Rent and Wage in San Diego Research Paper
Write an argumentative six to eight-page research paper in MLA format that argues one side of a controversial, local (San Diego) issue, focusing on the causes and effects of the problem and solutions to the crises. The essay should provide quoted passages and/or paraphrases from at least six (6) sources to support your claims, acknowledge and refute opposing viewpoints, and encourage your readers to take action.
The Research Paper
Reading and Writing Skills
The research process follows a concept we began the semester with, the idea of an “academic conversation.” For example, one scholar conducts research and writes up the results. Those results are published, and other scholars read them. The audience then responds with ideas of their own in their own published articles. Thus, research and ideas built on each other over time, and we have an academic “conversation” that moves forward towards a deeper understanding of the topic.
With this paper, we will introduce another layer to our understanding of the “academic conversation.” How writers tend to select their focused topics, i.e. how they decide what they will write about in their response to other writers, tends to be that they identify “gaps” in the current research and use their own inquiry to fill those gaps in knowledge. In other words, researchers tend to read the published material about their topic. Then, they decide what no one has written about yet, and use their own research to discover new insights about the topic. The research and writing process helps add to our collective understanding of important topics.
THE RESEARCH PAPER AND THE RESEARCH REPORT
A research report is what you write to reflect what’s known about your topic. You probably had to write these in high school, as they are fairly common assignments at that level. If you hated that process, then you are in luck because a research paper is much different.
A research paper usually begins with something you’ve wondered about, some itchy question about an aspect of the world you’d love to know the answer to. It’s the writer’s curiosity that is at the heart of the research paper, in which you take a much more active role in shaping and being shaped by the information you encounter. Writing a research paper is harder than writing a research report because you must evaluate, judge, interpret, and analyze. But it’s also much more satisfying because what you end up with says something about who you are and how you see things.
BECOMING AN AUTHORITY BY USING AUTHORITIES
All research papers attempt to be authoritative. That is, they rely heavily on a variety of credible sources beyond the writer who helped shape the writer’s point of view. Those sources are mostly already published material. Reading those sources will change your thinking on the topic, which is part of the fun of research. You will actually learn something, rather than remain locked into preconceived notions.
In the end, you will become an authority of sorts. One of the things my students often complain about is their struggle to put their opinions into their papers: “I’ve got all these facts, and sometimes I don’t know what to say other than whether I disagree or agree with them.” What these students often seem to say is that they don’t really trust their own authority enough to do much more than state briefly what they feel: “Facts are facts. How can you argue with them?”
I hope you write a great essay in the next four weeks. But I also hope that the process you follow in doing so inspires you to reflect on how youand perhaps all of uscome to know what seems to be true.
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to:
Read and respond to college-level texts.
Compose college-level writing.
Conduct research on a topic of your choice.
Make an informed argument about a current topic.
Choose ONE of the prompts below:
Write an argumentative six to eight-page research paper in MLA format that argues one side of a controversial, local (San Diego) issue, focusing on the causes and effects of the problem and solutions to the crises. The essay should provide quoted passages and/or paraphrases from at least six (6) sources to support your claims, acknowledge and refute opposing viewpoints, and encourage your readers to take action. ***You cannot write the paper on food waste.
How would you improve your high school or college? For this assignment, you will identify one obstacle to learning that has widespread social significance. Then, describe the problem and propose a solution in a six-eight page research paper in MLA format. Your paper should provide quoted passages/paraphrases from at least six (6) sources to support your claims, acknowledge and refute opposing viewpoints and encourage your readers to take action. ***You cannot write the paper on growth mindset/brainology.
More SpecificallyWrite an argumentative six to eight-
