Week 2

As I promised I would do this week, I read all of the 24 sources I found last week. I consider this a huge milestone in my paper progress. Normally, I wait until I am actually writing the paper to go pick through my sources for information. This week, I also narrowed my research to two papers I will write the rhetorical analysis on. After narrowing the research for my papers, I was able to formulate a rough outline for the draft. Once I completed the outline, I realized how much simpler writing the paper next week is going to be.

As far as the term paper goes, I haven’t exactly determined the angles I want to cover. I know I want to talk about college tuition, but am unsure in the direction(s) the paper will take. With the research that I have, I have good statistics in tuition increases for public and four year colleges in the past few years, as well as the percent increase since 1990. Another big theme incorporated in many of the research articles I have read, they speculate reasons for tuition increases. One of the main speculations is that the more funding the college receives in federal and state aid, the more the tuition increases. Some say that tuition is merely keeping pace with the inflation rates of everything else. Another major theme of the research I have read is the trend that students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree have about $21,000 in student loan debt. Another popular theme in my reading are suggestions on ways that colleges can still be successful without increasing tuition.

I think I want to narrow my audience to college students, but am not exactly sure how promising that will be. Hopefully after writing the rhetorical analysis, I will have narrowed my topic and have a better idea of what I want to cover for the final paper.