This writing assignment is designed to require students to think critically, com

This writing assignment is designed to require students to think critically, communicate,
demonstrate empirical and quantitative skills and assess social responsibility.
Signature assignment—-100 points possible
Technical Aspects – 25 points
Minimum 3 pages typed text PLUS cover page and reference page (maximum 5 pages of text)
Minimum 5 reliable/academic sources (in-text citations and reference page) APA format (if you are unfamiliar with APA formatting, do a simple google search for examples)
12 point font
Times New Roman
Double spaced
Standard margins
College appropriate spelling/grammar/sentence structure (proofread your paper)
Social Issue (This is the criteria for choosing your topic)
Something that has a significant effect on our society or the world
Something that is at least somewhat controversial
There must be competing viewpoints
Resolution/solution/conclusion is unknown
Something that interests you
Content (75 points; 25 points per section)
Content : Part 1 (25 points)
Introduction
Define and justify
What is the issue and why is it significant?
Content: Part 2 (25 points)
Examination of both sides of the issue
What are the arguments and what is the evidence? Evidence should be data driven.
This is the scientific portion of your paper and should NOT contain your opinions. A reader should not be able to discern which position you support.
Be aware of the quality of sources that you use – Garbage in = garbage out!
Utilize online databases that contain scholarly information (check with your library: EBSCO; google scholar)
Content: Part 3 (25 points)
Conclusion/critical analysis
Strongest arguments/weakest arguments and why?
What’s rational/logical – supported by the evidence?
What’s emotional – not supported by evidence?
Is there an underlying issue of importance – can you make any inferences about the issue?
Should we try to resolve the issue or not – why? How?
Do we have some sort of responsibility to address this issue as an individual/society?
Give your educated opinion on the future of this issue. What happens if you do nothing vs something?
Propose a research idea that would help us understand the issue better.
Plagiarism
This paper will be submitted to a plagiarism checker in Canvas. Look at your similarity score. If your score is above 10% you need to fix your paper and resubmit to the plagiarism checker again.
Any paper that is found to be plagiarized will receive a “0”. Any paper that does not include a reference page will receive a “0”. If you do not include in-text citations (but do include a works cited/reference page), there will be an automatic deduction of 50%.