ISSUES PAPER
Purposes:
To promote recognition of an unstructured issue
To assess similarities and differences in points of view
To evaluate the quality and sufficiency of evidence
To develop a habit of intellectual inquiry
To reflect and to be aware of your own thinking, perspective, and biases
To effectively organize and communicate ideas
To find and support your conclusion with concrete reasons/evidence
To bring any possible assumptions to the surface, identify ambiguous words,
use unbiased information/statistics, to find any rival causes, be
aware of any omitted information and other possible conclusions
Directions:
Develop a paper that represents your stand on a controversial issue. Be sure
to narrow the topic down so that the project is manageable. See information packet for possible topics. The paper must be typed, double-spaced, and at least 2-3 pages in length.
Use the problem-solving model to write your paper. Refer to the Activities for Problem-Solvers handout as you identify, frame, resolve, and re-address the problem. Use at least 3 outside sources to support your conclusion. Your sources may include: surveys, questionnaires, readings, discussion groups, etc. One of your sources must be of scholarly value (Time, Newsweek, journals from professional organizations, and periodicals). Use APA format when citing sources.
Use statistics/charts inside of your paper
Cite sources
Make sure your position is clear
Connect vocabulary from class/book – to include what you have learned
Have sound evidence
Make sure you have 5 paragraphs – introduction, conclusion, 3 reasons
Highlight commas/conjunctions
Create your presentation
Ideas for what should be included in the paper:
“Should we…?”
In this study…
For example…
The author does/does not provide details to…
This shows that…
To make my point even stronger…
The data does not show us that…
The author fails to mention…
This illustrates that…
________ is an ambiguous term and show us that…
There could be another conclusion because…
There was not enough data to prove…
The author demonstrated strong sense critical thinking by…
It’s clear that panning for gold was used because…
It appears that there is some omitted information in the statistics…
