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Homework answers / question archive / Unknow Oklahoma Research Paper Instructions You are required to submit a research essay by May 7 at 11:30
Unknow Oklahoma Research Paper Instructions You are required to submit a research essay by May 7 at 11:30. This essay is worth 50 points, so it is a significant part of your final grade. I will not accept this essay late, so you should begin deciding on a topic for your essay. The essay should be 3-5 pages long (double-spaced with 12 pt. type). You must have at least three primary sources, but you may also use secondary sources as long as they are credible. I will address that issue in the separate document, Choosing Credible Sources. You must document your sources (both in-text and on your Works Cited page) according to the MLA system. A failure to document sources properly will be considered plagiarism which will result in an automatic zero for the essay. Whenever you borrow someone else’s ideas in any form, you must cite those ideas in text and give credit in a Works Cited page. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do not plagiarize. You may choose your topic from any area of Oklahoma history that interests you. Pick a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow. A broad topic will be too unwieldy to cover in 3-5 pages, and a narrow topic will not provide you with enough information to write 3-5 pages. For example, you may be interested in Oklahoma during World War II, but that topic is too broad, so you will need to narrow it to a specific aspect of the World War II. Just be sure that you are able to find the information that you need to examine your topic. I’m here to help you with this process if you need for me to. I do have to approve your final choice of topic. Keep in mind that your essay must be thesis driven (this is not a report). A thesis is the main idea of your essay. After you choose the topic you want to write about, you will want to formulate a question concerning your topic; this question will guide you in your research, but the thesis that you formulate from that information cannot be in the form of a question. You will base your thesis on the information you find. It is all right to change your mind about your thesis if your research proves your original idea wrong. Do not wait until May 6 to start this process. As I have already stated, I will not accept any late essays. Unknown Oklahoma Research Paper Choosing Credible Sources To begin, there are a number of places that you can use to search for sources. Of course, you can go to a library. You can also search for sources on the internet, but you must be very careful that your sources are credible. For example, Wikipedia is NOT a credible source, and you may not use it as a secondary source. In fact, do not use any encyclopedia as a source. Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers is an excellent source for information about how to write a research paper using MLA style. The following information concerning determining whether or not a source is scholarly comes from p. 441 of Rules for Writers 7th Edition. Look for: ? ? ? ? ? ? Formal language and presentation Authors with academic or scientific credentials Footnotes or a bibliography documenting the works cited by the author in the source Original research and interpretation rather than a summary of other people’s work Quotations from and analysis of primary sources A description of research methods or a review of related research Hacker and Sommers also address the problem of determining if a source is biased. In writing about a topic concerning the impact of historical events, it is important to look for bias in a secondary source. The following questions from Rules for Writers p. 443 should help: ? Does the author or publisher endorse political or religious views that could affect objectivity? ? Is the author or publisher associated with a special-interest group, such as Greenpeace or the National Rifle Association, that might present only one side of an issue? ? Are alternative views presented and addressed? How fairly does the author treat opposing views? ? Does the author’s language show signs of bias? How do you determine whether the author of your source puts forth a usable argument? According to Hacker and Sommers, (p. 443) the following questions are helpful: ? What is the author’s central claim or thesis? ? How does the author support this claim – with relevant and sufficient evidence or with just a few anecdotes or emotional examples? ? Are statistics consistent with those you encounter in other sources? Have they been used fairly? (It is possible to “lie” with statistics by using them selectively or by omitting mathematical details.) does the author explain where the statistics come from? ? Are any of the author’s assumptions questionable? ? Does the author consider opposing arguments and refute them persuasively? ? Does the author fall prey to any logical fallacies? Finally, in evaluating internet sources, consider the following: Authorship – Does the document have an author, and is it possible to determine if the author is expert concerning the topic he or she is addressing? You should be able to find the author’s credentials, either listed in the article itself, or by doing some research concerning the author. Sponsorship – Does the site have a sponsor? Look at the URL. You can determine the type of group sponsoring the site: commercial (.com), educational (.edu), nonprofit (.org), governmental (.gov), military (.mil), or network (.net). In general, steer clear of .net or .com sites for academic research. Purpose and audience – Why was the site created and for whom? Currency – When was the site created and how often is it updated? Are the site’s links current and do they work? (the above information is found in Rules for Writers 7th Edition Hacker and Sommers, p. 445) As I said in the Research Paper Instructions document, most of the sources that you use should be primary documents, and you will assess those differently. You will only choose those primary documents that are relevant to your thesis. However, the above information is important in evaluating any secondary sources that you may find. Be sure to evaluate those carefully. You want to be sure that those secondary sources are scholarly. Unknow Oklahoma Research Paper Instructions You are required to submit a research essay by May 7 at 11:30. This essay is worth 50 points, so it is a significant part of your final grade. I will not accept this essay late, so you should begin deciding on a topic for your essay. The essay should be 3-5 pages long (double-spaced with 12 pt. type). You must have at least three primary sources, but you may also use secondary sources as long as they are credible. I will address that issue in the separate document, Choosing Credible Sources. You must document your sources (both in-text and on your Works Cited page) according to the MLA system. A failure to document sources properly will be considered plagiarism which will result in an automatic zero for the essay. Whenever you borrow someone else’s ideas in any form, you must cite those ideas in text and give credit in a Works Cited page. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do not plagiarize. You may choose your topic from any area of Oklahoma history that interests you. Pick a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow. A broad topic will be too unwieldy to cover in 3-5 pages, and a narrow topic will not provide you with enough information to write 3-5 pages. For example, you may be interested in Oklahoma during World War II, but that topic is too broad, so you will need to narrow it to a specific aspect of the World War II. Just be sure that you are able to find the information that you need to examine your topic. I’m here to help you with this process if you need for me to. I do have to approve your final choice of topic. Keep in mind that your essay must be thesis driven (this is not a report). A thesis is the main idea of your essay. After you choose the topic you want to write about, you will want to formulate a question concerning your topic; this question will guide you in your research, but the thesis that you formulate from that information cannot be in the form of a question. You will base your thesis on the information you find. It is all right to change your mind about your thesis if your research proves your original idea wrong. Do not wait until May 6 to start this process. As I have already stated, I will not accept any late essays.