MY DRAFT IS IN FILES. THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL BASE THE PAPER OFF OF, DOING REVISIONS FROM THIS
TOPIC- Racial Discrimination in Employment
Instructions
Your revision should serve two functions.
First, your revision should demonstrate that you addressed feedback provided regarding the draft. So, use feedback as a guide for which parts of your writing need additional support, more nuanced interpretations, or gaps filled in.
Second, your revision should demonstrate editing and proofreading. Look for and fix errors. Look for and fix parts that are difficult, overly verbose, or confusing. Look for and fix any errors in citation or references formatting.
Revise your draft with those two categories of improvements. Depending on the state of your draft, your revision might take very little or considerable effort.
Your revision should reflect a polished piece of research that could be presented at an undergraduate academic conference, such as the Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research (UCUR)Links to an external site., an annual conference that highlights undergraduate research at the U.
FORMAT REQUIREMENTS
Double-space, use 1" margins, and use an appropriate font and size (e.g., Times New Roman 12pt, Arial 11pt).
Follow APA 7th edition styleLinks to an external site. for any citations/references. For this phase, citations/references are required every time you use another person's words (quote) or ideas (paraphrase).
FULL RUBRIC
Write a complete (8-12 page) essay where you analyze your chosen social issue/problem using Robert Jensen's "apocalyptic thinking" methodology.
Your essay draft will include the following components:
An introduction (approximately 1-2 pages)
Your introduction should build on your topic paper. Introduce your topic and why you chose this topic to research/analyze. Provide sufficient contextual information to help your audience understand what is happening and why this is important. State your thesis, which should directly follow from your research question.
Thesis statements tell your audience how you are interpreting the question, issue, or topic you are writing about. Remember our example research question?
What have mass shootings increased precipitously in the past twenty years?
A thesis statement following from that question might look like:
Mass shootings have increased precipitously over the past twenty years because of a parallel increased in mental health issues.
A different thesis statement, with a different interpretation, might look like:
Mass shootings have increased precipitously over the past twenty years because of a cultural glorification of violence.
An interpretation is not "right" or "wrong." What is important is that you build a case throughout the remaining sections to demonstrate how you support your interpretation.
- Include 2-3 self-reflexive sentences that detail your position. In other words, what aspects of your identity shaped why you chose the topic, your relationship to the impacted community/communities, and what about you influences your interpretations of your research. You should consider the various influences of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, nationality, religion, region, etc. Each of these aspects may play a role and combinations of aspects can also play a role in how you see this social issue/problem.
- You should not simply list your identity categories. What is important is the ways that our identit(ies) shape our interpretation of social issues and not simply which identit(ies) are part of us.
- You should also mention the research question that you used to shape your analysis.
- Include 2-3 self-reflexive sentences that detail your position. In other words, what aspects of your identity shaped why you chose the topic, your relationship to the impacted community/communities, and what about you influences your interpretations of your research. You should consider the various influences of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, nationality, religion, region, etc. Each of these aspects may play a role and combinations of aspects can also play a role in how you see this social issue/problem.
A literature review section (approximately 1-2 pages)
A literature review is where you look at what previous scholars have said about your topic.
A good literature review demonstrates that you have read, understood, and critiqued existing works. You should identify how previous scholarship has, or has not, addressed the issue of your topic. You might also highlight gaps where previous scholarship might have done a similar analysis but something was missing in their interpretation or a proposed intervention has not resolved the issue. In other words, you are looking to situation your writing in relation to other scholars while also looking to explain why your analysis is not simply duplicating previous work.
You should also address your method, which means concisely define "intellectual work" as a research method and "apocalyptic thinking" as an analytical framework. In other words, how do you understand and how did you apply Jensen's research process and interpretive lens to your research?
- Make sure that you include the three specific steps of Jensen's "intellectual work" process.
- Be cautious about how Jensen uses the terms "apocalypse," since Jensen's rejection of the religious-based meaning of "apocalypse" can be somewhat conflicting with the way Jensen describes urgency as "apocalyptic."
- Use short quotes and/or paraphrases to support your understanding of Jensen's method.
- When discussing applying your method, think about where in your essay you show each of the three steps of "intellectual work."
An analysis section (approximately 4-6 pages)
The analysis section is where you explain and support your interpretation (thesis statement). Use evidence (e.g., quotes/paraphrases/descriptions) from your annotations to support your position.
What patterns did you find in the relevant information you gathered? What system(s) do those patterns reveal or suggest? Have these underlying system(s) been addressed through civil/uncivil means? What is at stake for everyday people (including yourself) in relation to your topic? Who is socially responsible for this issue and how are they responsible?
- Think about how your analysis and topic connects to course concepts, such as activism, civility, community, citizenship, ephemerality, identity, indigeneity, interruptions, paradigm shifts, space/place, power, or protest.
- Discuss what judgement (i.e., specific, actionable proposal for a change in policy or behavior) that you recommend and how that proposal directly addresses the underlying system(s) (root cause(s)) that you identified during your analysis.
- Discuss how your topic connects to the concept of in/civility. Specifically, think through how your chosen issue (and the judgement(s) you think make sense to address the underlying cause(s) of the issue) relate to concepts of strong civility, weak civility, pseudocivility, and/or incivility.
A contribution section (approximately 1 page)
Your contribution section does not need to be profound.
What you need to be able to articulate is why your readers should care about this particular interpretation.
In other words, what does your research and analysis add to our epistemological or ontological understanding?
Meaning, how does your research/analysis help improve our understanding of the nature of existence/reality/life/the world (ontology)? Or, how does your research/analysis help improve our understanding of how knowledge is produced (epistemology)?
- A conclusion section (approximately 1-2 pages)
Your conclusion should return to your thesis statement and briefly summarize your case for how you have supported your interpretation. In essence, the conclusion is a place to summarize your argument, highlight key takeaways from your analysis, discuss limitations/constraints on your research/analysis, and think about how your analysis has raised more questions. A conclusion is also a place to consider the limitations or constraints of your research/analysis.
Tie together your arguments. What specific judgement(s) (i.e., proposal for specific change in policy or behavior that directly addresses the underlying root cause(s) you identified during your analysis do you propose? Has that policy/behavior change been tried? If so, was it effective? You want to avoid making a judgement (proposal) that has already been tried and was not effective.
Your draft does need to be complete. All sections need to be written. Your draft does not need to be perfect. Writing is a process and the draft is one step in the process. You will return to edit, polish, and improve your draft during the last phase of this research project.
What to submit
Attach your revision as a Word document (.docx) or Portable Document File (.pdf).
No other file types will be accepted.
Name your file as follows:
LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_3030_Revision.xxx
Replace LAST NAME with your surname and replace FIRST NAME with your given name.
xxx will be either .docx or .pdf depending on the file format you choose.
Example:
Torre_Kinny_3030_Revision.docx
PEER REVIEW FEEDBACK
KINNY TORRE at Fri Jul 25, 2025 12:31pmat Fri Jul 25, 2025 12:31pm
Intro: I get what you’re saying but be careful with statements about the most damning for of systemic inequality as it is, more than likely, untrue and contributes to the erasure of others. Something doesn’t have to be the most bad in order to be terrible and worthy of change. You don’t need the additional lit after your thesis, you should save this for the lit review or analysis.
Lit review: nice use of quantitative data to back apocalyptic thinking and framing of the next few sections. You can incorporate more of the class’s sources into your research.
Analysis: great analysis in your individual points but you need to connect to a larger argument.
Contribution: great start but think about the epistemological and ontological implications of your study.