Research Argument Essay

by | Oct 22, 2019 | Research

So far this semester, you’ve identified a topic and spent time considering that topic from different perspectives. Now that you’ve looked at how others discuss your topic, you’ll ask a question that you are personally invested in answering and use multiple sources to help answer your question. For example, if I’m exploring mental health and athletes, I might ask, how does gender impact stigmas around mental health? Or, what impact do athletes sharing their mental health struggles have on public perceptions of mental health stigmas? As I read and engage with a variety of sources, the answer to my research question will form the basis of my essay.

Format: 6-8 pages (or approximately 1500-2000) words, thesis-driven essay, appropriate APA or MLA format, 1” margins, double space, 12 pt. font.

Pre-Writing: Over the course of several weeks, we’ll spend time further defining your research topic and developing questions that you are personally invested in. Together we’ll talk about how to develop appropriate research questions, find sources to learn more about that topic (both scholarly and popular), evaluate those sources, and use those sources to come to a new insight about your topic and answer to your research question.

Source Requirements: To get a full picture of a subject you need to consult a variety of perspectives that go beyond one particular angle. Because each topic and research question will call for a different number and type of sources, what is listed below is merely the minimum. You will need to go beyond these requirements to find additional sources in each category to help you learn more about your topic:

  1. 3 scholarly articles that you’ve closely read, annotated, and are essential to understanding your topic. I will approve these articles and we’ll spend time talking about how the source adds to the conversation around your topic. These sources must provide an interesting, exciting look at your topic.
    a. One of your sources can come from the synthesis essay.
  2. Online Comment found in response to a Tweet, Facebook thread, review, comment thread, or blog, or other online space.
  3. 2 Popular Sources from either a long-form magazine article (like The Atlantic or the New Yorker or another source provided for the synthesis essay); a newspaper article (from the New York Times or the Huffington Post); a book written for a non-academic audience; a video, movie, or television show.
    a. One of the popular sources can come from the synthesis essay.
    Assignment cover letter (and meeting with our Writing Fellow): All major essays for the course will go through the drafting and revising process and will be reviewed by your peers and by me. Along with the assignment, you will write a detailed revision letter for this assignment. Please address your letter to me and discuss your meeting with the Comp
    Fellow and how you considered suggestions from the review sessions in revising your assignment. The cover letter must be submitted with the assignment on the assignment’s due date; it may not be submitted independently from the assignment.

Sample Solution

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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