Transformation Assignment 5: Summary Project an Accompanying Discussion Board

Students will be introduced to this assignment in Week 1 and reminded throughout and given
tips for writing. They will be building writing skills along the way.

Discussion Board: Part 2: Critical Writing (due by midnight on Thursday) For Part 2, review your
Week 1 Topic Summary Assignment after you have thoroughly read Chapter 14. Chapter 14
provides a wide variety of guidance for writing that are applicable to any of your classes and
your profession. Find specific areas in your assignment that you believe you can improve and
rewrite based on two or more things you learned in Chapter 14. For example, if you discovered
vague writing, share the vague sentence and how you would revise it. If you believe you could
have organized your work better, share how based on your readings. These are just examples –
you may choose anything from your reading.
Week 7
Topic Summary Project Instructions and Worksheet
In this assignment, you will work toward achieving the following course learning outcome:
Evaluate claims using relevant evidence that supports a conclusion.
Throughout the course, you have addressed a topic of interest that you chose, and you applied
many critical thinking concepts that you have studied. In Week 1, you learned that there are a
variety of ways to define critical thinking. Ultimately, they all relate to considering a claim,
evaluating evidence, and coming to a well-reasoned conclusion.
• The claim relates to what you believe or what you are asked to believe.
• The evidence comes in many forms (research, expert opinion, experience, etc.) and is
necessary to support the claim. Evaluating evidence is a necessary part of critical
thinking, and assumptions and biases arise when making claims and seeking evidence.
• Ultimately, you reach a conclusion which allows you to confidently argue a claim and
take action as appropriate.
Below is a quick summary of your work on your topic throughout the course. You may find it
helpful to paste in notes about the work you did in each week below each bullet point. You
may opt to do this as you complete your work each week or when you begin to work on this
project early in Week 7. This is Step 1.
• In Week 1, you selected a topic and located an article or clip.

• In Week 2, you identified thinking errors thinking error related to the issue and
considered how to apply inductive and deductive reasoning to it.

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 • In Week 3, you identified possible research questions related to your topic: one that
inferred causation and one that inferred correlation. You also selected a type of
scientific research to use to explore the topic.

• In Week 5, you located an additional resource to help you with the topic and
determined if it met CARE evaluation standards.

• In Week 6, you considered how to persuade people to take action along the lines of
your belief as it relates to the topic, and you consider related judgment errors.

• In Week 4 and this week (Week 7), you were not required to tie your work to your topic,
and you had the option to relate your topic to cognitive errors, thinking errors, and/or
superstition.

With this quick review in mind, in this assignment, you will write a short paper following the
next steps. Include headings in your paper so the reader (your instructor) is clear that you are
following each step.

Step 2 - Summary: Use your best organizational and writing skills to summarize all of your work
related to the topic beginning with your choice of a potentially controversial topic in Week 1.

Step 3 – Claim: Explain the claim (conclusion or argument) you would like to make regarding
this topic. Moving forward, what action would you like to take and/or encourage others to
take?

Step 4 - Evidence: Describe the additional evidence you need in order to support your claim.

Step 5 – Gathering Evidence: Explain how you will gather the evidence needed to support your
claim.

Step 6 – Supporting your Claim: Describe challenges you may face in supporting your claim and
persuading others to do so. Hint: some of the challenges may be thinking errors.

Step 7 - Formatting: Following the formatting requirements:

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 • The length should be 2-3 pages minimum.
• This is an academic paper written in your own words.
• Please double-space with 1 inch margins on all sides, and use a 12 point clear font
(Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri are good choices. These instructions are Calibri.
• If you would like additional support with your writing, please visit Brandman’s Online
Writing Community by clicking on “Writing Help” in the red navigation buttons on the
left.

Step 8: Begin your paper below on page 3 so you can easily refer to the instructions.

Step 9: Upload your paper.

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Begin your paper here – include your name and the paper title of your choice (remember to
organize with headings)