Research-Paper Practice Paragraph

In class on Monday, I'll be giving you a set of quotations about recruiting in sports.

By Thursday night, write a paragraph using most of the material.

1. Start by deciding on a topic sentence, which should state an argumentative point that allows you to use most of the material.

2. Remember, you are developing your own main idea and the arguments that support it. Don't just paraphrase or quote the authors' ideas.

3. Integrate the source material into the structure of your own arguments. Use a source as evidence after you have developed a given argument. In other words, downshift.

4. You'll also have to decide what not to use. One or more of the passages is/are clearly inappropriate to use. We'll have to make some difficult decisions when we discuss your paragraphs in class on Friday.

Organizing Your Research Project

By class time on April 1 (Friday), please read through the immigration notes that I handed out in class on Wednesday.

1. Create three possible topics generated by the material.

2. Pick one of them and word it in the form of an argumentative thesis.

3. Create a scratch outline developing the thesis, and after each point, note some source material that develops it (A3, G4, C2 -- like that).

Research Project Worksheet

Blog your worksheet here by Tuesday, April 5.

(The assignment is blogged below.)

Topic for Research Project

In a downshifted paragraph, describe the topic you have chosen for your research project. You may want to do some preliminary reading so that you can have more than one sentence to say about the subject. Remember, you should try to narrow the focus and pick a subset of the more general topic. Also, try to discover a argumentative thesis -- some part of the topic that has inspired some controversy and on which you can generate an argumentative thesis.

Please blog your paragraph ASAP but surely by Monday.

Research Project

Length: 5-6 pages (about 1,500 words)

Due dates: see syllabus

Discuss a technologically based disaster or problem, giving a history of the event or a discussion of its causes. Analyze its implications for life on the planet and possible steps for preventing its occurrence in the future.

By the due date listed on the syllabus, complete and hand in a COPY of the worksheet on the reverse of this sheet.

Use at least five sources from at least three of the categories of sources (internet, books, newspapers, journals, magazines, and other reference works). Choose sources carefully to reflect the best, most reliable, and most recent information on the topic.

Narrow your topic, especially when the listed topic is a general problem rather than a specific disaster.

Create an argumentative thesis. Include at least one paragraph of refutation. Use evidence from the sources to support your arguments. Don’t over quote. No more than 20% of your essay should be direct quotation. Remember that quotation and paraphrase should be acknowledged with parenthetical citations in the text. Include a “Works Cited” page that lists all the sources cited in the text of your essay.

The following are some suggestions, but you shouldn’t feel limited to them:

The Hindenburg disaster

Three-Mile Island

Chernobyl

Love Canal

The Challenger or Columbia accident

The Exxon oil spill

The New York garbage barge

The Ferald nuclear power plant

The year 2000 computer problem

The Nimitz Freeway disaster

The energy crisis

The Amazon rain forest

International terrorism via Internet

The ozone layer

Global warming

Acid rain

Toxic waste

Dioxin

Land fills

Genetic engineering

Electronic money laundering

Recombinant DNA technology

Biological/chemical weapons

Internet identity theft

Infrastructure failure (some aspect of it)

Nuclear power along the earthquake belt or some other specific problem with nuclear power)

Computer viruses/ spyware/ Trojan horses

Thalidomide babies

The spread of thermonuclear weapons among smaller nations

Cyber bullying

Music piracy (or some other form of piracy)

Criminality on the internet (narrow the focus to, for example, trafficking in slavery, identity theft, prostitution, child pornography, etc.)

Research Project Worksheet

Name:

Topic of your research paper:

Research questions:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Temporary thesis:

Key words:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Scratch outline:

Sources:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

WA#2 Post

WA#2 Post

Please post the draft of WA#2 (see below) here BEFORE you come to conference. You may have to split the draft into two posts.

Your greatest weakness as a writer

By Monday, 2-28-10, write a paragraph describing your greatest weakness as a writer and blog it here. Again, use the classic "upside-down triangle" paragraph move: State the strength as a topic sentence. Develop the strength in a sentence or two or three. Then, give examples and details from your writing to demonstrate your claim.