english essay

Paper #1

For my  first essay, I want you to write a three-page (minimum, double-spaced) paper that looks at smartphone addiction. Your paper needs to take a stance on the issue. Here are some questions to consider:

• Is smartphone addiction real? Why or why not?

• Are people in control of their actions with smartphones? Why or why not?

• What are the harmful effects (if any) of so much smartphone use?

• What can we do so the technology doesn’t control so much of our lives?

I’ll provide you with a list of possible sources, and you’ll need to use three of them to back up your ideas. You can also argue against the sources. You’re welcome to use additional sources, but you still need to use three of the ones I provide for you.

Summarize each of your sources and then respond to those ideas, organizing the paper around your own argument. Your own ideas should be the focus of the essay, but you also need to ground your argument in your sources, using in-text quotations and direct examples. When discussing each source or pulling information from an article, make sure to acknowledge where the information is coming from by including the title and author. Your paper should also have an introduction and conclusion. You can utilize your personal experience to back up your argument. Just make sure that it’s still an argumentative essay—not a personal narrative.

Finally, I want you to include a works cited page that lists each of your sources according to proper MLA citation. (See the Purdue OWL site for up-to-date info on how to cite sources. We’ll talk more about this next week.) The works cited page won’t count toward your overall page count.

Due Dates:

First draft for peer review: June 25th

Online peer responses: June 28th

Final draft: July 2nd

Sources:

These three argue in favor of the idea that smartphone use can be an addiction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4291831/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201307/smartphone-addiction

http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/addicted-your-smartphone-what-to-do#1

And here are three that challenge the idea of smartphone addiction.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/08/smartphone_addiction_is_not_a_real_diagnosis.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/technology-addiction-isnt-real-but-you-can-have-an-obsession_us_58a5cb4ae4b037d17d25799f

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/smartphone-addiction-its-hard-to-diagnose/2014/10/24/14041552-59f5-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html?utm_term=.ae8f773b01b2