Last Paper, Research, and Writing

Last course assignment is a Truman-style policy proposal on any issue of your choice, due by 11:59 pm on Friday, December 10.

• Sample (but on yours, use endnotes, not parenthetical references).
• Tips

Usual specs:

• Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.
• Essays should be double-spaced and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.
• Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.

During the last two weeks of the course, you will each make an oral presentation on your proposal.  They will be seven minutes, maximum, including time for questions and answers.  You may use PowerPoint for graphs and data, but not simply for repetition of what you are saying.

• The writing lecture
• The research lecture

Here is the web pages from which I worked:

• https://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/JPitney/writing.htm 
• https://gov116.blogspot.com/2021/10/research-2021.html

And of course, the great scene from The Wire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShWe-4mtV8w

To repeat some pointers:

• ALWAYS SEEK THE ORIGINAL SOURCE.
• AVOID DROPPED QUOTATIONS.
• "Avoid announcing the thesis statement as if it were a thesis statement. In other words, avoid using phrases such as `The purpose of this paper is . . . . ' or `In this paper, I will attempt to . . . ."
• In US English, use single quotation marks only for quotations within quotations, double quotation marks at all other times.
• In US English, periods and commas go inside quotation marks.  Superscripts follow closing punctuation