Eng101

Challenging the Evidence Homework

Description: Employing the skills learned in the Information Literacy segments and drawing on class discussions, choose one claim made by David Callahan in The Cheating Culture, and using credible research, verify, modify, or refute Callahan’s assertion. For example, on page 209, Callahan makes the claim, “Many parents are going even further these days to help their kids. In a new trend, some parents are conspiring with doctors to manipulate the rules around disability to win extra time on the SATs for their perfectly capable child.” If you were to choose this as your subject, you would then go to the research databases and sources available through the Quincy College library or to reputable web sites (those ending in .edu or .gov) and look for evidence (studies, data, expert analysis) that verifies, modifies, or refutes this claim.

The Paper: 1-2 pages, typed double spaced.

Introduction:

Start with an introduction that describes the issue on which you are focusing, summarizes the assertion Callahan makes, even quoting a particular claim as I have above, and then include your own thesis statement (arguable assertion) based on your research. For example, you may have found that the number of parents actually obtaining additional time on the SATs for their child is quite small, but in response to such practices, the SAT Board has tightened its criteria for such accommodations, your thesis might read, “Though Callahan is correct in his assertion that parents help their fully capable children to gain an unfair advantage on the SATs by having them labeled “disabled,” the number of unqualified students being granted more time is quite small, and the Scholastic Aptitude Board has recently narrowed the qualifications of those allowed more time on the tests.”

Body: For the body of the paper, present the evidence you have found in emphatic order (least substantial or important to most convincing and important),...