Advocating for Policy Change: A Proposal to Address the National Debt

The assignment requires students to craft a persuasive essay proposing a specific policy on a chosen topic, different from the status quo. The essay should be well-organized, researched, and reasoned, with credible evidence from 8-10 sources cited in MLA format. The proposal should include a clear statement of policy, concrete steps for implementation, identification of the target audience, and a constructed argument that persuades the audience to adopt the proposed course of action.

Final Project for COM 100W: Advocacy Proposal
Craft a 2,000-word well organized, researched and reasoned essay intended to persuade readers
to adopt a specific policy on a topic you select. Your policy proposal must be different from the
status quo. In other words: don’t argue for something we’re already doing. Your mission is to
convincingly persuade an audience to change the way they act or think about a particular issue.
You’ll need to explain what the issue is (the national debt, immigration, Libya, etc.), why the
current approach is unsuccessful and why your course of action is the best one available. Please
provide us with relevant and credible evidence from 8-10 sources (cited in MLA).
Statements of policy are phrased like this: “The United States of America should immediately
intervene in Syria because the US has an obligation to help end the human rights abuses and
stabilize the Middle East.” Or: “Congress should pass a balanced budget amendment because of
our rising debt.” You are advocating a position on an issue. Here are some ideas for getting
started:
Step 1: Investigate an issue that engages you on some level (personally, intellectually, etc.)
Determine the problems associated with this issue. What’s the status quo? What needs to
change? Why?
Step 2: Draft a proposal. Offer your statement of policy. Who should do what because why.
What concrete steps need to be taken? By whom? Why is it important to do so? How
does the community (or sub-community) benefit from adopting this new course of
action?
Step 3: Identify who your audience is. This is the who part. What agency, country, group or
individual needs to take action? Your argument must engage this audience.
Step 4: Construct your argument. Using the researching and outlining methods we discussed in
class, build an argument that will persuade your targeted audience to adopt the proposed
course of action. Support your ideas with your research.
Try to incorporate the various methods and ideas from the previous weeks. But you can approach
this assignment in many ways. Ideally, you should be engaged and passionate about the topic.
This will translate onto the page. We’ll be discussing this assignment over the rest of the
semester and you’ll be peer reviewing a draft in the upcoming weeks.