GEN145 – Guidelines for the Persuasive Research Essay assignment Weighting: 30% of your final grade Description: A commodity is generally defined as anything (including objects, animal, people, etc...) that are bought and sold in the global economy. Blackboard contains folders with links to documentaries, articles and websites to help you explore some commodities. You need to write an essay of 1000 to 1200 words on one of these commodities (if you want to choose another commodity, check with your instructor first). Your essay must either: 1. Inform and persuade, using ethos, pathos and/or logos, your readers to STOP BUYING this commodity, the demand for which is harming humans, animals, and/or the environment OR… 2. Inform and persuade, using ethos, pathos and/or logos, your readers to BUY this commodity because supporting this commodity benefits humans, animals and/or the environment. Your essay is due at the end of the semester and is worth 30% of your final grade. It must follow APA conventions (document formatting, in-text citations and a reference list), include a minimum of 4 sources and submitted to Safe Assignment in Blackboard. Marking: All students’ work will be graded using the common GEN145 assessment criteria. Checklist Before Submitting Your Final Draft 1. Check your word count. Is your essay between 1000 and 1200 words? 2. Do you have a minimum of 4 sources in your text? 3. Does each source have accurate in-text citations? 4. Does each source have the correct reference list entry? 5. If you used directly quoted material, is your quoted material 10% of your text or less? 6. Does your thesis statement state an opinion (and not a fact), and is it in the introduction? 7. Does each paragraph have a topic sentence, a concluding sentence and supporting ideas? 8. Is each of your supporting ideas developed with details, examples, statistics, expert opinions, etc…? 9. Does your introductory paragraph have a hook that grabs your reader’s attention? 1 GEN145 – Guidelines for the Persuasive Research Essay assignment 10. Does your concluding paragraph restate the thesis and communicate the purpose of the essay by offering a recommendation, making a prediction, using a relevant quote or asking a rhetorical question? 11. Does your essay make at least two types of appeals (emotional, logical, and/or moral character)? 12. Does your essay contain any run-ons or fragments? 13. Does your essay contain mistakes in subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, spelling, capitalization, etc…? 14. Is all your text in a Times New Roman, size 12 font? 15. Is every first line of each paragraph indented? 16. Does the title page contain all the information required (your name, ID#, instructor’s name, course, date, etc…)? 2 Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri Topic Coffee Thesis Coffee production can be harmful in three main fields which are slavery, environment, and human being’s health. Introduction 905 Most of the people around the world drink coffee, but the main conflict is they may not know how it is seriously harmful in all main fields. Idea 1 1- Many farms around the world practice unethical ways in producing coffee. Idea 2 2- Some companies seek for fast production even though if they are going to harm their employees Idea 3 3- The environment is highly affected from planting coffee Idea 4 4- Coffee might expose to some diseases. SUPPORT Section 1 Idea 1 Section: Sources Workers in coffee plantation are mistreated and their rights are not given. In Brazil 151 people work in a farm that has 3 million coffee trees. 1- The labor ministry in Brazil found that many workers who were working in coffee plantation were in conditions analogous to slavery. They were forced to live in these hard conditions. Sources Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri Idea 2 Idea 3 2- Workers in the farm stay more than 10 hours daily without being paid. 3- The employees lived in collective lodgings without drinking water Idea 4 4- The labors were forced to buy their own equipment’s that must be provided with the owners of the farm. Idea 5 5- They kidnap kids and force them to work in coffee plantation. Idea 6 6- Workers often are exposed to health and safety risks, including for using toxic pesticides, lacking protective equipment, and for living in poor conditions at coffee farms. Idea 7 7- This kind of treatments is unacceptable, unfair, and tend to be illegal for not giving the labor’s rights. Idea 8 Idea 9 Section: 905 ’’ The Fartura Farm is currently caring for 3 million coffee trees, while also raising so, and cattle; it has 151 employees. The property is leased and managed by Fabiana Soares. In a statement, her lawyer, Amanda Costa Ferreira, claimed that the property owner learned about the inspection “with shock” since slave labor is not the company’s “work philosophy.” ‘’ (Penha, 2018) ’’ The list also shows that labor and human rights abuses are currently taking place in 17 coffee-growing countries, mostly against vulnerable coffee farm workers and their families. ‘’ (Martinez, 2018) Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri SUPPORT Section 2 Section: 905 The environment has been affected from planting coffee because they needed to clear many forests and replace it with farms. Idea 1 1- Many forests were replaced with farms to plant coffee. Sources Idea 2 2- The second issue that was remarkable is water pollution, all the waste from farms were thrown to the rivers. ‘’ It’s the beverage that many of us rely on to galvanize us into action in the mornings and in today’s world, it’s more than popular: it’s ubiquitous.’’ (Moore, 2013) Idea 3 3- Coffee plantation has bad effects to the soil due to the traditional growing means. It causes high rates of erosion on renovated coffee plantations where vegetation has been reduced. Idea 4 4- There are enormous volumes of wastes around the world from the material used in producing coffee. Idea 5 5- The usage of agrochemicals in planting coffee has many effects in the human’s health. Idea 6 Idea 7 Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri Section: 905 Idea 8 Idea 9 SUPPORT Section 3 Studies shows that drinking coffee can cause some health issues on people. Idea 1 1- Drinking coffee daily can cause addiction with side effects such as anxiety or agitation. Sources Idea 2 2- Females who are pregnant and drink more than two cups of coffee in a day can increase the risk of risk of ‘’ Coffee is safe for most adults. Drinking more than 6 cups/day might cause “caffeinism” with symptoms such as anxiety or agitation. People who drink a lot of coffee every day may need to drink more coffee to get the same effects. They may also become “dependent” on coffee to the point that they develop withdrawal symptoms if they suddenly stop drinking it. ‘’ (COFFEE, nd) miscarriage, premature birth, and low birth weight. Idea 3 3- It may be unsafe for the children to drink coffee and has more risks than the adults. Idea 4 4- Unfiltered coffee increases the amount of cholesterol in the blood that raises the risk of heart disease. Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri Idea 5 5- Taking large amount of caffeine can end up with diarrhea. Idea 6 6- People who has diabetes should be careful in drinking coffee and aware from increasing and decreasing in blood sugar. Section: 905 Idea 7 Idea 8 Idea 9 Conclusion In conclusion, coffee production is an active industry thus it has several negative effects in many fields. Idea 1 1- Workers in farms of coffee plantation are not treated respectfully nor providing their rights. Idea 2 2- Many forests in Brazil are cleared just to replace it with coffee farms. Sources Name Hadher Ahmed Al Mheiri Idea 3 3- Drinking many cups of coffee in a day could lead to bad circumstances in our own health. Idea 4 4- The negative effects are spread so large in the three main fields which are slavery, environment, and human’s health. Section: 905 A) Planning the rhetorical situation: 1. Identification of the commodity a. What is the information you want the readers to learn about this commodity? b. What is the impact of this commodity on the environment and/or society? The purpose of this essay is to highlight the negative aspects of coffee production, the first aspect is the suffer of the slavery in coffee farms, the second aspect is the pollution coffee production causes on the environment, and the health impacts on human health. Coffee is a daily basis and addictive commodity. The producers must provide extremely large amounts of coffee every day that will affect directly on the environment whether from packing, transportation, manufacturing or even the plantation part and as long as it affects the environment it will most likely affect the human health so even non-coffee drinkers might be affected as well. Coffee is bad for human health it causes several diseases some of them are chronic what if more than half of the society drink coffee? this will cause pressure on health services; unhealthy society is a nonproductive society. What makes things worse is that it is an addictive product so the process of convincing people will be a bit hard. 2. Identification of the audience a. Whom do you want to persuade? b. Consider the age, gender, language, culture, religion, level of education, economic class, geographic location, and/or other circumstances of your audience. c. Is this audience hostile, sympathetic and/or neutral to your message? Why? First, I want to persuade all coffee drinkers which they are more than half of the society with any level of education or economic class. Second, non-coffee drinkers have to be informed as well because they will be affected in certain ways from this commodity. I also want to inform young adults who did not get addicted to coffee that much yet. The audience might be sympathetic when the slavery suffering will be discussed. The coffee addicts might be hostile. The neutral audience they probably will be people who do not drink coffee. 3. Purpose a. What is your argument and position? b. What is the message you want to convey to this audience? c. Why do you wish to convey this message? What do you hope will be achieved? My argument will be about the negative impacts of coffee and I will be against coffee production. The message I want to convey is that coffee has lots of negative effects that people must be informed about. Many medical researches proved that coffee causes chronic diseases, it also has a huge impact on the environment so even non-coffee drinkers will be affected, and there are thousands of humans suffering under hard conditions to bring them the coffee beans they want, and no one knows about them. The change is in the hand of everyone. It is hard to stop coffee completely, reducing the usage is the solution and changing the way of producing to be more environment-friendly and does not hurt any human. 4. Strategy a. How do you plan to affect your audience emotionally? b. How do you plan to appeal to your audience’s sense of logic? c. Do you plan to use ethos? How? I plan to affect the audience emotionally by showing and describing the suffer of the slavery in coffee beans farms and their tough life. In addition, coffee is one of the top ten commodities used all around the world which will defiantly have some shocking numbers. For the logic I will use numbers and statistics for the usage and production of coffee. I will use medical studies on the effect of coffee on human health. I am not planning to use ethos. 5. Research a. List of academic sources that will inform your argument b. List of references in APA style References Brown, V. (2017, August 18). Coffee Part1: How Your Cup Affects the Environment. Retrieved from Livable Future: http://livablefutureblog.com/2017/08/coffee-part-1-environment Lights, Z. (2013). Coffee and its Impact on People, Animals and the Planet. Retrieved from One Green Planet: https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/coffee-and-its-impact-on-people-animals-and-the-planet/ Martinez, M. (2018, December 3). Coffee: Slavery, Destruction and Shortage. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@MarinaTMartinez/coffee-slavery-destruction-and-shortage-c915d430390e Moore, V. (2013, January 31). Sustainable Business Toolkit. Retrieved from What’s Your Coffee Costing The Planet?: https://www.sustainablebusinesstoolkit.com/environmental-impact-coffee-trade/ Penha, D. (2018, September 18). Slave labor found at Starbucks-certified Brazil coffee plantation. Retrieved from Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/slave-labor-found-at-starbucks-certified-brazil-coffee-plantation/