ENG101 Essay Three: The Informative Research Paper
The final assignment in ENG101 is the informative research paper; this paper should be at least six to eight pages (1,500-2,000 words) in length, not including title and references pages. This essay will be an informational synthesis of the issue you’ve worked with in Essay 1 and Essay 2. In essence, your goal in this final paper is to teach us about the controversy. To successfully complete this assignment, you will:
1. Focus on a clear issue that is controversial and under debate at the current time;
2. Summarize the background of the issue and the current context;
3. Identify the main positions in the current debate;
4. Summarize and discuss those positions, identifying the main claims;
5. Analyze the larger assumptions in those arguments and teach your readers about the current status of the debate and possible outcomes/next stages of the larger conversation on the issue.
Prewriting: Ideally, Essay 1 and 2 are prewriting assignments for this final paper in the sense that they prepare you for the types of source selection and summary you will start with in your prewriting. Page 537 of Baker College Composition offers a set of questions that will be useful as you begin gathering notes for this longer essay.
Research: Research for this final project starts on the first day of the course. Ideally, all three essays in ENG101 are on one central issue; this means you are researching that issue throughout the entire term. You should have sources similar to those used in Essay 1 and 2 which take a side on the issue. In addition, you’ll need sources that are more informational in nature that allow you to show the background and current context of the issue. Your essay must reference at least five sources. All of your sources must be authoritative and credible; they should also represent a variety of perspectives on the issue.
Reference sources, such as an encyclopedia, (e.g. Wikepedia.org) or a dictionary will not count as legitimate sources. This includes reference sites like WebMD.org and About.com. In addition, personal blogs or essays posted on personal websites or self-published on sites like Associatedcontent.com and Helium.com are not acceptable. CQ Researcher and Issues & Controversies articles are also not acceptable, as they are secondary reference articles. These can be great for a general overview to learn about the issues, but they are not primary sources.
Basic Organizational Pattern: As noted on page 539 of Baker College Composition, this type of larger assignment calls on you to use a variety of types of writing, including definition, analysis, comparison/contrast, and discussion. Note that a basic organizational pattern might look like:
1. Introduction: See pages 17 and following of The Writer’s Brief Handbook for some strategies to begin the paper. Setting up some context for the issue is a great way to open a position paper, as it allows you to show the issue is current. End this introduction paragraph with your thesis statement.
2. Background section (may take more than one paragraph): Set up the basics here of the issue and debate. Don’t do an exhaustive history—instead, you need to analyze the issue and consider what specific explanations of the background are needed. Definition of key terms could occur here, as well.
3. Analysis of the “positions” or “viewpoints”: Here, you will likely use comparison/contrast organization. Note that you will be identifying and summarizing main claims on each side here. If the claims are very similar, you will probably want to use point-by-point style of comparison/contrast in this section of the paper. If the claims are very different on each side, then the one-side-at-a-time method makes more sense. You’ll find a discussion of those types of comparison/contrast organization on page 94 of The Writer’s Brief Handbook. Note that to maintain paragraph coherence, you should have one paragraph per claim per side (so, as a general rule, think of this section as six paragraphs).
4. Conclusion: Think about how you can lead the reader back out of the paper. In this type of essay, you might give us a preview of where the debate is likely headed. Is there a vote on the issue coming up?
Special considerations: While you are teaching us about the arguments on each side of the issue, note that you are taking an objective stance in this paper.