As we talked about earlier in the class, academic research is generally geared towards seeking solutions or answers to problems or questions we have. Accordingly, academic papers follow, generally, one of two patterns (and sometimes utilize both). First, they can propose answers to a question or a solution to a problem. Second, they can criticize other people’s positions or views that they have developed, usually in response to a problem or question that they are trying to answer. You should, then, choose one of these models for your paper. That means your paper should could, one, propose a solution to a problem you have discovered during the course of your research (or an answer to a question that you discovered during the course of your research). Second, your paper could propose a criticism for a position already established in the literature (or raise an issue with a view already established).
Paper Structure: The paper should start then by discussing the background and context of the discussion that you’re engaged in. Then, it should set up and establish the question, problem, position, or view that the paper will be engaging with. Next, it should present your answer, solution, criticism, or issue that you are developing. Finally, it should end by considering possible objections to your contribution here.
The paper should rely on and make thorough and accurate use of your research, particularly the scholarly and academic sources, to develop the background, context, question or position, and your answer or criticism. The better use that you make of your sources, the better the quality of the paper. Accordingly, the academic research and sources that you found should form the backbone of your paper. These sources should form the core of the materials that you use to develop the background, question or position, your contribution, and the criticisms and your replies.
Purpose: The Contribution Paper is a formal academic argument that contributes something to the Write a paper on Social impact on sportsin which you have developed expertise over the semester. This paper will include a shortened version of the literature review that you have already written. You’ll use a review of the literature as a way of situating your argument in the conversation and showing your reader that you understand the conversation that is going on and that you have something to add to it. All of the claims you make must be grounded in good evidence, which will come from the sources that you have been working with for the last few weeks.
Remember that your goal is to simply add something valuable to the conversation. You do not need to solve the problem. Lots of really smart people have been talking and writing about your issue, so you don’t have to discover an answer or solution that they haven’t. But you may have discovered a new way to think about one part of the problem, and that is worth writing about.
Audience: Because you are joining a conversation with this paper, your primary audience is made up of those also interested in the same topic or body of research: the authors and readings you have cited, and your collaboration group. You’ll review the conversation for this audience in order to situate your own paper–to show how your paper contributes to the conversation. This academic audience expects a paper that uses the conventions of academic writing: claims supported by good evidence, formal tone, logical connections between ideas, paragraphs structured around topics that move the reader smoothly and logically through the paper, a thesis in the first section of the paper, in-text parenthetical citations, works cited, titles and headings, etc.
Grading: The paper is graded by how effectively the paper makes use of one of the models to develop your contribution, the effectiveness of the use of the sources to develop the material in the paper, and the clarity and precision with which you express the ideas in the paper.
