This First Draft should be 5 to 10 paragraphs in length.   A research essay presents and develops a thesis supporti

This First Draft should be 5 to 10 paragraphs in length.

A research essay presents and develops a thesis supporting multiple sources of opinion. You stake out a subject narrow enough to be researched and you steep yourself in it. Then you formulate a thesis — your own attitude or opinion on the subject — and present it in an analytical and/or argumentative form, along with facts, opinions, and information that prove it true. You should use appeals and other methods to support your thesis, but you should also analyze each source you plan to use to support your thesis.  

The Parts of a Research Essay

There are two parts to a Research Essay:

• The text (6 to 8 pages and 1,200 to 2,000 words)
• The works cited page (one or more pages)

Research Essay Format

Much of the writing in your research essay comes from the work of other writers, and you must give proper credit by citing (mentioning) these sources in your paper. The art of citing is called documentation, which is required for any information falling into the following three categories:

• Any judgment, opinion, speculation or theory that is not original (unless it is universally known and accepted).
• Any fact or statistic open to dispute.
• Any information provided by a specific observer, even by an expert in his or her field (for example, opinions of psychologists on child abuse).

Quotations and Citations

You will use quotations to include information from your sources in your essay. For example, if you were quoting a Newsweekmagazine article on the Virgin Mary by Kenneth L. Woodward, you could write:

Kenneth L. Woodward, in his article on the Virgin Mary, writes that “the 20th century has belonged to Mary” (Woodward 49).

Or..

According to Kenneth L. Woodward, the 20th century has “belonged to Mary” (49).

Or..                                                                                                      

Kenneth L. Woodward writes:  “The 20th century has belonged to Mary” (49).

You will use the MLA (Modern Languages Association) style for parenthetical documentation to list your sources on your Works Cited page, which is the last page of your essay.

 Topics

• Privacy:  How much are citizens entitled to?

Works Cited Page

You must use quote and cite passages from 4 or more scholarly sources (one or more from each of the following categories) and list them on your works cited page. You may use our campus librarys Website to find and access these sources:

• one book (such as our Current Issues and Enduring Questions text or a novel such as Animal Farm); 
• one periodical (magazine, journal or newspaper) article; 
• one website; 
• one multimedia source: a film, online video, DVD, photo, musical piece, etc.).

These sources should be listed in alphabetical order, by the author’s last name. Your source listings for books should look like this: Author’s last name, author’s first name, title of book, name of publisher, and year of publication.

For example, if we were listing author Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Bean Trees:

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees. HarperCollins, 1988.

(The publisher and year of publication can usually be found at the beginning of a book, before the title page.)

Your source listings for articles should look like this: Author’s last name, author’s first name, title of article, name of magazine or newspaper, date of article, article’s page numbers.

For example, if we were listing Kenneth L. Woodward’s Newsweek article, “Hail, Mary”:

Woodward, Kenneth L. “Hail, Mary.” Newsweek. August 25, 1997: pp. 49-55.