First Part of Research Paper
Assignment
Investigate and write the first part of your research paper (“Research Paper 1”) on
your previously approved topic: an entry-level position in a specific career you want
to pursue after college. Whichever particular entry-level job you choose to research
and write about, your choice must be realistic. For instance, a career as a physical
therapist, pediatrician, or family law attorney is realistic; however, movie star, guitar
hero, starting your own high technology firm (with no experience), or CEO of a major
company is not realistic. Some successful choices for past research papers include:
• probation officer
• dietician
• intellectual property attorney
• App UI designer
• technical writer
• mechanical engineer
• high school PE instructor
• nurse
• specific medical professional
• pharmacist
Discuss just the following subjects in the first part of the research paper (include in
this order, with each as a separate section):
• Introduction: what the job is. Start wide and narrow to focus your audience’s
attention to what you will write about, which is described in your research
statement.
• The day-by-day activities of the job, meaning a snapshot of what people having
this job do.
• What the career offers society; how the job affects the rest of us.
• Why people may be interested in this career.
• Required education and degrees.
• Continuing education requirement(s), if any.
• Required licenses, and by what governmental or professional organization.
• Legal requirements, such as credentials, fingerprinting or criminal background
check
• Conclusion
All of the above areas of discussion requires some thought and research — perhaps
including your interviewing someone employed in such a position — as well as both
careful documentation of your sources and logical presentation of the facts.
Logistics
• Your research paper topic is due in written form and approved by me in class
no later than Monday, October 8. This is the last date you can submit your
research topic without penalty
EWrt 2 First Part of Research Paper Fall 18
EWrt 2 Fall18 RP 1 Assignment r15d2 Copyright © 2018 Brian Smith 2
• An MLA-formatted, draft copy of just your research paper 1 Works Cited is
due on Monday, October 29. Your draft Works Cited must have a minimum of
five major sources. See the discussion below in bullet 2 on p. 4 for additional
information regarding major sources and removing hypertext links. The draft
Works Cited is worth 20 points of the first part research paper grade.
• The research paper 1 peer review is scheduled for Wednesday, November 7.
Send your complete peer review draft to the RP 1 Peer Rev folder on
TurnItIn by 10 AM to avoid a 10% late penalty (20% after class starts). You
also need to bring to peer review two stapled copies of your full, formatted
research paper draft that meets at least the minimum required length, plus the
Work Cited page(s). You do not need to include the URL List on either the
printed or TurnItIn versions. Peer review is worth 40 points of RP 1 total.
• You must electronically submit the final version of your research paper to the
RP 1 Final folder on TurnItIn by 10 AM
EWrt 2 First Part of Research Paper Fall 18
EWrt 2 Fall18 RP 1 Assignment r15d2 Copyright © 2018 Brian Smith 3
• You must format your research paper part 1 according to our class discussion,
and that format is based on the MLA guidelines (see the MS Word 2013 Essay
Format Instructions document and Lunsford), including:
▪ Using the correct margins, pagination in the upper right, font, font size,
line spacing, and first line of paragraph indentation. Include the correctly
formatted and positioned author block on the first page only.
▪ Setting the Spacing After command to zero, and turn off the
Widow/Orphan control.
▪ Inserting a correctly positioned and formatted paper title that is relevant
to the paper topic, e.g. not “Research Paper” or a similar title.
• Use the third-person point of view (POV) when writing both parts of your
research paper, which means you will use the “he, she, they” voice rather than
the “I” voice. Consider that your research paper does not just reflect your
opinion, but reflects the opinion of a group of people who have researched the
topic and have gathered the same information as you. Your target reading
audience is a large group of people considering your research paper topic as a
career.
• Include an Introduction, which narrows the reader’s attention from the general
to the specific of your research statement.
• Use a clear, concise research statement in the Introduction to inform the reader
of the purpose or organizing construct controlling the discussion topic. Like a
thesis statement in an analytical essay, the research statement in a research
paper informs the reader of what the paper is about, yet, unlike an analytical
essay thesis statement, does not state an opinion that the author sets out to
demonstrate or prove.
• Use a clear organization to the paper.
• Employ correct grammar usage. Grammar issues will lower your research
paper score.
• Do not use contractions (for example: “don’t,” doesn’t,” “we’re,” “it’s” etc.)
unless the contraction is originally part of any material you are quoting.
Contractions are not used in formal writing, and correctly setting the grammar
options according to the MLA Format Instructions document will automatically
flag any contractions you inadvertently use so you can correct them.
• Provide smooth transitions between paragraphs
• Use a series of body paragraphs, each with a clear topic sentence followed by
information, examples, analysis, and a concluding sentence (the P.I.E. model).
• Finish with a concluding section that acts as a summation of the research
EWrt 2 Fall18 RP 1 Assignment r15d2 Copyright © 2018 Brian Smith 4
material. This conclusion should be a paraphrase (not just a word for word
repetition) of your most important points, and the conclusion also ties back to
the research statement while answering the “so what?” and “why should I
care?” questions.
• Your research paper must include quotes or data from a minimum of five
major sources to support your discussion, and all of your sources must have
both correct MLA parenthetical citations and accurate entries on your MLAformatted
Works Cited list. Five major sources does not simply mean five
pages from one web site; you instead need to use a mix of sources in your
research. Delete the hypertext protocol abbreviation, the colon punctuation and
the two forward slashes from the urls you place on your Works Cited list, and
begin the urls with whatever follows the second forward slash. An example is
https://www.fhda.edu, which would actually appear in a works cited entry as
just www.fhda.edu. Other than the http:// at the start of a url, include all of the
remaining url information in the Works Cited entry for all web sources listed
on your Works Cited page. You also need to disable the embedded link in each
url on that Works Cited page by right-clicking the url and choosing REMOVE
HYPERLINK from the right-click menu that appears. Doing so will remove the
embedded web link, change the font color from blue to black and remove the
underline.
You can certainly use reputable web sites for some of the Works Cited entries,
but again, you can only count any number of pages from the same web site as
one source towards the minimum five sources. As an example, you might look
up the Wikipedia.org web pages for “Interviews,” “Salary” and “Consulting.”
You should list those on your Works Cited page if you quote or paraphrase
from any of those three web pages. However, you only get credit for one Works
Cited source (e.g.Wikipedia.org), not three. Remember also that the Works
Cited list is on a separate page at the end of the research paper, and that, again,
the Works Cited does not apply towards meeting the minimum five- page
length. As this is a research paper, these properly MLA-formatted Works Cited
page and parenthetical citations are a key part of your grade for this
assignment.
You also need to supply a URL List, but only in the final version of RP 1 (and
later, the final version of the combo RP) you send to TurnItIn. The URL list is a
separate page after the Works Cited page, and simply includes the full url for
each source on your Works Cited page. List those urls in the same order they
appear on the Works Cited page. Non-internet sources will not have a url, so
you do not need to include any non-internet sources on the URL List. Note for
your future classes that the URL List is not a part of the MLA format
requirements. I just need the list in case I need to check your sources. Failing
EWrt 2 Fall18 RP 1 Assignment r15d2 Copyright © 2018 Brian Smith 5
to include a list of urls may result in a failing grade for the research paper
assignment.
• You should use quotes solely to buttress your argument and inform the reader;
you do not want to over-quote just to lard up your paper. Consequently, use the
fewest amount of words in each quote to make your point – do not quote more
material than is necessary. An excessive number of direct quotes (quotes set off
by double quotation marks), or direct quotes that are excessively long – more
than two lines of essay text – will lower your grade. In addition, the excessive
use of paraphrasing will also lower your grade. Your research paper needs to be
the summation of your research, not simply a collection of other people’s
words. Refer back to the document discussing plagiarism you read earlier, as
well as Lunsford pp. 89-95 if you have questions about acceptable paraphrasing
and plagiarism.
• The paper is stapled in the upper left corner. Spell-check, grammar-check
and proofread your paper.
Grading
• The research paper first part totals 270 possible points: 10 points for the
research paper topic, 20 points for the draft Works Cited, 40 points for the peer
review requirements, and 200 points for the first half research paper itself. Part
1 and the later combined research paper assignments represent the bulk of the
term grade, so start work early and do your best. Again, simply meeting the
above minimum requirements constitutes a ‘C,’ or an average grade paper. If
you want a higher grade than average, you need to exceed the above
requirements.
Some Things to Remember
• Lunsford includes all of the Works Cited entry information you need to create
your Works Cited page. Your paper will receive a lower grade if you do not
include both properly formatted parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page.
• Please, please remember the WRC tutoring center in AT 309, a terrific resource
to help you in any phase, from the initial start of the paper to the final polish of
your work. However, remember the tutors are almost certainly not familiar with
your chosen topic, so they will be limited in how much they can provide you in
deciding what material to research for your paper. Also, remember that while
the tutors can help you correct mistakes, they cannot act as an editor or
proofreader, so you cannot simply ask the tutor to “fix your grammar”; their
guidelines do not allow them to do so. What they can do is help you fix your
grammar by pointing out why some paragraphs or sentences need revision.
EWrt 2 Fall18 RP 1 Assignment r15d2 Copyright © 2018 Brian Smith 6
Additional Help and Advice
We will have scheduled times during regular class meeting for you to use in working
on your research papers. Attendance is required during those periods so bring your
laptops, Lunsfords, drafts and questions. My schedule is limited outside of those
times; however, I am certainly able to meet with you during office hours, but I urge
you to make an appointment because those with appointments have priority.
Moreover, I can only provide extremely limited help via email so find a way to meet
me on campus. And, of course, keep in mind I likely will not have much time if you
wait until just before a research paper deadline to contact me. Please also note that I
cannot pre-grade your paper by reading — or proofreading — the entire draft. I can
instead answer specific questions, including grammar questions, about a section of the
paper, as well as give you general advice about the paper structure or research
sources. Again, remember that the WRC is available during their open hours, and they
can give you advice regarding research, structure, paragraph construction and
sentence-level grammar.
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