WRIT1001 – Assessment Overview
(Short Writing Tasks and Final Essay)
In WRIT1001 you submit four short writing tasks practising four parts of the writing process. These short writing tasks will be submitted throughout the semester as you work on a 1500-word academic essay. The final essay will refer to rhetorical concepts to analyse a topic that is relevant to you. All essays in WRIT1001 answer the same question:
how and why has rhetoric been used in arguments about the topic you have chosen?
Short Writing Tasks (SWTs) guide you through the writing process so you:
identify various scholarly and non-scholarly viewpoints on your topic and analyse those opinions using rhetorical concepts and terms
refer to (and accurately cite) academic sources related to your topic AND related to rhetoric
create your own argument that is supported by a rhetorical analysis of the topic
use academic sources (both related to your topic AND to rhetoric) to support your claims and define key terms
write and present your argument in a style (formality, tone, complexity, layout, etc) that is suitable for an academic reader with general knowledge about your topic and a special interest in the study of rhetoric
Because the SWTs build to the Final Essay, within WRIT1001 you can edit and re-use work from one SWT in another SWT and in the Essay. You cannot re-use writing completed for any other course in WRIT1001. You cannot re-use writing completed for WRIT1001 in any other course.
Following academic conventions, in WRIT1001 you should reference and cite all sources you refer to in your work. Students should follow APA or MLA style guidelines for citation, referencing, and formatting. See the Library’s Referencing and Citation Styles page for links to APA and MLA referencing: https://libguides.library.usyd.edu.au/citation
Marking is de-identified – please ensure that you do not include your name in your submission or in the file name of your submission.
If you have any difficulties completing or submitting an assessment, reach out to your tutor or the coordinators for help. You can apply by email directly to your tutor for a Simple Extension of two working days. You can also use the Special Consideration system to apply for longer extensions or special arrangements (https://sydney.edu.au/students/special-consideration.html). If you have difficulty using the Special Consideration system, contact the coordinators for help.
The remainder of this document contains detailed instructions and marking criteria for the four SWTs and the Final Essay. The final page of the document includes grade descriptors (ie, typical features of work at each grade level).
Assessment Instructions
Short Writing Task 1: Proposal Task
DUE (online via Canvas): due Monday 6 September (Week 5), 11:59pm;
WEIGHTING: marked out of 10, worth 10% of your overall grade for the unit
LATE WORK: late work is penalised 5% (0.5/10) per calendar day and will not be assessed if submitted more than 10 working days after the due date
LENGTH: 500 words (+/- 10%), reference list not included
INSTRUCTIONS:
The goal of this task is to introduce the topic or debate that you will use rhetorical concepts to analyse in your final essay. In order to pass this task, your proposal must respond to the following:
What is the topic? Describe the topic and identify at least two views on the issue. These views should be attributed to a person or text.
How will you analyse the topic in your essay? Define a rhetorical concept that you could use to evaluate viewpoints and stances on the topic.
Note – You might use concepts such as the rhetorical situation, rhetorical appeals, rhetorical fallacies, canons of rhetoric, branches of rhetoric. Or you might use single components of these concepts (eg, ethos, pathos, logos, slippery slope fallacies, scare tactics, invention, arrangement, deliberative / epideictic / forensic rhetoric, etc).
Who is the audience for your essay? Explain how features of your analysis and the style of your essay will interest an academic reader with general knowledge about your topic and a special interest in the study of rhetoric.
Show that your own work is scholarly. Cite three or more sources including at least one academic source relating to the study of rhetoric. On a separate page at the end of your SWT1 you must include a Reference list or Works Cited list for all sources mentioned in the submission. You should follow APA or MLA style requirements.
MARKING CRITERIA
This unit uses standards-based assessment for award of assessment marks. In achieving a Pass grade, you will demonstrate the following outcomes:
Unit Outcome – communicate competently and confidently in writing across a range of modalities and contexts
Graduate attribute – Depth of disciplinary experience – identifying the disciplinary relevance of a topic; discussing an academic source from rhetoric and writing studies
Graduate attribute – Broader skills: critical thinking … communication – discussing three sources (at least one scholarly); identifying multiple points of view on an issue
Graduate attribute – Interdisciplinary effectiveness – connecting an issue or debate to the field of rhetoric and writing studies
A marking rubric will be provided on Canvas to explain the different standards at which these outcomes can be met in relation to the task instructions.
PROFESSIONAL RELEVANCE
This task develops skills that are important to your future studies and work. For example, before you can develop a response to an academic question, you must first consider different opinions on the topic. This task also highlights how different kinds of research are suited to different disciplines or subject areas. In professional settings you may be called upon to propose a response to a problem. Your proposal will need to acknowledge what others think of the issue and the method you propose to address the problem.
Short Writing Task 2: Research Task
DUE (online via Canvas): due Monday 20 September (Week 7), 11:59pm.
WEIGHTING: marked out of 10, worth 10% of your overall grade for the unit
LATE WORK: late work is penalised 5% (0.5/10) per calendar day and will not be assessed if submitted more than 10 working days after the due date
LENGTH: 300-500 words, excerpts and reference list not included
The goal of this task is to engage with research relevant to the study of rhetoric. You will find one scholarly source about rhetoric that should be useful for your essay topic and document your engagement with the source in the following ways:
under the subheading ‘Excerpt’, include a long excerpt (4-5 sentences long) that is an exact section from the source and is formatted and referenced as per the ‘long quote’ conventions of APA or MLA formatting
under the subheading ‘Summary’, summarise the excerpt with appropriate citations
under the subheading ‘Paraphrase’, paraphrase the excerpt with appropriate citations
under the heading ‘Direct Quotation’, use a signal phrase to introduce a short quote from the excerpt, provide a citation for the quotation, and follow the quote with two sentences that describe how the content of the quote might be used in your final essay
On a separate page at the end of your submission for SWT2 include a Reference list or Works Cited list. Follow either APA or MLA style requirements. You can use an academic source you used in SWT1 for SWT2.
MARKING CRITERIA
This unit uses standards-based assessment for award of assessment marks. In achieving a Pass grade, you will demonstrate the following outcomes:
Unit Outcome – communicate competently and confidently in writing across a range of modalities and contexts
Graduate attribute – Depth of disciplinary experience – identifying a source from rhetoric and writing studies; establishing the relevance of research to readers in the discipline of rhetoric and writing
Unit Outcome – understand more about essay writing conventions in academic contexts
Graduate attribute – Broader skills: critical thinking … communication – interpreting conceptually-rich scholarly writing; awareness of referencing/citation practices; responding to research in a variety of ways to show understanding, evaluation, and argumentation
A marking rubric will be provided on Canvas to explain the different standards at which these outcomes can be met in relation to the task instructions.
PROFESSIONAL RELEVANCE
This task develops research methods and different ways of responding to the ideas of other people. As such, you will use skills that are important to future study or professional work. A hallmark of academic research is an engagement with other people’s ideas. This task helps you practice several methods for incorporating ideas or research into your writing. In professional settings you will have to refer to other people’s ideas – maybe not academic ideas, but you will refer to customer feedback, industry reports, company documents, and so on. This task develops your ability to summarise, paraphrase or quote from such sources.
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