The Final Paper Outline

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, review the instructions for the Final Paper which can be found in Week 5 of your online course. Additionally, review the following: Why Do News Values Matter? Towards a New Methodological Framework for Analysing News Discourse in Critical Discourse Analysis and Beyond (Links to an external site.), Language of Politics—Noam Chomsky (Links to an external site.), and Professor Lakoff, Metaphors We Live By (Links to an external site.). You may also want to review some of the required and recommended resources that have been assigned for Weeks 1 through 3 of the course. For your Final Paper, you will complete a research project that involves collecting and analyzing samples of political or gendered discourse.

Your first step in completing the Final Paper will be to choose a public speech, news story, or opinion article on a trending topic of interest to you. It is recommended that you spend some time reviewing the discourse sample you have chosen. Consider the theories of discourse analysis studied so far in this course and how they might be applied to the discourse to better understand the author’s intention, the work’s meaning, and possible interpretations by readers. For this assignment, you will submit a formal outline for the Final Paper. Your outline will include a tentative thesis statement that asserts how language is used to convey a particular social message or agenda.

In your Final Paper Outline,

• Propose a tentative thesis that states how language is used persuasively, offensively, effectively, or ineffectively in the discourse sample to convey a particular social message or agenda.
• Identify at least four theories of discourse analysis outlined in your course textbook and other required resources that you will use to analyze the discourse sample in the Final Paper.
• Outline at least five topic sentences that support the thesis.
  • Include at least two subtopics that elaborate on each topic sentence.

Here is a template that you should follow when outlining your draft. You can find a more detailed example of Outlining (Links to an external site.) in the Writing Center.

Outline Structure

• Introduction
  • Thesis: Indicate your topic, your main point about that topic, and the points of discussion for that topic.
• Body Paragraph 1: Topic sentence goes here.
• Supporting evidence: A paraphrase or quote from one of your sources goes here, along with an in-text citation.
  • Explanation of the meaning of the supporting evidence.
  • So what? A direct statement on how the supporting evidence does in fact support the claim made in the topic sentence.
• Body Paragraph 2: Topic sentence goes here.
• Supporting evidence
  • Explanation
  • So what?
• Body Paragraph 3: Topic sentence goes here.
• Supporting evidence
  • Explanation
  • So what?
• Conclusion:
• Rephrased Thesis Statement: Rephrase your thesis.
• Strong Closing: Close your paper with the significance of this discussion. Why is this discussion important?