Overview Write 1750-2000 words discussing a contemporary social issue (e.g., opioid abuse, student loan debt, lack of affordable housing, cyberbullying, income inequality, police brutality, etc.). Your essay should be wellorganized and be driven by a thesis statement that unites your discussion and underscores its purpose. Your essay should be informative, not persuasive. Your goal is to educate your audience about a topic. Select a topic that interests you and present evidence from sources that reflect multiple perspectives/viewpoints on this topic. Support your discussion using a minimum of five credible sources: • Two must be scholarly, peer reviewed sources • Only one may be a news article or similar type of source • No blogs or crowd-sourced sources (like Wikipedia, Reddit, etc.) allowed You must include an MLA Works Cited page at the end of the essay (which does not count towards the word count). The goals of this assignment are to: • compose a well-organized, clear, and concise research paper that reflects an informed perspective on a contemporary social issue • become more knowledgeable about finding, evaluating, and incorporating evidence from diverse sources • practice synthesizing information (quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing) • implement a scholarly research format (MLA) to document in-text sources To meet these goals, ensure that your essay: • Is focused on a narrow topic that interests you. • Has a strong, well-developed thesis statement that conveys the purpose of your essay. • Is well organized with strong topic sentences and appropriate transitions. • Is written in third person. This is a formal, academic essay and should not include first or second person voices (I, me, we, you, us, etc.) unless you are sharing a personal experience. • Consistently utilizes evidence to support your claims. Every body paragraph should incorporate multiple pieces of evidence from your sources. • Uses signal phrases to introduce evidence and cites the source using an in-text citation. Failure to do so is considered plagiarism. • Makes strong connections between the evidence and your thesis/topic sentence. The easiest way to do this is to present the evidence and then follow up with your own thoughts about what the evidence means and how it relates to the point you are making in that paragraph. • Avoids long quotations. Summarize or paraphrase long passages from your sources. • Balances quotes with paraphrases/summaries. Only quote when paraphrasing will make the statement unclear or the idea is so perfectly stated that paraphrasing it will ruin its impact. Step-by-Step Instructions 1. Brainstorm and select a topic.  Draft a research question. Determine what you want to know about the topic you selected. Ensure that you can answer the question within the constraints for this assignment. In other words, the question should not be able to be easily answered by doing a quick Internet search. At the same time, the question should not be so broad that entire books have focused on it. 3. Conduct research on your topic. Gather potential sources and determine whether your research question needs to be revised. Once you have finalized your research question, submit your research plan to Dr. Rines for approval. 4. Evaluate your sources and select a minimum of five to use in your essay. Ensure you have at least two scholarly sources, no blog/crowd-sourced sources, and no more than one news article/report. 5. Read and annotate your sources. Practice paraphrasing/summarizing the ideas in the sources and identify any quotes you would like to use. 6. Based off of the information from your sources, create an outline and accurate MLA Works Cited page for your essay. 7. Draft your essay. 8. Receive feedback on your essay, revise it, and submit the final draft. Formatting All papers submitted for a grade must be in MLA-9 format (typed, double-spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt. font). Assignments must have an accurate MLA heading (student’s name, instructor’s name, course, and date in the upper left-hand corner of the first page) and MLA page numbers. Outside sources must be documented using MLA-9 guidelines (e.g., in-text citations and Works Cited page). Once graded, essays may not be rewritten and resubmitted for a higher grade