FINAL RESEARCH PAPER

Over the course of the semester, you have read and discussed essays, and then written analytic papers utilizing only the evidence found in them to support your claim. The research paper is a heavily researched paper where you will be asked to bring in 3 outside sources to help support your claim. The goals of this assignment are twofold: First you will learn to locate and assess information that will help add context and complexity to your paper; second you will apply the most relevant information you have discovered to your writing while making sure to reference the material properly through correct MLA citation.

The process of writing this paper is divided into four assignments, which are given in detail below. The three assignments are:

Research Proposal
Annotated Bibliography
Final: Researched Essay
Abstract

Researched Essay Assignment

For this research paper, you must use David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” as your primary text.

In “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace describes and critiques the activities surrounding the Maine Lobster Festival. The essay begins with a review of the festival and a description of the touristy environment, but the discussion reaches a turning point when Wallace begins to raise questions about the ethics involved in eating lobsters in the first place. Wallace argues that we must at least consider the possibility that lobsters feel pain and that we ultimately must make informed decisions about what we eat and how we treat our fellow living creatures. Wallace suggests an ethics built on “preference” — lobsters, that is, clearly would prefer not to be boiled alive. In other words, Wallace, clearly, is concerned with the relationship between humans and animals. There are many examples of animal cruelty in the “big farm business” world that not only affects the health of the animals, but also affects the health of the people consuming the meat.

Wallace suggests an ethics built on “preference” – lobsters, that is, clearly would prefer not to be boiled alive. Using Wallace as your primary text as well as three outside sources, write a paper in which you evaluate the possibility of a preference-based ethics by locating your own example and connecting it to Wallace’s discussion of suffering in animals.

Questions for Critical Thinking:

1. Is preference sufficient to make moral and ethical decisions?
2. Can it be expanded to other ethical situations or is it limited to questions of food?
3. To what extent are Wallace’s musing a moral luxury? That is, given the complex issues involved in feeding a hungry world, can we afford to consider the kinds of ethical questions Wallace raises about lobsters?
4. Consider food-related issues such as health, hunger, and treatment of animals.

You will turn in a Research Proposal that clearly articulates a ‘working thesis.’ There is much more on this below; but in general, the Research Proposal provides some early boundaries for you to work within and should help to narrow your research focus.

Assignment Guidelines

Your essay must take a stand and make a specific, focused argument that either addresses the prompt.
Incorporate Wallace as the primary text; all analysis of secondary sources must remain in conversation with this text throughout the paper.
Research 3 outside sources for support that are related to the specific issue you have chosen. This must include Wallace as your primary source. This means you will have a total of at least four sources.
Textbooks from other classes are not a suitable source. The goal is for you to conduct focused research.
All articles must be from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. This means newspaper articles are not acceptable. Web sites are not acceptable. Google is not acceptable.
You must demonstrate that your sources provide relatively objective, reliable information and are appropriate for the purposes you have chosen them for.
Both the rough and final draft must be 5-6 pages long. If your last sentence does not end on page seven, then you will not have met page length: your paper will be returned ungraded and without comment.

Research Proposal Assignment

Your proposal will provide a 1-2-page summary of your idea. Although you can change your idea for your paper at any time, the proposal is a starting place for the final essay and is intended to help to give you some direction for your research. This is the rough draft of a more polished document, which you will incorporate into the Annotated Bibliography assignment. In your proposal you should:

Identify the topic or issue you will focus on, and how it applies to the specific focus of your paper.
Clearly articulate a ‘working thesis’ that will provide you with some direction to your paper
Create 3-4 research questions for your topic, and describe how your research questions will help you respond to the larger ethical questions that are the basis of this assignment
Clearly articulate a strong idea about the argument your paper will make.

Proposal: Your proposal should consist of 2 paragraphs – it is not a draft of your paper.

In your first paragraph: Fully describe what you think your main argument will be in this essay. (this will be rough and can change)
In your second paragraph: Summarize the points and reasons you will use to explain and support your position, as well as any counterarguments you will need to address in your essay.

Specifics

All documents should be double spaced, typed in Times New Roman 12-Point font, and have 1-inch margins.
The response should not exceed a page and a half in length.
Your name, my name, the course name, the date, and the assignment type should appear in the upper left-hand corner of the paper. Pages should have your last name and page number in the upper-right corner

Due Date

The proposal must be uploaded to D2L one hour before class on the day it is due.

Evaluation

This is a prewriting assignment and is intended to help you think about approaches to your next major paper. Your response should demonstrate an awareness of the requirements stated above and be completed as thoroughly as possible

The response will receive one of the following scores: strong, adequate, or inadequate. IF YOUR RESPONSE IS EVALUATED AS INADEQUATE, YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO SEE ME BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH YOUR PAPER.
All responses will receive instructor feedback detailing specific strategies for focusing your research and assessment of you ‘working thesis.’
Stronger responses will be written in clear, academic prose, be well organized, and demonstrate complexity of thought.

Annotated Bibliography and Revised Proposal

This document will be composed of two major sections: the revised proposal and the annotated bibliography.

The revised proposal will be more focused, concise document than the first and contain the following information: your claim in response to the specific focus chosen for this assignment, at least three main points that support your claim, and at least one counterargument you are considering. Note that this material is double spaced. After you do your research, you should have a more focused idea of how you will like to proceed with your paper, thus you will need to revise your proposal, not only for content based on your first proposal, but also to extend on your ideas.

An annotated bibliography is an essential tool to performing academic research. The purpose of the document is to provide a brief summary of a source that you intend you use for your paper. This summary should include highlights of all relevant ideas within the article that make it a worthy choice. Note that this material is single spaced. (See the model below for details including indentation of annotation material.)

Proposal: Your proposal should consist of 2 paragraphs – it is not a draft of your paper. In your first paragraph: Fully describe your main argument in this essay. At this point, you should be able to articulate a clear, concise, and specific argument. In your second paragraph: Summarize the points and reasons you will use to explain and support your position, as well as any counterarguments you will need to address in your essay. See above.
Annotated Bibliography: Your annotated bibliography should include a total of three (3) outside sources, plus an annotation for any essay you use from Emerging (so at least four total annotations).
- Citations: Organize your citations alphabetically, just as you would on a Works Cited page.
- Annotations: Annotations are basically further information you are providing about your sources, and so should be organized in paragraphs under each citation. Provide 2 paragraphs for each source: in the first paragraph summarize the source. You should summarize the main points of the article that will be relevant for your own paper. In the second paragraph explain why you believe the source is helpful for your paper, and what specific parts of it interest you (note: the summary is about the source as a whole and may not address specific points that are important to you). In addition, you must choose at least three (3) quotes from the source and incorporate them into this citation while explaining how or what you will use the quote for.

Specifics

The revised proposal material should be double spaced, typed in Times New Roman 12-Point font, and have 1-inch margins.
Citation of the work being reviewed should be single spaced and formatted in MLA style.
All annotations should be single spaced, typed in Times New Roman 12-Point font, and have 1-inch margins. Use the annotation model for exact guidelines.
The bibliography should be as long as it needs to be to complete the assignment.
Your name, my name, the course name, the date, and the assignment type should appear in the upper left hand corner of the paper. Pages should have your last name and page number in the upper-right corner

Due Date

Your Revised Proposal and Annotated Bibliography must be uploaded to D2L one hour before class

Evaluation

All revised proposal sections should contain a focused thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your essay, and answers the questions what, how, and why.
The annotations should clearly demonstrate why a source is being considered for use in your paper.
All responses will receive peer feedback detailing specific strategies for focusing your research and assessment of you ‘working thesis.’
Stronger responses will be written in clear, academic prose, be well organized, and demonstrate complexity of thought.

Annotation Model

The model was created to give you an approximate idea for the formatting and content of your annotated bibliography. Note that each entry is broken into two small paragraphs that summarize and contextualize the work you are considering for your paper.

Epstein, Helen. “AIDS, Inc.” Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers. Ed. Barclay Barrios. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 106-16. Print.

In Helen Epstein’s “AIDS, Inc.” she describes her experience and findings after visiting a number of government programs designed to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa. Though she reports from a number of countries including Uganda, and Rwanda, Epstein focuses the majority of her attention and criticism on an organization known as loveLife, which is a government program in South Africa. Ultimately, the author comes to the conclusion that only frank discourse on a household level will de-stigmatize the issue of AIDS to a point where the public sees any real benefit from such programs.

The anecdotal data presented by the author builds a strong case for her argument that ‘common-sense’ conversation about a stigmatized subject will significantly change human behavior. The source will be helpful for my essay as it directly addresses my topic of the effectiveness of grassroots activism when there is little or no government support. I’m specifically interested utilizing Epstein’s comments regarding the South African government as direct quotes which I can then contextualize with analysis. In this article, Epstein outlines Elaine Showalter’s model for the three mental stages of feminist criticism which she states might be helpful to outline the three “analogous efforts in ecocriticism” (29). Specifically, Epstein’s outline will be used to define the stages of ecocriticism and how they relate to the topic in my paper. In addition, Epstein speaks about Cather’s use of the land in her writing and states that “the land is never subdued; it retains its wildness…which is closely allied with the wildness in women” (31). This quote will be used in my paper to help explain the close relation of Marie to the land and how it applies to a grass roots movement.

Notes on the Model

Please note the following things about the above model:

Use single spaced paragraphs.
The entire text of the annotation is aligned with the second line of the citation.
Using between 100 and 200 words, the first paragraph should summarize the text. A good summary will inform the reader as to your position to the text and inform the reader of what the material under review is about in thorough detail.
Using between 200 and 300 words, the second paragraph of the annotation explains why the source is credible, why the writer thinks it will be useful, and concrete specifics as to how the material will be used, and it must include quotes.
You must cite and annotate the primary source.

If done properly, the annotated bibliography is very helpful in writing your paper. I strongly urge you to take the project seriously and put a fair amount of effort into completing the assignment to the best of your ability.

Abstract

After you have written your rough draft of your research paper, you will create an Abstract that will be placed into your paper after your title but before your paper begins. It should be in Times New Roman 9 pt. Font, and it should be single spaced.

Creating an Abstract is simple. Cut and past the following into a separate document so that you can edit it before you add it to your paper:

The first sentence of your essay.
Your thesis statement.
The first sentence of every paragraph including the conclusion.

When you are done, you should have almost a complete paragraph that makes sense and clearly says what your paper is about. You may have to edit your paragraph to add transition words to make it make sense before you add it to your paper.

However, if you do not have a complete paragraph that makes sense, you need to revise your paper and then start your abstract over.

This will help you make sure your paper logically flows from one point to the next. It will also help you see what areas of your paper need attention.

When you are done, revise your rough draft to: