Conspiracy Theory
PWR 1 Fall Quarter 2008
Jonah G. Willihnganz
Stanford University

The Research Essay
Audience: The Stanford Academic Community
Due to Coursework by 6pm on Sunday Nov. 16

By the time you reach the stage of writing your Research Essay, you should feel prepared for it. The Rhetorical Analysis has helped you practice close reading of conspiracy narratives and and identify some of the rhetorical strategies one can use make arguments. The Research Proposal has helped you define a field of inquiry, a rationale for your inquiry, a question to guide your research, and a hypothesis. The Review Essay has helped you assemble and evaluate some of the sources that provide the context of your argument and produce initial analyses of your primary sources. Now, finally, to the essay itself.

What the Research Essay is (and isn't):

The Research Essay in this course is an essay that makes an original argument using research and analysis of primary and secondary sources. It is an essay that seeks to persuade a particular audience—here, the Stanford community—of a particular claim and to make a significant (even if small) contribution to its field of inquiry. At base, every research essay is the articulation of a claim that has been deduced from an analysis of some set of data. Your data here are the primary sources you have chosen. However, since the research essay is an act of persuasive communication—an effort to persuade an uninitiated audience of a particular claim—the research essay is not simply the articulation of your research findings. It is an effort to interest, relate, and convince a group of people of something you feel is important and so must use appropriate rhetorical strategies to make its argument engaging and compelling.

What the essay is not: simply a presentation of your research findings. The purpose of the essay is to convince your audience of something, not just show your audience all the things you have learned about a topic. This means that much of what you research may not actually end up in the essay. Just as for the essays we are studying, sources are used to develop your argument—the position that you have carved out for yourself—so you will use only what furthers the particular case you are making.

Framing Your Argument:

As we have discussed, research projects like the ones you are pursuing in this course frequently use the formula of a “small claim with a big implication” so that while your analysis focuses on a narrow range of materials (a small “data set” or “representative sample”), the analysis produces a claim whose implications extend beyond those materials. A research essay might show, for example, how four or five photographs by a documentary photographer respond to consumer culture by contrasting real living conditions with the promises of consumer culture made by billboards and ads. This is a fairly narrow claim, but the implication might be that much of the photographer's work does this, or (more broadly) that this might be considered a trend in documentary photography of the period, or (even more broadly) that this is what documentary photography does best in this context, or (broader still) that photography does this better than other media. Each of these larger, possible "implications" can be developed in the conclusion, generally with just a gesture toward supporting evidence. What is crucial to remember is that the body of the essay should remain focused just on the small claim. The conclusion—not the introduction—is the place for you to hazard guesses, to offer tentative generalizations.

The Form and Elements of the Research Essay:

There is no precise formula for the form of the Research Essay, since different kinds of materials suggest different kinds of claims, and there are a number of ways to organize your argument effectively. Often the strategies that work best depend on the kind of argument you are making. Remember, though, that no matter what rhetorical choices are made to make the argument more accessible and convincing, the Research Essay always delivers an argument based on an analysis of primary sources. Your analysis of these sources is always the core of the essay.

There are a number of elements that are present in most effective essays of this kind and we will discuss these in class. The opening should establish some common ground with the audience, introduce your subject, and indicate either your argument (thesis) or the direction of your inquiry (delayed thesis). Often research essays then proceed to contextualize their claim, to place it in relation to what others have observed and in any historical context that is appropriate. Next comes the core of the essay—an analysis of the primary sources to develop or prove the thesis. The organization of this section depends greatly on what you are analyzing, but you should usually make sure that your audience is led through the analysis—make clear why you start where you start and why you proceed the way you do. Finally, as indicated above, the essay should close by considering the implications of your finding—its possible consequences or a question that the finding might lead to. As we'll discuss, the conclusion may sum up or re-state the thesis, but it does not only do this.

Your task:

First, write the best first draft of this essay possible. Your essay should be an 10-15 pages, using a variety of sources and rhetorical strategies to make your argument compelling. The page count gauges text only, so if you are using images, tables, embedded sound, etc. these do not count toward the length of the essay. It should use proper MLA internal citation format, properly identify and refer to any figures or illustrations, and have a Works Cited page that is formatted correctly (remember to consult Lunsford on the MLA internal citation conventions). Please number the pages, and make sure your name, the course, and section appear on the first page, and staple the hard copy you bring to class.

Second, write and attach at the end of your essay (1) an Informal Memo and (2) a brief Outline. You can also include a full bibliography, but this is not required. Your memo is addressed to me and your classmates and should be a 1-2 paragraph and single-spaced. In the Informal Memo, give an informal description of the principle rhetorical strategies that you used in your essay and what effect you hoped each strategy would have. Also describe, after this, any questions and concerns you have that you would like your readers (myself and your classmates) to address in their feedback to you. Your outline should be brief and just identify the main points and purpose of each section of the essay. It should look something like the outlines we have done in class and be no more than 1 page. Place your Informal Memo and OUtline at the end of your essay, after the Works Cited page.

Please note that you must include in your draft the Works Cited page, the Memo, and Outline for us to evaluate your essay. If these are absent we will not be able to peer workshop your piece and or have a conference.