Touchstone 4: Revise an Argumentative Research Essay

ASSIGNMENT: Review the in-text comments and summary feedback you received on your Touchstone 3.2 draft to enhance your writing. You will then submit a revision of your Touchstone 3.2 draft that reflects the evaluator’s feedback, making all necessary changes to the idea development, organization, style, and conventions. Make sure to include a copy of your Touchstone 3.2 draft below the reflection questions for this unit. 

As this assignment builds on Touchstone 3.2: Draft an Argumentative Research Essay, that Touchstone must be graded before you can submit your final research essay. 

Sample Touchstone 4 

In order to foster learning and growth, all work you submit must be newly written specifically for this course. Any plagiarized or recycled work will result in a Plagiarism Detected alert. Review Touchstones: Academic Integrity Guidelines for more about plagiarism and the Plagiarism Detected alert.

A. Final Draft Guidelines

DIRECTIONS: Refer to the list below throughout the writing process. Do not submit your Touchstone until it meets these guidelines. Refer to the Sample Touchstone for additional guidance on structure, formatting, and citation.

1. Editing and Revising

? Have you significantly revised the essay by adjusting areas like organization, focus, and clarity?? Have you made comprehensive edits to word choice, sentence variety, and style?? Have your edits and revisions addressed all the feedback provided by your evaluator? 

2. Cohesion and Source Integration

? Is the information presented in a logical order that is easy for the reader to follow? ? Have you included smooth transitions between sentences and paragraphs? ? Have you introduced your sources clearly and in a way that demonstrates their validity to the reader? Are your sources formatted correctly following APA style? 

3. Conventions and Proofreading

? Have you double-checked for correct formatting, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization?? Have you ensured that any cited material is represented accurately and with page/paragraph numbers? 

4. Reflection

? Have you displayed a clear understanding of the revision process?? Have you answered all reflection questions including specific and concrete examples that provide thoughtful insight in all responses?? Are your answers included on a separate page below the composition?

B. Reflection Questions

DIRECTIONS: Below your assignment, include answers to all of the following reflection questions. 

1. How much time did you spend revising your draft? What revision strategies did you use, and which worked best for you? (2-3 sentences)
2. List three concrete revisions that you made and explain how you made them. What problem did you fix with each of these revisions? Issues may be unity, cohesion, rhetorical appeals, content, or any other areas on which you received constructive feedback. (4-5 sentences)
3. What did you learn about your writing process or yourself as a writer? How has your understanding of the research process changed as a result of taking this course? (2-3 sentences)

E. Additional Resources

The following resources will be helpful to you as you work on this assignment:

1. Purdue Online Writing Lab’s APA Formatting and Style Guide
   1. This site includes a comprehensive overview of APA style, as well as individual pages with guidelines for specific citation types.
2. Frequently Asked Questions About APA Style
   1. This page on the official APA website addresses common questions related to APA formatting. The “References,” “Punctuation,” and “Grammar and Writing Style” sections will be the most useful to your work in this course.
3. APA Style: Quick Answers—References
   1. This page on the official APA Style website provides numerous examples of reference list formatting for various source types.