This document provides guidance on writing an academic rationale essay. It explains that the rationale justifies a student's chosen general studies concentration and should relate their plan to the goals of inquiry-driven learning and their personal and professional goals. The rationale should be organized with an introduction discussing inquiry-driven learning, a section on how the academic plan meets these goals and impacts their goals, and a conclusion. It should be professionally written with no errors and include a cover page, table of contents, and citations. Students need to show how their plan demonstrates being an inquiry-driven learner by drawing on course resources to support their justification. The completed rationale and plan will be submitted and graded together.

1. ACADEMIC
RATIONALE
P L A N N I N G & W R I T I N G Y O U R A C A D E M I C R A T I O N A L E E S S A Y
B Y K E N D R A T H O M A S

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
• What is an Academic Rationale?
• How to organize your rationale essay
• Justifying your domains by being an inquiry-driven learner
• What I am looking for…
• Getting creative with your academic rationale

3. WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC RATIONALE,
ANYWAY?
• Your academic rationale is your statement of reasons as to why you have chosen your
general studies concentration.
• It will be something unique to you, so there is no right or wrong answer as to why you
have chosen your degree concentration.

4. ORGANIZING YOUR RATIONALE
• Provide an introduction that describes the goals of inquiry-driven learning using
appropriate course resources for support.
• Discuss how your chosen academic plan relates to the goals of inquiry-driven learning
and its impact on your own personal and professional goals.
• Provide a detailed rationale of how your degree in general studies meets your personal
and professional goals.

5. ORGANIZING YOUR RATIONALE
(CONT.)
FORMAT & PRESENTATION
• Your completed academic plan of study and academic rationale should be a
professionally written document suitable for an academic audience.
• Your submission should be free of any grammatical, spelling, and stylistic errors.
• The completed proposal should include a cover page with your name, degree
concentration, and expected date of graduation; a table of contents; and a
references/works cited page using APA or MLA citation format accurately.

6. JUSTIFYING YOUR RATIONALE
• You will need to justify how your academic plan shows that you are or will become an
inquiry-driven learner
• Your rationale paper should details how you approach inquiry-driven learning in your
academic career to meet the goals of general education
• The paper should draw from appropriate course resources to support the rationale and
description
• The completed academic plan of study and rationale paper will be submitted together
as one final document and is graded using the Academic Plan of Study and
Rationale Rubric

7. GETTING CREATIVE WITH YOUR
RATIONALE
• Write it out – two to three pages
• Visualize it – Power Point presentation
• Surprise me! As long as you include the necessary components from the rubric, you
will be fine.