Research Paper Due May 2
200 points
In order to receive comments and possibly earn more than a C, writing assignments must meet the minimum required word count. The word count includes only the body of the paper.
Learning Outcomes: 2-67, 9-12, 16-22
Important restrictions: no papers on euthanasia, theological (a)morality of abortion, sports (professional or otherwise), head injuries (including concussions), vaping, marijuana, informational approaches to diseases (including mental illness like anxiety and depression), medications, genetically modified foods, fracking, steroids in sports. No papers on religion. Papers on abortion cannot focus on theology but must instead be secular and/or political discussions. Such a paper might reference religious views broadly, but cannot argue against or for abortion using religion as an authority. For example, a paper might argue that abortion is both a legal and religious issue, and that each paradigm doesn’t necessarily exclude the other (even considering separation of church and state).
Guidelines for the Research Paper
Write about what interests you, within the limitations established above. The paper should argue, persuade, or analyze, and not simply inform. The paper should be at least 3600 words and no more than 5000 and include at least five quotations. The paper should also reference multiple sources; this means in addition to quotations, the paper will include at least five cited pieces of information. The paper should reference or rely upon at least six outside sources; this means the bibliography will have six entries or more.
The paper may not be informative (simply presenting facts) but must argue or analyze. For example, a paper on immigration would not present facts about the number of immigrants coming into the United States during a particular time period, but would instead argue that immigration to that country has hurt or helped its economy. The argument that immigration has hurt or helped the country would be supported by peer-reviewed research.
As another example, a paper on gender roles in the United States would not describe these roles as they currently exist, but would instead analyze how binary gender roles unduly constrain men, women, and people alternately on the gender spectrum. This type of paper might use memoir from a nonbinary person as source material, along with peer-reviewed journal articles that critique the binary gender system.
Perhaps the paper is on climate change and explores how climate justice is frequently incompatiable with racial justice. This paper might examine conservationist movements that isolate land historically tended to by indigenous people, forbidding hunting, fishing, and farming that indigenous people rely on in the name of ecological progress. This paper would use peer-reviewed articles to demonstrate the damage done by this type of conservation and discuss scholarship that parses issues that arise when different types of injustices create fundamentally incompatiable (or so it would appear) responses.
A final example of a research paper might be on the importance of exercise to mental health. This type of paper has a fact at its center. Sufficient evidence exists that exercise has a positive impact on mental health that your paper can’t make this argument: that argument has been proven true. Instead, your paper will bypass the problem of being a purely informational paper b presenting your unique analysis of the ways in which exercise improves mental health. Even though this is a fact, a successful paper will nonetheless analyze the data supporting the fact in creative and original ways. Perhaps your paper will feature a case study at its core, as an example of original and creative thinking.
The paper will employ strategies for integrating and synthesizing sources as outlined in Rhetoric Matters. These strategies are universal to academic writing so don’t worry about following any dictates in that text precisely. Instead, consider how Andrew Solomon seamlessly integrates source material in Far from the Tree: use that as your model. Your topic needs to be approved and should be submitted for approval when prompted in a discussion board.
