Word Count = 1250 The Exploratory Paper is also known as a review of criticism or a review of research. The purpose of a review of criticism or research is to establish for readers the current trends in thought surrounding a topic and to provide brief summaries of current research on that topic. This type of review may appear as articles within journals or magazines to update readers interested in the current research on a topic. Alternatively, a review may appear as a section within a research paper to show that the writer has done a sufficient amount of research on their topic and therefore has the authority to make an argument on this topic. Skills Utilized: • Research Methods • MLA Citation/Formatting • Quotation/paraphrase/summary • Synthesis of resources • Critical reading and thinking Assignment: For this assignment, you will use library resources to research and locate 4 sources on one topic. At least 2 of these sources must be scholarly, peer-reviewed texts (journal article, chapter from a book, article from a book, or book). Otherwise, you may choose from a variety of sources: newspaper articles, documentaries, interviews, movies, podcasts, etc. These sources may be popular or scholarly but should be both relevant and reliable. Research should be geared towards providing different perspectives on your research topic; this means research should aim to find sources that all provide different answers to a research question on your chosen research topic. Sources should be read/viewed in their entirety. You will then use these 4 sources to create an essay, which explores the connections and conflicts between these sources. The goal of this assignment is to describe the current critical understandings surrounding your research topic and establish the contexts into which you will be introducing your own argument in a future essay. Be sure to point to how resources agree with one another, but also address how they disagree. Ultimately, the paper should provide an overview of each of your resources, effectively conveying a small snapshot of the broad spectrum of current opinions on your research topic. Research Topics: The only research topics not available for this assignment are marijuana use, marijuana legalization, healthy college student lifestyle, paying college student athletes, and politics. All other topics are available as a research topic to pursue. As this is just the first step in a 3 assignment series dedicated to ultimately developing a well written and informed research paper, it is recommended that you choose a research topic that you are willing to pursue, develop, and refine. EN102 Spring 2019 Essay Basics: This paper should not be argumentative but remain objective and neutral; you may begin to articulate your own argument only in the conclusion. The essay should assume a general audience; tone and voice, while objective and neutral, may be more casual. The thesis statement should be non-argumentative, indicate the research topic, and give a brief overview of the trend(s) in current opinions on the research topic. Each resource should be introduced and accompanied by a 3-4 sentence summary (author, title, medium, topic, and main argument or purpose). Each source should be followed by an explanation of how it presents one opinion on the research topic and how it agrees or disagrees with other resources within the essay. This essay should include at least 3 quotations and a Works Cited page. The essay can include relevant images, web links, etc. This essay should be typed in Times New Roman 12-pt font, double spaced, have 1” margins, and conform to MLA format. The essay should be a minimum of 3 pages, each page, correctly formatted, being comprised of 23 lines of text. Page count does not include Works Cited page, incorporated images, charts, graphs, videos, etc. Sample Theses: An examination of the texts on music and protest reveals a broad spectrum of understandings about how effective music can be as a form of protest. On the positive end of the spectrum, music is an effective form of protest as it can bring large audiences together around a central cause, and on the negative end, the commerciality of popular music works against and weakens the message of the protest. This review of articles, book chapters, and films addressing the Vietnam War and rock music show that the impact of the Vietnam War on the rock music genre was significant. Each text approaches the connection of the Vietnam War to the growth of the rock music industry through a different perspective, but collectively these texts attribute the popularization of rock music in the late 1960s to the advent of the war.
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