Essay 2  English 1102 Spring 2010

Requirements:

        12-point font

        MLA formatting

        1-inch margins

        double-spacing with no extra spacing between title and text

        third person focus

        present tense

        3 full pages of text, minimum; 5, maximum

        at least two significantly edited drafts

        Turnitin submission receipt included with typed copies

        paper folder

          Works Cited page

           Due Date:   February 19 for MWF classes

                            February 22 for MW class

Assignment:

        This will be an evaluation essay using a comparison/contrast presentation style examining two "free essay" websites of your choice.  Be careful to choose two sites that are not cut and paste copies of each other, but are independent sites (many free essay sites are simply duplicates of established sites with a different typeface and a different name.  The material is often identical.).  Begin your search by Googling "free essays."

        Although you may choose your own evaluative strategy, do include the persuasive rhetoric of the sites, the safeguards they offer to convince you that you are not plagiarizing if you use their essays, and the support they offer for their arguments. Follow the links deeper into the site and see if you can determine who writes their essays and what editing controls are in place to assess the quality of the essays.  Who owns the site?  Who contributes?  What are the contractual terms for contribution? Is there money involved? What promises do they make?  What recourse does a student have who uses the site and then gets accused of plagiarism? What visual techniques do the sites employ to entice customers?  What other ideas emerge from your exploration?

NOTE:

This paper should focus on the rhetoric that is in place to entice the student, not on the essay quality on the two sites.  You could consider the variety of choices or the clever, alluring titles, but confine your exploration to the site itself, not the contents of the essays offered.  I want to know how the spider lures the fly, not what happens later.