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ENC 1102 (Spottke) - Issues : Home

Assignment

Forbidden Sources

·           Stay away from General Encyclopedias (you can use subject-specific encyclopedias, however. For instance, the Encyclopedia of Psychological             Disorders.

·           General Websites found doing searches on Google, Safari, etc. Valencia Database search is the O N L Y electronic search allowed. No Yahoo,             Google, About.com, and so on…

·         No works of fiction. This is non-fiction (truth, bio, history, etc.) only! Not sure, ask!

·         No other databases other than Valencia’s.

·         No dictionaries

·         No abstracts, full text articles only

·         No book reviews. If there is a price listed, that would be a book review. Again, if you are not sure, ask.

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Selecting a Topic

For this paper you are exploring an issue that exists within some group with which you are involved, so to select a topic, you could approach this one of two ways:


Brainstorms groups that you belong to (and then think of a related issue):

For this approach, consider

  • your relationships: are you a parent, a friend, a son or daughter, spouse, pet owner, co-worker?
  • your hobbies: do you garden, cosplay, fish, knit? Are you into fantasy football?
  • your job: are you a waitress? a minimum-wage employee at a theme park? an executive assistant?
  • transportation: are a pedestrian? a car driver? a bus rider?
  • technology: do you use Microsoft Word? do you shop online? are you addicted to your smartphone?

So if you're a parent, the issue might be child care. If you are a gardener, the issue might be saving water. If you are a minimum-wage employee, it might be raising the minimum wage. If you are a waitress, it might be rude customers. If you drive, it might be traffic congestion. If you're taking this class, you are definitely a student, and there are issues related to that, too. Maybe you have trouble with time management or note-taking.

A second approach is to consider issues first.

If you do that, don't forget to connect the issue to a group you belong to! Here are some databases that talk about different issues.

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