Instruction
1. solate 3-5 loaded words or phrases spoken by each candidate that you feel are deliberately and carefully employed to sway public opinion, to ameliorate or pejorate, to effectively pivot/change the subject, etc., etc. Added to this—and this is terribly important—please don’t feel restricted by the 3-5 words. You can expand your linguistic analysis into the approaches taken, as well. For example, in 2012, President Obama used the word “we” significantly more than Governor Romney (who used the pronoun “I” much more). If you’re feeling ambitious, you can look to sentence length and construction, tone and volume, interruptions, laughter, silence, etc. Just remember: the driving force behind your argument should be related to picking apart their deliberate semantics-based strategies.
Again, I don’t want to be too prescriptive because people make stunningly original observations about Presidential candidates all the time. After all, these debates only occur every four years.
2. Once you’ve isolated these words, construct an original thesis statement on the matter, and rigorously defend in 4-5 pages. You’ll need four sources total (the transcript and three additional sources). Again, I’d rather not be too prescriptive. Don’t feel obligated to use traditionally academic source material; however, try to avoid inherently biased news organizations unless you’re intentionally using them to prove a point. Again, this is not a platform to skewer or praise.
3. Use the grade sheet as both a guide and a checklist to make sure you cover your bases, and We’ll be using MLA format.