RESEARCH PAPER ASSIGNMENT SHEET
MAJOR ASSIGNMENT #4
Rough drafts due: Saturday, April 16
Final drafts due: Saturday, April 23
Worth: 300 points
Length: At least eight full pages (2,000 words or more, generally speaking), not
including your Works Cited page
OVERVIEW: In this eight-page research paper, as with others you have written, you
will tackle a public policy issue. You will also provide a Rogerian-style argument
about your chosen issue in a thought-provoking, insightful, and well-written essay
in which you come to a compromise with the opposing point of view.
SPECIFICS: Welcome to the end of the semester! At a minimum of eight pages, this
is the beefiest paper you will write for this class; as such, it is worth the most
points out of all the others.
This paper will make up more than a quarter of your final grade—including the
research proposal/annotated bibliography, this unit is worth a whopping 450
points out about of 1,100 total points—so be sure to put considerable time and
effort into it. You will have to go to the library to check out books, do online
research, and generally speaking become a resident-expert in the topic you choose.
A quality research paper in this course looks deeper than just the surface (or what I
call “umbrella”) issues—health care, war, poverty, the economy, etc. It finds a
specific aspect of one policy or issue (which you should have already done),
dissecting and explaining its evolution, its relevance, and providing a specific
argument, which will be your compromise on how to bridge the gap between two
opposing points of view. The argument for the compromise needs to be the bulk of
your paper, not the history of the issue or the two opposing viewpoints on it. The
compromise, your thesis statement, needs to be a solution to a problem that most
people would find reasonable and agreeable.
A tip: relying heavily on pathos to make your argument will be frowned upon. Your
argument cannot be based on one person’s story. It needs to look in a “macro”
level at the specific issue that you’ve proposed. You are to look at your topic
analytically, rationally, and with the respect and thoughtfulness that are due both
sides of a given issue. From there, your compromise will soar!
This paper will not simply relay the history of a given topic. It is not merely
informative. It will produce an argument—your thesis statement—something that
can fall on the spectrum of “Strongly agree” or “Strongly disagree”. Research papers
that do not provide an argument in the Rogerian-style that we’ve already written
in will not fare well when I grade them.
OFF-LIMITS “UMBRELLA” TOPICS: The Iraq war, abortion, legalization of marijuana,
lowering the drinking age, gay marriage, gun control, health care, global warming,
enhanced interrogation/torture, the death penalty. From what I’ve gathered during
our in-class discussions on your topics, you should be good to go. This is more of
an FYI than anything else.
SOURCES: You must include at least two scholarly journal sources, at least two
book sources, and at least one “other” credible source. While I’m only requiring
five separate sources, more may be needed in order to fully flesh-out your topic
and produce a comprehensive, feasible compromise. Be sure to evaluate your
sources carefully.
You absolutely may not use Wikipedia as a source.
TIPS: Blowing this paper off until the last minute is an absolutely terrible
idea. Think of something you’re interested in (again, that doesn’t fall within the
scope of the “umbrella” topics, or those which are automatically vetoed) and do a
boatload of reading on it. Educate yourself. Become an expert, so to speak.
Understand your topic, and all points of view about it. Keep an open mind about
other viewpoints, and strike a compromise.
Ask questions. Come see me if you have problems. I’m always around to help.
FORMATTING: Usual stuff, ladies and germs. Times New Roman font, 12-point,
double-spaced, one-inch margins, interesting and engaging title; name, date, and
Major Assignment #4 in the upper left-hand corner of the first page; Works Cited
page with at least five separate sources; MLA style; proper MLA in-text citations;
word count at the end of the paper; page numbers (Smith 1, Smith 2, Smith 3, etc.);
peer review sheet stapled and handed in with final draft.
DATES TO REMEMBER:
SATURDAY, APRIL 2—COME TO CLASS WITH YOUR THESIS STATEMENT TYPED OUT
SATURDAY, APRIL 16—FULLY-DEVELOPED ROUGH DRAFTS DUE
SATURDAY, APRIL 23—FINAL DRAFTS DUE
EXAMPLE WORKS CITED PAGE
WORKS CITED
Baraka, Amiri. “Somebody Blew Up America.” Official Amiri Baraka Web site.
<http://www.amiribaraka.com/blew.html> Oct 2001. Accessed: Apr 26 2007.
Bush, Ronald. “Modernism, Fascism, and the Composition of Ezra Pound's Pisan
Cantos.” Modernism/Modernity 2 (1995): 69-87.
Casillo, Robert. The Genealogy of Demons: Anti-Semitism, Fascism, and the Myths of
Ezra Pound. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988.
Friend, Bill, “’Why do you want to put your ideas in order?’: Re-Thinking the Politics
of Ezra Pound”, Journal of Modern Literature, XXII, 3-4 (2000).
Gwiazda, Piotr. “The Aesthetics of Politics / The Politics of Aesthetics: Amiri Baraka's
‘Somebody Blew Up America’.” Contemporary Literature 45 (2004): 460-485.
Hillyer, Robert. “Poetry’s New Priesthood”. The Saturday Review of Literature. June 18,
1945.
Hillyer, Robert. “Treason’s Strange Fruit”. The Saturday Review of Literature. June 11,
1945.
Howe, Irving. “The Question of the Pound Award”. The Partisan Review. May, 1949.
Lehman, David. “Foreword”. The Best American Poetry. New York: Scribner Poetry
Press, 2003.
Leick, Karen. "Ezra Pound v. The Saturday Review of Literature." Journal of Modern
Literature 25 (2001-2002): 19-37.
“Letters to the editor”. The Saturday Review of Literature. June 25, 1945.
Morrison, Paul. The Poetics of Fascism: Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Paul de Man. New York,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Nicholls, Peter. Ezra Pound: Politics, Economics and Writing. London: Macmillan Press,
1984.
Orwell, George. “The Question of the Pound Award”. The Partisan Review. May, 1949.
Pound, Ezra. The Pisan Cantos. Ed. by Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions
Press, 2003.
Redman, Tim. Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991.
Surrete, Leon. Pound in Purgatory: From Economic Radicalism to Anti-Semitism.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Van O’Connor, William. “What Does Mr. Pound Believe?” The Saturday Review of
Literature. September 4, 1948.