PART 1 (5 pgs)
-The analysis of this text: The Medicalization of ‘Ups and
Downs’: The Marketing of the New Bipolar Disorder by Joanna Moncrieff (I will upload the
document) alongside two other scholarly texts related to the subject (any). Guidelines below:
Write an essay of your own in which you critically analyze a text and its problem and
ideas/argument. Do this work in the context of two other ancillary texts: at least one scholarly
source. Your essay should show counterintuitive and complex assessment of BOTH your chosen
essay and the problem at hand, a thoughtful reflection on the specific cultural issue emerging
from your chosen essay. Your writing task is, therefore, two-fold: to sharpen and complicate our
understanding of this scholarly text and advance our understanding of this particular problem by
way of your own thinking.
Some additional advice: You will not have a single thesis; rather, you will have two robust and
well-supported critical claims. Keep in mind that your chosen essay is both a source of
inspiration as well as a kind of anchor or gravitational force: you are connected to it as a weight;
it will give your essay coherence. Your objective is to uncover and reveal parts of the essay that
are hidden, latent, obscured, assumed, invisible, underdeveloped or missing but also,
importantly, relevant and meaningful to the stakes of the essay and problem as a whole. The
central work you do in this essay will be in-between sources: translating the information you cull
from your ancillary sources into new insights about your primary essay and the issue at hand. As
always, an essay will develop and deepen your own ideas about this problem, have a thoughtful
and progressive structure, and use sources and analyzes evidence richly, thoughtfully, and
accurately.
The draft should be around 5-6 pages double-spaced: leave yourself a page for growth over
revisions. The final revision will be around 7-8 pages.
Follow formatting on the syllabus (double-spaced, pagination, etc).
Label your document with your first initial, last name, and CAD1. My document would be
NListonCAD1.docx (Word documents only).
PART 2 (1pg)
Include a cover letter before your final essay.
Cover letter. Reflect on your writing during this unit: from your exercises, to in-class free writes
and discussions, to your essay. What has been the intellectual enjoyment and struggle of critical
analysis—problematizing, finding gaps, omissions, implicit ideas, contradictions, insufficiencies,
latent parts, paradoxes—in an essay? You might consider classwork, the research process,
exercises, peer review, and/or your conference. What do you think are the most valuable part of
your essay? What still needs work and why? How have you improved as a writer (and as a
reader and thinker) during this progression?
(~1 page, single-spaced)
Please also include an Acknowledgments section after Works Cited.
Give your essay a title.
Use Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced, 1’ margins, page numbers (see syllabus
for further detail).
GRADING CRITERIA:
Critical Analysis Essay (30% of grade): Using at least two scholarly sources, develop an
argument that offers an assessment of the value and shortcomings of an argumentative essay
about a complex problem related to pharmaceutical treatment and illness.
Skills Practiced:
Reading and analyzing a complex written text’s rhetoric and its persuasive
strategies.
Developing a conversation among a group of texts.
Using that body of texts to generate ideas and to explore their far-reaching
implications.
Learning to substantiate and clarify an idea using those texts.
Practicing the art of reflection both to generate and strengthen ideas
Documenting written texts that are cited in an essay.
Writing a clearly organized persuasive essay that both assesses the value of a text and its
gaps, underlying assumptions, and implicit ideas
