Use the research databases available on campus to find a scholarly article dealing with some topic of interest to you (by this, I mean either use them to find a relevant article in print format or to find an article in full-text electronic format). Analyze that article as you did with the article in assignment #1; that is, discuss it in terms of the way it constructs its central argument, its subsidiary arguments, and the way in which it uses outside resources to develop its ideas.

Some questions you should address in your analysis:

• What appears to be the purpose of the article (not necessarily what its thesis is, but a larger implication of what it's trying to do and for whom it’s trying to do it)?
 
• What sorts of information does this article assume the reader to have a prior understanding of and how does this impart information about the discourse community or communities for whom it is intended?


• Does the article rely more on primary or secondary sources or blend them fairly evenly? Does this help give any insight into its purpose? Does this help give insight into the discourse community to which it is oriented How would considerably greater reliance on one or the other (i.e., primary or secondary) possibly change this focus?


• Is the progression of the argument ultimately successful (i.e., does it make its point effectively) or could it use more development in certain areas? If so, where? What kinds of additional proofs would you have wanted more of?

One major difference between this paper and assignment #1 is that you cannot assume that your audience -- i.e., the rest of the class and me -- has read your article this time, so you may need to do more explanation of some vocabulary terms or ideas in order to help your readers understand the arguments you're trying to summarize and explicate. This does not mean you're writing for the same discourse community that the author of the article you're discussing is, but it does mean you'll have to go into a bit greater detail in explaining yourself.

Your paper should be at least 5 pages (approx. 1800) words in length and make plentiful reference to examples from the article to justify your positions. It is due in class on October 21. You shouldn’t need to do any outside research for this assignment.