REMINDER: For Paper THREE, you MUST again have a required Q element for the essay itself, that is, you need to create one ORIGINAL bar or line graph or pie chart based upon data and statistics from sources you have found.
PROMPT for PAPER THREE:
“Has the federal and/or state government responded effectively (or ineffectively) to the problem of gun violence in the United States?”
Most of you know already of the rash of mass shootings in schools, churches, malls, parades, outdoor concerts, grocery stores, and more which have occurred over the past 20 years in the US. According to reputable sources such as the PEW Research Center (a good source for data on this topic at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) there were 43, 000 deaths due to guns in 2020 and also, another 45,000 dead from gun violence in 2021 in the United States.
Last year in 2022, 44,267 died in the US from gun violence according to the GVA (Gun Violence Archive). Also, note that in each of these years about 50% of all gun related deaths are due to suicides (these statistics are from the non-profit, independent, data collection group GVA at https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ which is another good source for data on this topic).
This is a unique problem in the USA as no other major industrialized country (e.g. Germany, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, Japan, etc.) has this many people dying from gun violence. So, what do you think is the answer? Has your local state government responded effectively? Has the federal government? Be specific in your enthymeme when you list your three reasons of support for your claim.
As with all persuasive writing topic questions in this class, you can argue any side of the issue question but you must choose just ONE side, one claim to answer the prompt issue question, a single claim (your side) followed by the word “because” and then your three reasons which creates your enthymeme (thesis) in your very first paragraph.
The ENTHYMEME (thesis statement) is the foundation of your entire classical argument, the basis for the whole paper so it MUST be in the correct format AND in the very first paragraph of your paper. In fact, if you do not have an enthymeme in the correct format, the paper will quite probably fail. That is how important your enthymeme is.
Again, your enthymeme is essentially a more complicated and sophisticated thesis statement for an argumentative essay.
ALSO IMPORTANT: You MUST present @ 35 to 40% (2.5 pages) of your opposition, their argument, your opposition’s claims, reasons, and their evidence in your paper. Remember, you are trying to persuade them, the people on the opposite side of your issue, in the classical argument format—for example, there must be 2.5 pages of opposition total in a six page paper.
Your opposition must first enter the essay as one full paragraph by page two or you will lose points. Also, if you do not have the required amount of opposition in your paper you could lose even more points as these are not simply one-sided arguments. As explained in my lectures and in your textbook, the classical argument presents two sides (or more) of the issue question (the prompt I gave you). You are taking one side with your enthymeme in the first paragraph. Your support for your main claim and three reasons will make up @60 to 65% of the paper then and you will weave in the other @ 35 to 40% of opposition which you will try to either rebut, counter or, if need be, it’s okay (and good ethos) to even concede to a good opposition point that you cannot refute.