work with, so writing about air pollution might fit the topic but it is so huge that it will be difficult to do the kind of specific analysis you need to in such a short paper. If you were to write about particulate emissions from ships using the port of Long Beach and their impacts on the health of nearby neighborhoods and workers you can be more detailed in your answer. Some questions you may want to consider (you don’t need to cover all of these, they are just some ideas to get you thinking about the issues) include what social factors, dynamics, processes, etc. have to do with the circumstances leading up to the accident/disaster, and what they have to do with its effects. Why does it happen? Why does it/will it have the effects that it has? Who is impacted by it and why? Why are some people affected by it differently than others? And other questions along those lines.
Grading and General Guidelines
Writing a paper should not be a mystery. You should have a clear idea of what is expected of you. If after reading these assignment descriptions you have any doubts about what the goal of a paper is, please come talk to us!
We will focus on three main elements in assessing all papers: writing, structure, and argument. The key elements of each are described on the table below.
Grades below “B” indicate some problem with the writing, structure, or argument of your paper. “B” papers are good in all respects. “A” papers distinguish themselves from “B” papers by their argument. That is to say, “A” papers have something distinctive to say and do an excellent job saying it. If you want to write an “A” paper, you need to develop a strong argument. This can be hard to do. A good piece of general advice is to start figuring out what you are going to write by asking a real question about the topic you are writing about. A real question is a question without an obvious answer. Your answer to that question is your argument that you develop and support through the structure and writing of the paper. Most of the assignments above provide the question for you.
