Instructions and Rubric for (Letter to a US Political Representative) In this project, you will be writing a letter to an elected representative to request them to take action on a specific policy. You are welcome to mail this letter to your selected representative, but this is not required as part of this project. Submit completed letter. DUE MAY 3
a. LENGTH: 900-1200 words (12-point font, single-spaced) You must first determine the specific action you want taken and then determine which elected representative (federal, state, or local *Texas*) to send the letter to. The aim in your letter is to present an argument to persuade the representative to endorse and carry out the policy you desire. You are welcome to use prompts and posts from past forum discussions in selecting your policy and making your argument. Make sure that the desired policy is one that falls within the jurisdiction of the representative you select (asking the Mayor of Austin Texas to repeal Obamacare, for example, would not work). You also want to pick a policy that is specific and feasible. Avoid vague or unattainable policies (asking the President of the United States to establish world peace would be both overly vague and also not within the sole power of the United States to do). Specific, feasible policies are easier to argue for and easier to find evidence for than vague, unattainable policies. The letter should take the form of a formal letter, so include the name and mailing address of the representative you are writing (formal letters often include the mailing address of the sender but, for your privacy, I do not require this. If you like, you can make up a fake address to include, for example “123 Anywhere St., Austin TX”). The letter should open with a salutation and have an appropriate closing (“Sincerely” or something equivalent). Purdue University provides more guidance on what to include in a business letter here. The paper should open (that is, have at least in the first paragraph) a clear statement of the policy action you are arguing for. As part of the argument for your request, you will be required to provide supporting evidence. However, since this is a letter, and not a research paper, weigh the number of citations accordingly. You will have to present facts and back them up (with, say, references to news articles), but a representative would not want to read a letter with 50 footnotes. For example, when you provide a particular statistic from a newspaper article, you should note in the text in a parenthetical reference (footnotes are not required, though you can use them instead if you prefer) the name of the publication and the date of publication. For example: “Crime in DC went up 10% in the first three months of 2021 (Washington Post of Oct. 1, 2020). Provide a hyperlink or URL if possible. Providing one or two references per page would be adequate. Since this is a letter, a bibliography is not necessary. It should be possible to identify your source from your citation, however. All submissions will be submitted to TurnItIn for plagiarism detection. Do not copy and paste
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/professional_technical_writing/basic_business_letters/index.html
from other sources into your paper unless you are providing a direct quotations (with quotation marks). These will get flagged, even if you change a word or two. When you are quoting or using information from a source, be sure to cite. Citations are needed for both direct quotations and paraphrases (for an assignment like this, I expect direct quotations will be rare and paraphrases will be much more common). Instructions on how to cite in an informal context like this are given above. Submission will be made through Canvas. Submissions must be in Microsoft Word or PDF format. Rubric:
Item Description Points
Submission of Outline Submission of an adequate version of an outline 1
Item Description Points
Statement of Policy Request
What are you asking your representative to do? Does the letter make an explicit and actionable policy request of the representative? Is this the correct representative to be asking for the request?
2
Effectiveness and Organization
Does the letter present a clear argument for why the representative should grant its request? Is this argument well-organized, with a clear structure and the space dedicated to issues proportionate to their importance to the request?
12
Supporting citations Are claims about what the reading says backed up by reference to external sources (e.g., newspaper articles or public reports)? Are there an adequate number of supporting citations?
4
Spelling and Grammar Are there so many spelling/grammatical mistakes in the paper that they obstruct understanding?
2
TOTAL 20 points