Your first step is to look at your stasis paper. The reason we categorized everything the way we did is two fold:
So I could see that you understand stasis and could identify how authors make these arguments correctly (and you could get practice doing that, and,
Most importantly, so you can see what the various scholars are saying on your topic and where they agree and disagree about your topic.
Now, you need to look at each level of stasis in your paper and determine where the largest debate lies? Are people arguing about if something is good or bad? Then the debate lies in evaluation. Are people arguing about what to do about something/how to solve a problem? Then the debate is in proposal.
This “debate” may not be huge; scholars may disagree in small ways. It doesn’t have to be polar opposites for people to think differently about something. Someone might say humor in a therapeutic setting is 100% good. Another scholar might say that it’s mostly good but the first scholar isn’t consider some drawbacks. If that is a disagreement you’re seeing, that’s an argument of evaluation among the scholars, which is a cue to you that your research paper will an evaluative argument (meaning you will craft your own evaluation argument to add to the discussion those two people are having).
The purpose of developing the stasis paper was to help make this step of writing a research argument at a level of stasis easier.
1. Header—There should be a header on the right-hand side of the paper and include your last name and the page number in this format: Smith—1. Please note that the line between the name and page number is a DASH not a hyphen
2. Abstract—An abstract gives a very short summary of the paper that includes the research question and thesis statement. It should appear at the top of the 1st page of the paper and have the word “abstract” left justified, before the text of the abstract. The introduction begins one return after this section of the paper, not on a new page. This is the only portion of your paper that should be single-spaced. It should run approximately 150-300 words. This is often times the very last portion of the paper that is written. In the “Writing Resources” section on Canvas, there is some materials to assist you in developing an abstract.
3. Introduction—Provide an introduction that describes your topic and states your argument, question, and thesis. This may run up to a page and a half to two pages.This section of your work needs to clearly state to your research question(s) and thesis.
While your thesis may be preliminary in early drafts, it should be concise, detailed, and informative and appear at the end of your introduction. For the final draft, it of course should be refined and carefully constructed. Your thesis should also clearly reflect the level of stasis at which your research assignment is functioning.
4. Body—This is the bulk of your paper, running around at least six pages. These paragraphs should analyze the texts that you’ve discovered thus far and avoid excessive descriiption and/or summary: your main objective in this paper is to analyze the texts and the data you have collected. This is where, unlike the stasis paper, your stance/viewpoint enters the conversation along with those of the authors you’re presenting.
Connections to Stasis—Choose an area of stasis around which you want to develop your argument (this is based off of what you presented in your stasis assignment). Then, you should demonstrate connections between texts. For example you may begin by discussing your stasis concept and connecting it to research sources A and B. Then, in the second paragraph, you might discuss source A’s position on a point and connect it to B or a new source C, whose position differs. In the third paragraph, you might connectsource B to the stasis again, and so forth. This is all to say that multiple authors should be present in each paragraph and section of the paper.
Quotations—You need to use quotes to help build your argument, but explain each quote and how it applies to your argument. The majority of quotations should be integrated into your own grammar and writing, try to avoid block quotes. See MLA guidelines for how to format block quotations if you need to use one.
5. Conclusion—Wrap up your paper without repeating yourself. Do not add new information and do not use quotations. The conclusion should bring your paper full circle—reiterating the important information and showing its importance. Just as the first sentence of the introduction is important, so is the last sentence of the conclusion.
You should have six to ten (6-10) sources. They must ALL be scholarly. Meaning they must all be journal articles or books.
