Review Carefully and Use: Essay 2 Assignment, Career Research Essay

Essay #2: Career Research Essay

Background: The soft skills essay helped you explore concrete ways to succeed in college, career, and life. Many of you are college students just starting out in your career pursuits while some of you are already working in a career field but want to pursue another. Wherever you are in your career path, here is a chance to fully explore a specific career.

Your Task: In a research-based essay of at least FIVE FULL PAGES, you will choose a specific career that either you have decided to pursue or are considering pursuing and develop the answer to the following question: Why should a person choose this specific career?

Your audience for this essay will be someone like yourself, with the same interests and possible career goals.

Essay Requirements:

• An introduction in which you:

1. Give general background on the career you have chosen: how long this career has been in existence; how many people in the United States are employed in this career; what kind of education do you need to pursue it. (Cite any sources you use)
2. Explain why you chose your topic; what values and interests led you to decide to explore/choose this particular career; why you think this career would suit you in the future
3. Summarize the kinds of research that you did, what kinds of articles you read from what kinds of sources
4. State your thesis statement at the end

• A thesis statement answering the question: Why should a person choose this specific career? Your thesis statement must be one general statement that makes a clear claim about what you will prove in the essay.
• FOUR well–organized PIE paragraphs which support your thesis and focus on one specific topic. Note: Don’t talk about yourself in the body paragraphs.
• Each body paragraph should include the following:
• (P) A topic sentence which makes a clear and arguable point that supports your thesis
• (I) Correctly formatted quotes/examples:
  • Two quotes/examples per paragraph, no more than three lines long.
  • You MUST use at least FIVE credible sources. At least ONE of these must be found on the CCSF Library Website. The rest must be from credible websites or other texts.
• (E) Explanation/elaboration that answers the question “So what?” Your explanation/elaboration should tell how and why your evidence proves your point/topic sentence. You will choose at least 7 questions (listed in the paragraph assignment) per quote. You may choose different questions for each quote.

Note: See the outline template for how to organize your essay.

• A conclusion which does the following:

1. Restates your thesis statement
2. States what you have learned from writing the essay
3. Gives an overall recommendation as to why you yourself should pursue the career you have argued for
4. Leaves the reader with a final thought that reinforces what you have argued in your essay.

• Frequent use of coordinators (FANBOYS) and subordination to join sentences
• Clearly focused sentences with active verbs and concrete subjects
• Careful proofreading. Remember, you must print out a draft to do a thorough proofreading job.
• Correct MLA formatting
• A correctly MLA formatted “Works Cited” page. I will only accept essays with a “Works Cited” page.