context project draft 3
This is the third draft, please follow above instruction and the professor’s last comment( he hadn’t gave me the comment on your latest version but it’s better to see if there is any place can revise again): In the meantime, the biggest thing you need to work on is describing the PROBLEM that you’re trying to explain more clearly. In your title and at different moments throughout your paper, you seem to be focusing on the shortage of skilled labor in North Carolina in particular. But then at other moments, you seem to be referring to the US more broadly, and you also occasionally seem to be referring to other problems like the unemployment rate in the US….
draft1.5
Basically, you need to be MUCH clearer and MUCH more specific about the problem you’re trying to explain as well as who is being harmed by it and how. Then, you’ll see that sections like pp. 3-5 probably aren’t actually necessary for this paper, since they don’t necessarily relate directly to the problem in the present that you’re trying to explain….
In this draft, please focus on two main things (I’m assuming you’ve already produced a strong, specific, arguable problem-failure thesis, which we’ve focused on for the last two weeks):
1) Pay attention to the overall structure/arrangement of your essay, perhaps using your Reverse Outline as a guide. Are there clear topic sentences for every paragraph, using effective transitional phrases / signposts to orient your reader? Do these topic sentences make specific sub-claims that relate back to your overall argument? If not, well, make sure they do! And if you find that your overall argument has shifted or changed over the course of your essay, then rewrite your thesis to match this new argument. And once you’ve done that, go back and rewrite your paragraphs to make sure that they support the new thesis. (That’s what revision is all about: rewriting one part of your essay, which forces you to rewrite another part of your essay, which forces you to…you get the picture.)
2) Pay attention to the evidence you use to support your argument. Are you relying too much on one or two sources? Have you found scholarly, peer-reviewed articles and books to back up your claims? Do you use them effectively to support your argument? Do you have a good mix of scholarly, government, and popular sources? How about multimodal sources? Do you fully explore the historical context and causes of the current problem you’ve identified? Can you find better, more specific sources to back up your argument?
Look back over the CP Peer Review and Self-Guided Revision handout for more help on this. And re-read some of the high-scoring CP Samples to see how other students solved problems that you might have, too.