Topic Guidelines
1. Typed according to MLA style.
2. Do not use first person, personal pronouns.
3. Must be at least 2000 or more words. That's roughly three to five typed pages.
4. Must have an outline.
5. Must have three book sources from the library and two more sources from the Internet. Keep reading for more information on those.
6. Must have a Works Cited page. Make sure those sources are alphabetized. Make sure you use hanging indent. Make sure you double space accordingly. In short, make sure you follow the MLA writing style.
7. Anything else I can think of later. :)
Students have an incredible opportunity in college for affecting change. For the research paper, I want you to focus on a local problem and figure out a way to solve the problem rhetorically, which means through your writing and research. Some students in the past have done essays on the problem of teenage drinking and outlined steps to the chief of police on how to curb it. One other did a research paper on the problem of waste management, and the problem of a lack of recycling in the community. Still, another student did her research paper on school lunches after she became sickened while eating lunch with her elementary school daughter.
So, first develop a topic that you are interested in researching. Next, do LIBRARY research. Go to a library, preferably, a college library, and ask the librarian for help. Tell him/her that you are doing a research paper on XYZ story, and that you have to have three book sources for it. Ask specifically about literary criticism guides/encyclopedias. Those are awesome! Third, dO ONLINE RESEARCH! Also tell the librarian that you need TWO (not one, but two) online sources. They must be reputable sources. You are forbidden (yes, I said forbidden) to use Sparknotes.com, 123turnitin.com, Cliffnotes.com, or anything similar to those. You are college students now, so don't use the same tricks you used in high school. They won't work. :) Fourth, start your paper, also called an introduction, with an attention grabber, but don't use first person, personal pronouns. Those include words such as, "you, me, I, we, they, us, them." Stay away from those words, stay very far away! Also, include in your introduction a quotation. That's usually the best way any essay. "'I believe this could work!' That's what the mayor of Cullman said after being presented with a solution to the ever increasing problem of garbage collection and recycling, and most people agree with him." That's an example of a perfect topic sentence. Notice, too, that the use of first person personal pronouns was included inside a quote from the mayor. That is perfectly okay. It is NOT okay for you as the writer of the paper to use them. It has a limited subject and a precise opinion, all without using a first person, personal pronoun. Finally, include a thesis statement. For example, "There are three ways that recycling could work better in Cullman: Get the supplies needed to help citizens recycle, educate the school children, and sell the recyclable material to companies." That's an example of a perfect thesis statement. Next, write at least three more paragraphs (you'll probably need a few more than that), each starting with a topic sentence. See above if you've forgotten already. Sixth, write a conclusion. My college professor at Alabama had a perfect way for developing a conclusion. That is, rewrite the introduction all over again, and make a few slight changes. Try it! It works! Please don't email me your assignment
