Integrated Writing on a Single-Use Bottle Ban
You have 35 minutes to write a 300–350 word integrated response for an academic writing course. The prompt is: 'Should the university ban single-use plastic bottles on campus?' The reading passage argues yes: the campus sells 480,000 bottles per year, only 23% are recycled, and a ban would save $18,000 in waste-hauling fees. The lecture responds that a ban would disproportionately affect students with disabilities who need sealed bottles for medication or who cannot use fountain stations; it also notes that the $18,000 saving excludes $45,000 for new water-bottle filling stations and that the reading's recycling rate came from one residence hall, not the whole campus. You must use both sources, take a clear position, and not simply summarize. The response must cite both sources.
1. Outline the position you would take and the two strongest pieces of evidence you would use from each source. Explain why you would not simply repeat the reading's 23% figure.
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I would take a qualified position: do not impose an immediate campus-wide ban; adopt a phased ban with a medical-access exemption and funded filling stations. From the reading, the strongest evidence is the scale-480,000 bottles sold per year-and the $18,000 waste-hauling saving. From the lecture, the strongest evidence is the disability-access objection and the omitted $45,000 station cost. The 23% recycling figure is weaker than it looks because the lecture says it came from one residence hall, not the whole campus. Repeating it as a campus-wide rate would overstate the problem and invite the counterargument that the reading's sample is unrepresentative. I would use it only as a local signal: 'In one residence hall, only 23% were recycled,' and pair it with the scale figure, which does not depend on the sample. The position is not anti-ban; it is anti-overclaim. A phased policy can keep the environmental goal while answering the access and cost objections, and it gives the university a way to measure whether the ban actually reduces waste before expanding it.
2. Write a topic sentence for your second body paragraph that acknowledges the lecture's cost objection without abandoning your position. Then explain in 2–3 sentences how the paragraph would develop.
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Topic sentence: 'Although the lecture's $45,000 station cost exceeds the reading's $18,000 waste-hauling saving, a phased ban can pair station installation with a bottle-fee fund, making the policy closer to cost-neutral by year three.' The paragraph would first concede the arithmetic: the reading's saving alone does not cover the stations. Then it would develop the funding mechanism: a small fee on remaining permitted bottles, or a reallocation from the university's sustainability fund, could cover the gap. Finally, it would specify a test: install stations in the three highest-traffic buildings first, measure bottle sales and recycling contamination for one term, and expand only if the fee revenue and waste reduction meet targets. That structure acknowledges the lecture's strongest objection without pretending the cost does not exist, and it keeps the essay's position qualified rather than absolute.