Instructions
You will be using the New York Times article that I have uploaded in the documents to determine whether or not this article should be published or not. I will also provide the upstream and lateral sources.
Your task is to implement a Opinion Editor Board about deciding if the article “We May Be Able to Prevent Some Mass Shootings” should be published or not.
In my opinion, this article should be published. It should be published because it provides a lot of credible information and as it’s everyone’s task to prevent school shootings, the author, Farhad Manjoo correctly shows how us as a society can do that. However, if you want to write this article under a different recommendation please let me know with the reasoning so I can approve.
———————————————————————————————————————–
The Situation
As a member of the Opinion Editor Board, you will each create an individual report to attempt to persuade the other members of the Board about how to make a decision about whether or not your newspaper, The New York Times , should publish the opinion article the Board has chosen to analyze . You have three options for your recommendation to the group about the submitted article:
Accept, publish as written
Accept, but only after revisions are made
Reject
Report Specifications
600-800 words in a well-formatted, easy to read, and proofread, professional document
Cites specific upstream and lateral sources with both in-text citationsLinks to an external site. through links/URLS and a Reference ListLinks to an external site. in APA formatting
Contains three sections (it may have more than one paragraph per section):
Rhetorical Analysis
Fact Analysis
Recommendation with reasoning
————————————————————————————————————————-
Upstream and Lateral Sources
These are upstream quotes that can be used in the fact analysis portion of the paper. I have done one myself as an example and will leave the other to you.
Upstream Quote 1
Quote: “Yet even though they are estimated to be the cause of less than 1 percent of all gun fatalities, mass shootings carry a toll that surpasses their numbers, undermining our collective sense of well-being and public safety”
LInk to be verified: The link provided at “less than 1 percent” is https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/
Explanation: Going upstream, this link is a fully detailed inside look into the mass shootings that have occurred since 2009. I read through the text and found a similarly worded statement, “more than 99 percent of gun deaths in the US are from shootings other than mass shootings”. There was no link that proves that claim but there was a footnote letting readers know of the various sources that provide gun death data. I then began reading laterally and google searched “mass shootings cause less than 1 percent of all gun fatalities”. I found an informational text about mass shootings from The Educational Fund To Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV) and found a similar quote, “mass shootings account for less than 1% of all gun deaths…”. It wasn’t cited so I scrolled down the list of the additional resources and found the Gun Violence Archive, which provides a review of gun violence from 2014-to 2020. After running the numbers from the archive from 2014-to 2019 (2020 data was incomplete), mass shootings caused approximately 0.92 % of all gun violence fatalities. To fully confirm this claim’s validity I did some more lateral reading and found a paper from Harvard Business School discussing mass shootings and found this quote, “Mass shootings cause intense legislative activity despite accounting for less than 1% of firearm deaths”. It’s, therefore, safe to conclude that this claim can be considered verified. I was not able to find a source that contradicts this claim either.
Sources:
– https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/
– https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/mass-shootings/
– https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
– https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/16-126_ce055015-fc1c-4a8c-9a8a-8a9361d808bb.pdf
Upstream / Lateral Quote 2
Quote: “Mass shootings are more like avalanches: They take time to form, they generally follow a predictable pattern, and if you know what to look for, you can sometimes spot them a long way off, and perhaps even prevent them from happening at all.”
————————————————————————————————————————–
Rubric
Criteria Ratings Pts
Purpose
Justifies recommendation with clear reasoning and evidence for position
2 pts——————–
Rhetorical Analysis
Demonstrates understanding of the rhetorical situation and describes how effectively opinion writer uses constraints and rhetorical strategies, with specific evidence
3 pts——————–
Credibility Analysis
Demonstrates upstream and lateral research skills to analyze the credibility of opinion writer’s claims, with specific evidence
3 pts——————–
Style and ProfessionalismClear, direct, concise and professional prose directed at target audience of other Opinion Editor Board members
1 pts
——————-
Learning Outcome Documentation
Documents upstream and lateral sources with links/URLS. Reference list in APA style
1 pts
——————-
Total Points: 10