Description

Research Paper Assignment Sheet

For your third paper assignment, you will use a primary source in an introductory paragraph to introduce your topic and develop a thesis. Then, you will support and develop your thesis claim by using outside research (secondary sources) to expand, illustrate, and/or supplement that claim. Like the other two papers that you've written this semester, your research essay must be an academic paper that provides an analysis of texts and develops an argument regarding an assigned topic. You are not writing an informative report but must instead develop an argument to support your thesis. 

In your research paper, you will need to discuss one of the topics that you'll find in the file that is attached below. The topics are taken from Topics for Discussion: Unit 4, so you should begin your exploration of them as you post responses for those discussion topics.
Follow the Paper Plan & Development Strategy from Writing Your Research Paper to develop and organize your essay into an introduction (one introductory paragraph), body (multiple body paragraphs), and conclusion (one concluding paragraph). 

This essay should be 4-5 pages, not counting the Works Cited page (one-inch margins, typed and double-spaced). You will need to use MLA documentation (see MLA Documentation for Research Papers). Be sure to cite all quotations, paraphrases, and references to outside sources in proper MLA style. Include a Works Cited page as the final page of your paper (see pages 356-398 in your grammar handbook for tips and reminders).
You must use 3 secondary sources (found through your research) along with one primary source (from the assigned topics). Secondary sources can be found using TTC's online databases (Infotrac, Biography Resource Center, Literature Resource Center, etc.).

Examine Jefferson's life and times to discuss the conflict between the ideals he described in writing and the life he lived. In his lifetime, equal rights were legally guaranteed to no one but white, male, landowners, and Jefferson not only owned slaves but also referred to Native Peoples as "merciless Indian savages" instead of people with unalienable rights.  How can an examination of Jefferson's life and other writings help us learn something about him as well as about American ideology?  For this topic, use the Declaration of Independence in the introductory paragraph to define the ideals that Jefferson prescribed in that document.  The body paragraphs will contain research that shows both his violation of those ideals, as well as other writers' perspectives concerning the conflict between Jefferson's actions and his ideals.