Write an essay in which you make an original argument about an aspect of America – graduate researcher

Write an essay in which you make an original argument about an aspect of American culture by focusing on one specific feature within the culture (i.e. the topic you have chosen and researched)**** that you analyze in detail in order to demonstrate its relationship to the culture as a whole.
**** the topics is: What does the changing role of women in the US military reveal about American culture?
‘
To break that down further, into its components, here is a bullet list that makes the most important points of Paper #5 impossible to miss:
Paper #5 is written in the standard essay format.
Unlike the last two assignments, this one will be going back to standard MLA essay formatting.
There will be no Example Essay provided for you for Paper #5; instead, the original Standard Essay Template (linked here Download here) provides you with the model for how the essay should appear and be formatted. (Note that your essay will need to be several pages longer than this Template example is, of course)
While this is technically a research paper, in that it makes use of the significant amount of research you have done, it should not be treated as a standard research paper. Instead, it is an argumentative research paper.
How is an argumentative research paper different? While a standard research paper is the presentation of a set of information on a topic, an argumentative research paper (like CAESUR) is taking the research that you’ve amassed and applying it to an argument that you’re making.
For CAESUR, the argument that you’re making is defined for you: You’re making an argument about American culture.
To emphasize that last bullet point: Your thesis statement for Paper #5 must use your research topic to make an argument about American culture.
What does this mean? It means that if you base Paper #5 entirely and only on your research topic, you will not be meeting the most fundamental requirement of the assignment.
An example: If your research topic had to do with teenage drug use, your argument should not be about teenage drug use alone. Your thesis statement would instead need to make an argument about what your research into teenage drug use can reveal/show/demonstrate about American culture.
You should notice a similarity between that last portion and the Research Question framework that you have been using (“What does _______________ reveal/show/demonstrate about American culture?”). If you find yourself struggling to ensure that your Thesis Statement for Paper #5 is doing what it needs to be doing, you can check it yourself by seeing how well it works as an answer to your RQ. (And you can also run it past me and I will let you know.)
I’ve stressed this aspect so much because many of the thesis statements that I’ve seen so far in grading Paper #4 have been failing to incorporate the cultural analysis.
It is not enough to have a TS that merely mentions or merely uses the words “American culture.”
The analysis of culture must be the endpoint, the ultimate purpose, of your argument and thus of your thesis statement and of your CAESUR essay as a whole.
Without that, your entire essay will fall apart and will not meet the expectations for the CAESUR essay.
If you have any concerns that you are not adequately centering your essay around the cultural analysis, you should ask me! I’m happy to help, either by reassuring you that you’re on the right path or by helping to redirect your focus.
YOUR ESSAY MUST CONTAIN:
a thoughtful, inventive, descriptive title
an introduction that opens with a relevant, attention-grabbing hook and an overviews key foundational info and terminology and links it to your thesis statement (HOT)
a thorough, detailed thesis statement with an issue that 1) is arguable (is not merely a statement of facts), 2) is based on a larger cultural idea or concept and extends the existing scholarly conversation with your own analysis, and 3) expresses its subtopics with specificity and clarity
fluid, well-integrated body paragraphs that follow the TEA paragraph model: Topic, Evidence, Analysis—with the E and the A used to show the relationship between the paragraph’s T and the essay’s TS.
thoughtful use of sources as evidence of your claims that are sufficiently analyzed and explained in relation to your cultural argument
a conclusion that does not summarize and restate the essay’s points but which does extend the ideas already mentioned, proposes a possible future outcome, poses a question that is not yet able to be answered, etc.
a works cited page in proper MLA format, with a minimum of 10 credible sources (emphasis on credible)
example essay attached