Assignment: Diagnostic essay.
Assignment: Diagnostic essay.
This diagnostic writing exercise will help your instructor discover who you are as a writer. The essay will be used to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and it will allow the instructor the opportunity to identify grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical problems specific to each student. Do not fret over the idea that grammar, style, and mechanics will be evaluated in this assignment. This diagnostic writing exercise is merely one way to take a look at any particular patterns that exist in your writing. You will earn full credit for completing this assignment as long as you follow instructions.
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A narrative is a story that you tell to an audience for a reason. You can use your own experience or your role as an observer to frame a narrative, but the story itself should stir readers into thinking about and remembering their own stories.
As children, we often seek out or create mysteries. Every town seems to have stories of haunted houses or swamp monsters. One reason might be that children have to learn how to conquer a fear of the unknown. Based on your own experience, that of someone else, or a tale from your own imagination, write a narrative essay that tells a story about conquering fear. Your essay should be 550 to 800 words. For the purposes of this essay, please do not worry about incorporating any external sources.
For more information about how to write a narrative essay, please review the major elements that define narrative in Chapter 5, which include character, plot, purpose, action, and point of view. You may use first person and should incorporate dialogue (using quotes) if appropriate. Keep in mind that your essay is about connecting the story to your readers to expand their own understanding about conquering fear.
The essay written for this section is diagnostic in nature. As such, you will receive a grade based solely on whether or not you submit the assignment and that it meets the minimum word requirement. Your essay will not be used to place you into classes. Your instructor will use this essay to provide you with assistance tailored to your needs. Assignment: Diagnostic essay.
When reading your essay, your instructor will look for the following features:
Structure: The consistency with which the writer identifies and maintains the essay’s main idea. Two main points of structure include the thesis statement and topic sentences.
Thesis Statement – Emphasizes the main point proven in the essay. The thesis usually occurs early in the essay, most ideally as the last sentence in the introduction.
Topic Sentences – Occur near the beginning of each paragraph; they state what the paragraph proves and advance the main idea conveyed in the thesis statement.
Development: How the writer uses details and examples to evolve ideas throughout the essay and sequence of ideas presented in the essay. All of the ideas within the essay should clearly relate to the main point.
Style: How writers chose to express themselves. Elements of style include word choice, sentence construction, and clarity. Style elements can vary according to the audience and purpose of the writing.
Grammar: The instructor will evaluate your essay for common grammatical mistakes that can often affect the overall quality and clarity of your writing.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Assignment: Diagnostic essay.
Assignment: Diagnostic essay.