Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to take a look at a current bill proposed in the United States Congress and make connections to the materials we are exploring through class readings.
Your paper should contain the following:
A description of the policy. (40 pts)
What population/groups would be affected by any policy changed in this area. (10 pts)
An exploration of how the article relates to textbook material, with specific examples from the text using in-text citation. (20 pts)
Interest groups that are for/against the policy (10 pts)
Your analysis/opinion of the policy. Be thorough, don’t just say, I like this/I don’t like this. (10 pts)
Proper format (10 pts)
Format: Your paper should contain 1” margins, 12 pts Times New Roman font, double spaced, do not include an extra space in between paragraphs, in-text citation method, as well as your reference page should be in APA. Please do not include an abstract with your paper. Your paper should be at least 3-4 pages long. Your cover sheet and reference page do not count toward this total.
You should include a cover page and a reference page. Your cover page does not need to be in APA format, you should however include your name, course, and assignment title.
Sources: A credible/academic news source, Congress’s website, federal government web sites. There are many reference sources available online through the Del Mar College library. Unacceptable sources would be anything from a Wikipedia article, Student News Daily, or other non-credible news sources. Do not use news sources that have a strong ideological identification, blogs, etc. Do not plagiarize, cite your sources. Bill/policies should be from the current legislative session.
As you are working on your paper a few things to keep in mind:
Make sure your paper relates to a specific federal policy. Take a look at Congress’s web site to get idea of recent legislation that has been introduced/passed/debated. You can look through the list of “most viewed” to give you some ideas on what might be “hot topics” or search recent activity through The Congressional Record link. News media sources are also a great place to start.
Your paper should be 3-4 pages, this does not include your cover page and reference page.
Reference citation should be in APA, this includes your in-text and reference citation.
The Del Mar College Stone Writing Center offers a guide to APA citation.
Another excellent resource on citation formatting is the Purdue OWL . If you haven’t used this resource before you will probably want to remember it as you continue your studies in the future because it is a very handy guide to a multiple citation styles.
When determining your sources make sure they are legitimate and credible news source. If you have a source you are uncertain of, check out the “about us” or similar such section and look for those with a non-partisan affiliation.
Make sure you are the primary writer of content for your paper and that you aren’t just copying and pasting. Even if you are providing citation, copied and pasted content does not make a paper. You should be taking content, synthesizing it and writing, while also providing citation. Papers that exceed a reasonable amount of quoted/paraphrased content will not receive credit. I want to read a paper written by you, not another author.
Go through and make sure you answer all portions of the prompt.
Be thorough when listing who is impacted by a policy. For example, say there is a policy change regarding K-12 textbooks in the state of Texas (not a federal policy issue, by the way), then elements of that policy might impact the following groups: teachers, school administrators, students, textbook manufacturers, school boards, etc. The point here is to think beyond the immediate impact.
Your connection to the textbook should be a directly quoted connection. You might have to look beyond the content you have already been assigned to read in some cases. Be specific, do not write something along the lines of, this policy is connected to the textbook because it deals with federal policy and our textbook talks about the federal government. That’s much too vague.
For question 4 in the prompt, you should be thinking about interest groups. Your article might give you specific examples of interest groups that have lobbied for or against a bill, but sometimes you are going to have to use your critical thinking skills to identify possible groups.
Your paper should be organized using paragraphs, as with any other formal writing assignment. You should indent the first line of every paragraph, most writing formats recommend you use your tab key as opposed to pushing the space bar.
