In the assignments Your Spot in the System, Voting: Left, Right, and Center (Chapter 7), and Media and a Topic of Your Choice (Chapter 8) you examined your own political biases and began thinking about a topic you have strong feelings over. You also began using the resources Allsides.com and Gale’s Opposing Viewpoints (TC Library).
For your TERM PAPER you will build on those assignments to do an unusual type of paper. Whereas you may be used to doing research and looking at all points of view, for this paper, you are going to look at an issue you are very passionate about from the point of view opposite to your own. It is an intellectual exercise in which research, purposely looking exclusively at the “the other side” and then reflect on what it was like to do so.
You will also practice using correct MLA Formatting and Citing for this paper.
Detailed Directions/Steps:
Refer back to the topic and resource you selected for Media and a Topic of Your Choice (Chapter 8). You will need this to help you write your introduction, title, and to build your works cited.
Create a title page for you paper. This should have your name on it, the course, the date, the term, and your title. Your title include the name of your issue and indicate your political stance. An example might be something like this– Gun Control: A Liberal Considers Conservative Views. Make sure you have a title page that is separate form your paper’s text. It is my way of throwing you 5 easy points so don’t miss out. Here’s an example of what it should look like: Sample MLA Title Page.pdfDownload Sample MLA Title Page.pdf
Create a Works Cited page for your paper. It should be MLA formatted and have all of your articles alphabetized by author. It should look like this: MLA Works Cited Example.pdf Download MLA Works Cited Example.pdf Add the source you used for Media and a Topic of Your Choice (Chapter 8) to your works cited before going any further, so you don’t forget it. If you are not sure how to format your citation, please use this resource: https://www.bibliography.com/mla/mla-format-and-citations/Links to an external site.
Go to Allsides.com and/or Gale’s Opposing Viewpoints. Select 5 articles that are on the side opposing your own personal views. For example: If you are liberal, find conservative articles only. If you are against gun control, find only articles that are in favor of gun control, etc. Use 4 articles if you would like a A. If you are ok with a maximum grade of B, you can use 4 articles. If you are ok with a maximum grade of C, you may use 3 articles. Take notes on your articles and add each article to your MLA formatted Works Cited page.
Use Media and a Topic of Your Choice (Chapter 8). to write your introduction paragraph. In this introduction, you will need to introduce the reader to your topic, give an unbiased overview of the topic, and state your personal point of view on the topic. Then explain that, for the purposes of this paper, you are going to review articles form the opposite point of view only to test your biases.
Write a paragraph summarizing each of the articles you read (a paragraph per article). This is you letting the “other side” speak without interruption. Therefore, you are not doing commentary or proving analysis at this point, just summarizing and paraphrasing. Please do not use quotes. Be sure to cite your source somewhere in the text of the paragraph. Not sure how to do this? Check out this resource: https://www.bibliography.com/mla/creating-mla-in-text-citations/Links to an external site.
Now comes the best part of all– the reflection. This section should be a paragraph at minimum should reflect on what it was like for you to only look at sources that you, in theory anyway, disagree with. Please be specific in this section– this is where you can refer to certain things said in the articles (and you would again cite them in-text in this section). Do you see similarities and differences in the articles? How so? Did you learn anything new about what the “other side” thinks as it does? Have you come to any greater respect for the “other side?” I am not expecting your mind to be changed, but I do hope you learn from the exercise of letting the other side speak and actually taking the time to listen and identify any commonalities you may have with them.
Turn your paper in.
