Each student will submit a research paper on either a piece of legislation, an executive order, or a Texas Supreme Court case, enacted or decided since 2000, by the Texas state government. The tool of policy that you choose must be active, meaning that it is a law that has been passed and is currently enforced, it is an executive order that has not been rescinded, or it is a Supreme Court case that has been decided and not overturned.
Students will use this paper to analyze the example of governmental power/action of their choice by explaining the action to the best of their understanding and then putting the issue in context of the broader scope of government. Ask a few questions:
What does this action say about the power of the branch?
How does it affect the power of the branch, as given by the Constitution?
How does this action affect the relationship between the acting branch and the other branches?
How did this affect citizens and residents of the United States?
Use these questions as a basis for your paper but expand on these ideas from there. The analysis is based on data and facts, not suppositions. Challenge yourself to present statistics or scholarly evidence to back up your analysis. You must draw a conclusion and justify your position.
Paper Guidelines:
Minimum 1,000 words in the body of the paper (does not include cover page or references)
Minimum of 5 academic sources, included at the end of the paper in a works cited page and cited in the paper using in-text citations
Paper must conform to the APA style format
Paper must be submitted via assignment in Blackboard
Must be completed in a format accepted by Blackboard/SafeAssign. CANNOT BE A LINK TO GOOGLE DOCS OR OTHER WEBSITE!
Double-spaced, 1-inch standard margins, left-justified.
Must include a cover page (does not count as part of the word count requirement).
Must include a works cited or references page (does not count as part of the word count requirement).
(Do NOT use Wikipedia as a source. Use of Wikipedia as a source in your paper will result in a grade of ZERO for your paper. Wikipedia is an unreliable source for this assignment.)
Three of your sources are REQUIRED to come from the Kilgore College Library databases or from peer-reviewed sources.
For each of your sources that you select, you should carefully incorporate the CLUES method to evaluate your information and assess your sources’ reliability in constructing your arguments;
Consider the source and its author
Layout the argument, values, and assumptions of the author
Uncover the evidence, which should be based upon empirical evidence and/or sound, logical reasoning
Evaluate the author’s conclusion
Sort out the political implications, i.e., how does the source enhance your understanding of politics?
Your paper must be submitted to Blackboard/SafeAssign no later than 11:59PM, 26 September 2021.
Attached is a sample APA format paper you can use in completing the assignment.
