Assembling Your Draft

By now, you have completed

• a Problem Statement
• a “Reasons Why” Chart
• an “Acknowledgement and Response” Chart
• a “Story Board Your Argument” Chart

Consider your Story Board a kind of outline, or plan for your paper. The “Reasons Why” and “Acknowledgement and Response” helped you draft your ideas for the story board. Your “Problem Statement” can be your “working open paragraph”.

To create a document that you can read, please do the following.

Creating the Document

Submissions folder

• In your submissions folder, crate a folder called “Position Paper Draft.
• In the folder, create a document called Last Name PosDraft. (Ex. DanbergPosDraft)

Format

• Use MLA format for your heading and title and page numbers. Remember this should be double spaced.
• Give the draft a title that suits the paper: Example: Addiction Treatment in Central New York

Organizing the Document

When you put this draft together, do the following.

Paste your PROBLEM STATEMENT where your first paragraph would go. This will be your “provisional” first paragraph.

After the problem statement, in all capital letters, write SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. This is a place holder. You DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE THIS PARAGRAPH.

The BODY OF THE PAPER comes next. Use your reasons why chart and storyboard to organize this part of the paper. Each of your reasons why is a claim that supports your thesis. You will build your paragraphs around them.

After the BODY OF THE PAPER you will have the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND RESPONSE part of your paper. This is where you acknowledge that there are objections to your position, the rebut or respond to them.  You might make the transition by thinking of this section as two or more paragraphs. You might begin this section with a paragraph that says “Opponents of ….argue that….” and that write a paragraph that describes the alternative position. After you describe their point of view or argument, in a following paragraph, rebut, or respond to the position. You might agree with part of it, or disagree with all of it.

After the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND RESPONSE, in all capital letters, write CONCLUSION. This is a place holder. You DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE THIS SECTION.