From Rough Draft to Final Draft for 1102 Research Paper (sample papers below)
1. Kill two birds with one stone by trying to summarize the idea of your paper in one simple,
attention-grabbing title. You need a title anyway, and if you can’t think of one its a sure sign
that your essay isn’t focused on any particular idea.
a. Sometimes titles can be like a word search. By looking through your piece, find two alternate
titles for the one you’ve got.
b. What metaphor could you come up with that might bring together all the different parts of
your paper? You’ve heard me use, “Writing Floats on a Sea of Conversation.”
c. If your title was a question, what might it be? How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being
Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi.
d. Start your title with “The.” The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
e. How about a preposition? About, Under, Over, For, In, Within. About a Boy by Nick
Hornby.
2. Organization: Some teachers want you to outline before you write. I prefer to outline after I
write. “Reverse-outline” your essay by reading through your essay while writing on a separate
page the basic gist of each paragraph. Look at the outline you just created–does it present a report
or an argument in a natural, logical way? Is there any obvious question the reader might have that
you have left unanswered? Does each paragraph have a job–a single idea (or piece of an idea) to
convey?
a. As you are going through, see where you can add a transition. This is a word or small phrase
that helps glue different ideas or sections together.
3. Your essay must begin with a fully-developed introduction that includes a hook, some
background information, and an original thesis about your work of literature.
4. Are there 5-6 secondary sources on (two of which must be scholarly sources), and still be able
to have enough opinions about without falling into the cut-and-paste trap!
a. Papers that do not contain textual evidence in the form of summaries, quotes and paraphrases
will not receive a passing grade. Your quotes and paraphrases must be cited in MLA
parenthetical style.
b. Your essay must contain a final Works Cited page written in MLA style.
c. Well-written papers that use scholarly sources exclusively will receive grades of A or B;
bibliographies that rely more heavily on popular, non-scholarly media such as encyclopedias,
websites and media reviews will probably receive grades of C and below.
5.
Here’s a few opening sentences that could work as a hook from “research” oriented works. I’ve
put the strategy in ALL CAPS. After we show how to emulate, try the strategies for yourself.
a)
You started learning to write—at the latest—as soon as you were born. GIVE A SURPRISING
PIECE OF INFO. (Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft)
b)
I respect you because you did not fall for the lies. CREATE INTEREST. WHAT LIES?
ADDRESS THE READER. (Jawanza Kunjufu’s Hip Hop Street Curriculum) More simply, use the
word “you” in your first sentence.
c) Why are we now all—believer as well as atheist, in public and private—talking about religion?
ASK A QUESTION THAT THE PIECE WILL ANSWER. (Krista Tippett’s Speaking of Faith)
d)
A few months after my twenty-first birthday, a stranger called to give me the news. CREATE
INTEREST. WHAT NEWS? (Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father)
e)
Hastily defined, sustainability means meeting today’s needs without jeopardizing the well-being of
future generations. GIVE A BRIEF DEFINITION OF SOMETHING THAT YOU PLAN TO
EXPOUND UPON. (Derek Owens’s Composition and Sustainability)
f)
Life changes fast. SHORT AND CATCHY. WRITE A SENTENCE THAT THE WRITING
WILL SHOW/EXPLAIN. (Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking)
g)
Sade and four of his twenty-something friends are at a hookah café almost underneath the VerranzoNarrows Bridge in Brooklyn. ORIENT THE READER TO A PLACE/SITUATION (Moustafa
Bayoumi’s How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?)
6.
Let’s have a first sentence read a round. Read one of your new ones or one that you have already
written. Keep a list of the papers you might want to read after hearing the first sentence. What does a
good first sentence do?
7.
Here’s a few different ways writers have incorporated research. Identify a method new to you
and rewrite one of your sentences where you use a direct quote. (MLA style and parenthetical
citations not always used)
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Brooklyn is “chiefly no whole or recognizable animal,” writes James Agee, “but an exorbitant
pulsing mass of scarcely discernible cellular jellies and tissues.” (Bayoumi) BREAK UP THE
QUOTE IN THE MIDDLE WITH WHO WROTE IT
Bob Black argues that the abuse of the worker spills over into the family: “It’s not too
misleading…” WRITE A COMPLETE SENTENCE ENDING IN A COLON TO SET UP THE
QUOTE. From Owens
As David Bartholomae has famously pointed out, there are “difficult, and violent
accommodations that occur when students….” WORK THE QUOTE NATURALLY INTO ONE
OF YOUR SENTENCES. (from Melanie Kill’s college comp article)
8. Here’s a few different ways writers have incorporated research. Identify a method new to you and
rewrite one of your sentences where you use a direct quote. (MLA style and parenthetical citations not
always used)
Brooklyn is “chiefly no whole or recognizable animal,” writes James Agee, “but an exorbitant
pulsing mass of scarcely discernible cellular jellies and tissues.” (Bayoumi) BREAK UP THE
QUOTE IN THE MIDDLE WITH WHO WROTE IT
Bob Black argues that the abuse of the worker spills over into the family: “It’s not too
misleading…” WRITE A COMPLETE SENTENCE ENDING IN A COLON TO SET UP THE
QUOTE. From Owens
As David Bartholomae has famously pointed out, there are “difficult, and violent
accommodations that occur when students….” WORK THE QUOTE NATURALLY INTO
ONE OF YOUR SENTENCES. (from Melanie Kill’s college comp article)
9.
Sentence Fluency: This one’s easy, yet I’ve only ever met one or two students willing to do it. If
you choose only one revision activity before handing this paper in, choose this one. Go in a room
alone and read the paper out loud to yourself. Mark any spot where you become confused or where a
strange word or phrase derails your natural reading style. These are places that will trip up any reader–
especially one with a red pen and a grade book! Pay special attention to sentences that are missing verbs,
or sentences that run on and one without proper punctuation like commas and periods because it’s totally
required to put in commas and periods some students forget to do this it makes it really hard to read see?
Sample Paper on Juvenile Offenders (Amy Gawel): Punishment can be a deterrent for deviant
behavior. Therefore, juvenile offenders should be punished for committing a crime. However, we cannot
rely on punishment alone to correct the nefarious deeds of children. For punishment to be effective, it
must be coupled with some form of rehabilitation. Otherwise, children will not learn to become
productive members of society. Within present day society, juvenile crime has broken all barriers,
including those of age, gender, race and economic background. The typical juvenile criminal stereotype is
a thing of the past. Crimes committed by children have reached epidemic proportions, and the more
reports we receive from the media on the subject, the harder it is to believe a slowdown in juvenile crime
is approaching. To deal with this overabundance of juvenile crime, state lawmakers are creating harsher
guidelines by which children can be punished for the crimes they commit. In doing so, lawmakers are
compounding the problem of juvenile crime. By providing children with extended stays in criminal
holding systems, like jails or juvenile detention centers, the lawmakers are exposing children to more
crimes through interaction with other criminal offenders. This occurs through interaction between
juvenile offenders, which allows for the exchange of stories regarding the crimes they committed, or by
observing crimes perpetrated by one incarcerated offender on another incarcerated offender.
Society is giving up on children who commit crimes at increasingly earlier ages (Males, Docuyanan
519). The victims and witnesses of juvenile crime, along with society as a whole, fuel the fire to create
harsher juvenile guidelines and sentences. Lawmakers realize that citizens have the ability to vote in
elections for candidates who they feel are beneficial for society. Society wants something done about the
juvenile crime problem. By demonstrating their disgust with juvenile crime through "outraged fistpounding," and creating laws to treat juvenile offenders more harshly, lawmakers can appear to be trying
to correct the problem (Cohen 518). Is an eight-year-old child really old enough to comprehend that
because he shot and killed his best friend, they will not be able to play together anymore? If this child
lives in New York, not only is he considered able to comprehend his crime, but he is old enough to be
treated as an adult in court (Cohen 518). Treating a child this way will not correct the juvenile crime
problem. This is a crime in itself. Rather than trying to help this child understand why his actions are
wrong, we place him in a lock-up where he receives little or no psychological help, and he also becomes a
product of our unproductive criminal justice system. Lawmakers take the easy way out of the hot seat in
instances like this by telling the public what they want to hear, not by truly attempting to correct the
juvenile crime problem.
Sample Paper on Harmful Effects of Cloning (Brooke Myers): With the technological
knowledge in the world growing from day to day, there is no way to predict where science may lead us in
the future. Just a few years ago, cloning was something of a fictional nature that most scientists had
thought about, but never seriously considered it as an experiment. Recently, animals have been cloned,
and cloning has become no less than true reality. In a few more years, the knowledge on how to clone
humans could be present. Before that advancement arrives, we need to ask ourselves if this knowledge of
cloning is a beneficial idea or a destructive one. Cloning will have negative effects on our society in the
future because: cloning devalues uniqueness of the individual cloned, clones could be used in crimes or
used as weapons, cloned animals that are reintroduced into the ecosystem could cause the ecosystem to
change drastically, people who try to clone their dead loved ones will be shocked to find that the clone
may resemble the person that they love, but it really isn't the person that they love, finally, animals that
are cloned for medical reasons don't deserve to be brought into this world just to be used only for their
organs and other body parts. If something isn't done to avoid cloning humans before it is too late, then
cloning could upset the balance of our society drastically, possibly causing irreversible mishap in the
world as we know it today.
The knowledge on how to clone humans doesn't exist yet, but the knowledge on how to clone
animals is presently being utilized in research labs worldwide. Standard cloning involves taking DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid) from a cell of a particular species and transferring it into an egg cell from another
animal belonging to the same species or another one. Before this process can take place, the nucleus from
the original cell must be removed from that egg. The result is then implanted into the surrogate mother.
This mother will then provide the food and nutrients for the embryo to develop until the mother gives
birth to the clone. Until recently, the surrogate mother had to be of the same species, but now, with recent
technological advances, one species can now give birth to a different species ("Science and Technology"
100).
The laundry list of complaints about cloning begins with the fact that cloning humans decreases the
value of uniqueness of the individual. According to ABC News, "About 87 percent oppose cloning
humans, and 93 percent don't want to be cloned themselves" (Rembert 15). With statistics that strong, it
proves that the extent to the public's opposition to the cloning of humans. The Vatican has always been
known to be truthful to what they say. The church has a great deal of influence on many people's
opinions, and the church believes that human cloning is also immoral because it violates the human
dignity of the individual ("Vatican"). How would you feel if you found out that you were a clone? You
probably wouldn't feel like a person that was truly meant to step foot on this earth. You would probably
feel like a nobody, someone's creation. John Colvin, a writer for The Humanist magazine, says that if
cloning is used frequently in our society, "…human biodiversity will be diminished and human evolution
will cease" (Colvin 39). People will start to look and act more like each other, and if one person's genes
contains vital information for the future and he/she doesn't reproduce sexually, it would be shared with
another individual and evolution of the human race will never take place again. Fr. Frank Pavone, a wellrespected writer for the church, feels that clones would also feel less of human beings because "value is
intimately tied to uniqueness" (Pavone). If people were being cloned one after the other, then there
wouldn't be much diversity in the society. This will also diminish the value of uniqueness.
Sample Student Intro for “Sonny’s Blues” (a bought paper): Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is a story
that most people will be able to relate with, especially in the character of Sonny. Many people will be able
to relate with the way that Sonny struggled with loneliness. He wanted so much to be heard and to
connect with people, but often found that he was all alone surrounded in what Baldwin often called “the
darkness.” He felt lost. All people experience being disconnected at one time or another, and when we do
we seek to re-establish connection with others. Sonny probably sought temporary relief of this suffering
through heroin. Sonny said that when heroin was in your blood, “It makes you feel - in control.” Though
he admitted that he still felt distant, he at least felt like he had a handle on his situation. Sonny explained
his loneliness:
“You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there’s not really a living ass to talk to,
and there’s nothing shaking , and there’s no way of getting it out - that storm inside. You can’t
talk it and you can’t make love to it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize
that nobody’s listening. So you’ve got to listen. You got to find a way to listen.”
Sonny’s character did find a way to connect and to be heard through his blues. It was only by using
his struggles and somehow sharing his experience though music that Sonny emerged out from the
darkness and into the light, as did many famous Blues singers including Ray Charles, Miles Davis,
Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday. Instead of trying to avoid suffering, he dealt with it and gave it a
reason. I agree with Baldwin, that all people suffer. And when we overcome our sufferings we can
look back and smile and press on forward confident that when we face future suffering it doesn’t have
to defeat us.
Sample Student Intro for violence in video games (Bernard Farrales): Each day after school,
thousands of American youngsters sit in front of their T.V instead of playing outside or engaging their
imagination. They sit, mostly alone, in the semi-darkness of their homes and kill their precious time
watching T.V. programs or worse, playing video games for literally hours on end. While the negative
effects of television have been well documented since its inception into family homes in the 50s, how
much is really researched about video games? Video games first appeared in the early 1970's. It all started
with a simple white ball bouncing back and fourth on the screen called Ping Pong. In 1986, Nintendo
introduced its first line of home video game consoles. With the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) on
the market, the home video gaming industry surged and immediately became popular among children.
Over the last decade, not only has video games increased in popularity, but there have been vast
improvements in graphics, game play, and forms of gaming. Today, video games have become the
preferred choice of entertainment among children and teenagers. Research done in 1998 has shown that
kids who own video games spend an average of 90 minutes a day playing them. Clearly the video gaming
industry is a profitable one. With the increasing competition between gaming companies, the
advancement of technology and content of games began to change. One of the most significant and
concerning changes in gaming is graphics. With the improvements in graphics the content of the game
became more and more detailed and realistic. Visually violent actions can now be displayed on the screen.
Images of blood, flying body parts, and gore have been integrated in today's video games. Violence has
always been a common factor in many games, but with the new improvements in graphics and
capabilities of gaming consoles and computers, a growing number of people are becoming concerned
about the effects on our children and society.
Sample Student Intro for Steam Engine (a bought paper): "In the never-ending search for energy
sources, the invention of the steam engine changed the face of the earth." (Siegel, Preface) The steam
engine was the principal power source during the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The
steam engine opened a whole new world to everyone. The steam engine maximized production,
efficiency, reliability, minimized time, the amount of labor, and the usage of animals. The steam engine in
all revolutionized the Eastern Hemisphere, mainly European society. What does revolutionize actually
mean? It means that something such as the steam engine brought about a radical change in something, and
this something is the European Society. The steam engine specifically brought about a radical change in
work, transportation of goods, and travel. The invention of the steam engine revolutionized European
society by enabling tasks to be done quicker, cheaper, and more dependably.