Purposes
- to develop an effective process for finding out what others have said about a topic and for synthesizing other’s ideas into your own coherent, written view
- to learn the reasons for research documentation and to use a currently accepted form of documentation (MLA 8th or 9th editions)
- to improve critical literacy
Description
You will write an 8 – 10 page (2500 words) paper based on sources. Your purpose is to persuade your audience (your instructor and classmates) to accept your conclusions on an issue within our class focus. Our class focus this semester is Turning Oppression into Hope: Moving from Outrage to Courage Download Turning Oppression into Hope: Moving from Outrage to Courage. In your paper, you will first explore some aspect of global oppression or injustice in a specific country or region of the world. Second, you will discover what people are doing or what could be done to end or alleviate this oppression or injustice.
Preliminary Research Assignments
Before your research paper will be graded, you must earn at least 70% on each of your preliminary research assignments: (research proposal, research overview & background information, research working bibliography, and a research source summary for each of your sources).
Papers Will Include (in this order)
- title page: you can be creative!
- formal outline: logical and parallel
- body of your paper (the first page of the body is page 1)
- Works Cited that cites all sources in your paper.
- Optional: If you consulted other sources but don’t cite them in your paper, you can include them on a list of Works Consulted.
- Optional: illustrations, graphs, pictures, appendices, tables, etc.
General Requirements
- focus that is within course guidelines and is appropriately narrow for this length paper
- clear, debatable thesis statement
- introduction and conclusion
- 8-10 pages long, approximately 2500 words in the body of the essay
- appropriate use of sources that avoids plagiarism through careful, accurate MLA 8th edition / 2016 or MLA 9th edition / 2021 documentation of all paraphrases, summaries and quotes, including page numbers for all sources except those without stable page numbers
- clear, accurate attributions before all long quotes, short quotes that aren’t integrated into your sentences, and summaries and paraphrases
- a minimum of 8 quotes from 8 different sources
- effective use of quotes – according to Andrea Lunsford, author of the textbook the Everyday Writer, you should quote “when the wording is so memorable or expresses a point so well that you cannot improve or shorten it without weakening it.”
- correct MLA long quote format for all quotes four or more lines long
- appropriate balance between ethos, logos, and pathos
- support from concrete examples and specific details
- transitions between each section and connecting each section to your thesis
- integration of research from a variety of sources and points of view in support of your thesis.
- consider and either concede to or refute research that opposes your thesis. For most topics, this dealing with opposing viewpoints will be in discussing possible causes of the oppression and/or effects of it. You will also discuss opposing or multiple viewpoints in the hope section: discussing what could be done to end or alleviate this oppression. You are not expected to argue opposing viewpoints on whether or not the oppression exists (unless this is a common debate) or opposing viewpoints of the oppressiveness or wrongness of the oppression. For example, I would never ask someone to consider opposing viewpoints about whether child sex trafficking exists or is evil. Instead, your consideration of opposing viewpoints will come in discussing debatable aspects of your topic. These debatable aspects could include multiple viewpoints about what enables or causes the trafficking and the effects of it, and different ideas on how to end child sex trafficking.
- use at least ten sources which meet these requirements:
- At least five of the sources used in your final project need to be obtained through and available in full-text through EAC online resources (EAC-Y).
- At least two of the sources used in your final project need to be scholarly considerations of your topic. To find scholarly sources using EAC-Y, be sure to select the checkbox that says “peer-reviewed” and/or “scholarly.”
- Your sources should provide a variety of views and in-depth considerations of your topic. Don’t get sources that only support one point of view or one answer to your question. Often the different points of view will be in the hope, or solutions, section of your research.
- General and specialized encyclopedias should be used only to provide background information and to give definitions of words unfamiliar to the audience. In general, your topic will be specific enough that an encyclopedia won’t be useful. If you do find one that’s useful, don’t list more than one encyclopedia (that includes wikis) on your Working Bibliography.
- Only four of your sources can be news articles, opinion pieces, and/or videos. Opinion pieces (such as blogs, editorials, letters to the editor, emails, opinion columns), videos, and documentaries can be useful but need to be evaluated carefully. Unless written by an authority in the field or produced by a reputable team, they can be questionable and even fake. Look for substantial discussions rather than short, superficial ones.
- Books: Don’t try to use whole books on your topic.
- For each source that you cite in your paper, you must have submitted and earned a passing grade on a Research Source Summary for that source. You may need to submit extra credit Research Source Summaries if you don’t cite some of the sources that you did summaries on or if you cite more than ten sources.
Format (for more information, see Essay Format in the General Course Info module)
- 1 inch margins on all sides
- double-spacing: everything should be double-spaced, including the outline, long quotes, and Works Cited
- 11 – 12 point font
- MLA-style pagination with a header with your last name and the page number. MLA says the first page of the body should be page 1. However, this may not be possible if you’re using Google Documents. Even if you can’t change the pagination so that the first page of the body is page 1, be aware of this anyway when you’re gauging how long your paper should be.