RAOR Commentary

The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of an argument and your ability to critically evaluate it.

Commentaries have 4 parts: the articulation of the author’s position, Reconstruction of the author’s Argument (RA), your own objection to that argument (O), and how the author should reply to your objection (R). (That’s why we call it a RAOR Commentary).

The evaluation (see below for a more detailed rubric) works in stages:

Evaluation of Commentaries
Move (RA-O-R) Moves Made Correctly Grade
Correct articulation of the author’s thesis and correct reconstruction of their argument

X C
Good objection

X X B
Good reply

X X X A
See here for an example grade-A commentary. You may use this example as a template.

There are 5 commentaries in this course (Modules 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8). However, your instructor only counts your BEST 3. This gives you the chance to make mistakes and learn from them.

Unit Learning Outcomes
ULO1: Articulate and defend/criticize arguments for and against the legality of guns and gun control.
ULO2: Identify some of the ethical foundations of liberal, conservative, left, right, Republican, Democrat, socialist, community, authoritarian, libertarian, and communitarian political stances.
ULO3: Correctly identify the place of solutions and politics in the ethical approach to public policy.
Directions
Pick one of the articles we have read and discussed from this unit.

Write a commentary which includes the four parts discussed above.

Format
You may choose any citation style as long as you are clear and consistent.

Paraphrase, do not copy, the original text. if you use more than six words in a row that are pulled directly from one of the readings, then you must use quotations marks and proper citation.

The RAOR should be no longer than 300 words, and likely will be longer than 200 words if you have done everything well.

Michael Huemer ‘Is there a right to own a gun?’ (Links to an external site.) (297, 299, 302-309, 317-319)
Reading Guide
DeGrazia ‘The Case for Moderate Gun Control’ (Links to an external site.) (1-17 only)
Reading Guide
Jeff McMahn ‘Why gun ‘control’ is not enough’ (Links to an external site.)(optional)
Reading Guide