Is a college degree a necessary piece to achieve success in America?

Purpose:
To practice finding appropriate academic resources, work to cite them, and summarize their main points.
Skills necessary to effectively complete the assignment:
Ability to:
Identify academic sources based on course criteria.
Read closely and understand a text.
Summarize the main points.
Create proper MLA citations for a Works Cited page.
Compose well-organized, clear, concise, and mechanically correct sentences within the summary.
Craft a clear thesis that does not begin with “In this essay…” or something similar.

Step 1: Determine your topic
NOTE: Your topic must be approved before you submit the AWC. Revisit the Argumentative Research Topic Approval assignment if you have not yet had your topic approved.
Determine which topic you plan to research and use for your Argumentative Research Paper.
The topic should be arguable and narrowed down to a workable research question.

Step 2: Write a thesis
Create a one-sentence thesis statement for your topic. Remember that a thesis should include the topic and claim and is written to focus the reader on your purpose.

Step 3: Find five appropriate sources
Find and read at least five academic sources in the EFSC Library catalog and/or databases. The sources may be books; eBooks; articles from journals, newspapers, or magazines; films, videos or broadcasts.
Consider the following guidelines:
Use full-text articles rather than those only available as abstracts.
Do not use sources from the Opposing Viewpoints in Context database.
Do not use encyclopedias, dictionaries, or book review articles as cited sources.
While a number of websites may offer quality information, based on our guidelines, they cannot be used as the information is only available on the Internet. Dictionaries and encyclopedias may not be used as cited sources.
NOTE: No points will be earned for sources that do not meet the guidelines above.

Step 4: Read the sources
Reach each of the five sources you have found.
Since the purpose of this assignment is to determine whether you will or will not use the source in your paper, you may include sources on this assignment that meet the above criteria and address your topic but which you’ve already decided are not a good fit for the paper.

Step 5: Summarize each source
Write a detailed summary (annotation) for each of the five sources.
The summary should offer details about the content (main points) and discuss how the source can be used (or why it won’t be used) in your paper, the credibility of the source, and the currency of the information.
Annotations are generally 1-2 paragraphs in length and immediately follow the source citations.
When discussing whether you plan to use the source in your paper, please explain what information in the source either supports or does not support your stance.
When discussing the source’s credibility, please include information on the type of source (book, newspaper, journal article, etc.) and the publisher and author.
When discussing the currency of the information, please explain how the year of publication is appropriate for your topic.
Step 6: Create MLA Works Cited citations
Use the MLA resources in the text, online, and in our course to create proper MLA Works Cited citations for each source based on the source types.

Step 7: Format the assignment
Using MLA format, organize the assignment.
Alphabetize the citations and include the associated summary immediately following the citation.
The page should be set up as a Works Cited page with the addition of summaries.