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    • ENGL1 Lopez: Social Issues

    Prompt & Game Plan

    Prompt

    1. Individually write a 5-7 page essay using your research to offer a solution to a social issue, local concern, political stance, community institution, people in your community— or some topic of your own devising. Make an effort to be creative and original in your approach.
    2. Give your paper a title. The title should convey the central idea of your essay.
    3. The paper should be double-spaced.
    4. The font Times New Roman should be 12-point.
    5. The margins should be approximately 1 inch on all sides.
    6. Accurately formatted works cited page following MLA documentation guidelines.

    Please note that this assignment requires scholarly sources, NOT popular sources. The quality of your sources will affect your grade.

     

    Key Features for Essay 

    1.  An introduction that gives the needed background information about the topic and appeals to your audience.
    2. A thesis statement that takes a clear position on the significant, relevant issues you identified.
    3. Clear reasons and sufficient evidence to support the claim in your thesis. This evidence can come from personal experience, your oral history, the articles you researched, and/or library/internet research. It is best to have a mix of different types of evidence.
    4. At least two library sources (most likely from Proquest or EBSCO, but possible alternative sources such as online archives, or documentary films, or interviews).
    5. At least one peer-reviewed scholarly article.
    6. Appropriate organization and paragraphing, including the use of clear topic sentences. The paragraphs should be in a logical order and use transitions to show links between ideas.
    7. A conclusion that provides closure to the essay and considers the implications of the event's or person's impact on the future.
    8. Consistent, correct use of MLA style (check heading, margins, title, line spacing, page numbering, Works Cited Page, and parenthetical note(s).
    9. Observance of the conventions of standard written English

    The Game Plan

    • First, log into the Viking Portal to ensure the links below work properly.

    • We will use this Course Guide to discuss where and how to find information that is related to your prompt.
    • The side navigation tabs will help you understand how your LBCC Librarians conducted their searches to find information from OneSearch, Academic Databases, and the World Wide Web.
    • You can also "Schedule a Research Consultation" to follow-up with one-on-one research with an LBCC Librarian.
      • Bonus: Use the links below to expand your skills to learn more about searching OneSearch, databases, and the World Wide Web.

    Spectrum of Credibility

    The LBCC Library, like many academic libraries at colleges and universities, lives within the credible web domain of .edu.

    The Spectrum of Credibility helps illustrate why your professors want you to use library sources. After  all, librarians and scholars have spent decades curating credible resources for students like you to easily access and use.

    3 Resources We'll Search

    OneSearch

    You will likely begin by searching one or more of your keywords in the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), also known as OneSearch.

    Learn how to use OneSearch to find books, ebooks, articles, and other media that are housed within the LBCC Library, academic databases, and even at external publisher sites.

    Get started right away! enter keywords into the OneSearch bar below. 

    OneSearch
     

    Individual Databases

    Learn how to explore individual academic databases that are relevant to the assignment. We'll learn about general (multi-disciplinary) databases and subject-specific databases.

    Or jump in right now. Use these popular multi-disciplinary databases to search for a little bit of everything.

    World Wide Web

    Learn about effective search and evaluation strategies when searching the World Wide Web for relevant and credible sources.

    Get started right now with effective "domain" searches: