Community Issues Research Paper (30% of total grade)

During the first few weeks of class, you will select and research a topic relating to some area of social concern and write a research paper of 10-15 pages. This research paper will serve as the starting point for your Service Learning Legacy Project (see below), so work to select a topic you feel strongly enough about that you could spend a great deal of time and energy working on for the whole semester. While your topic may start out very broad (homelessness, for example), you are expected that as you research your topic you will begin to focus your topic more and more narrowly, until you have a specific enough topic that you can handle it in a short research paper such as this (mentally disabled homeless male veterans, for example). The more narrowly you can identify your research topic, the more useful your final paper is likely to be. In addition, your research paper must include the following:

● Discussion of the issues surrounding your topic in U.S. society in general;

● National statistics relevant to your topic;

● Discussion of the issues surrounding your topic specifically in the local Albuquerque area;

● Local Albuquerque, or at least New Mexico, statistics relevant to your topic;

● Description of all Albuquerque resources, organizations, programs that seek to address your topic;

● Information about your topic from personal interviews you have conducted with at least two people in the community involved in your topic area. These people may be community service workers employed by organizations or agencies, city or state officials or employees whose job is relevant to your topic, clients who are directly affected by your topic, or other professionals, family or friends of clients who can give you useful information or perspectives on your topic;

● Bibliography of at least five published sources, presented in proper MLA bibliography format. If you are not familiar with this format, consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers as well as links to sources on this format from our course website.

The effectiveness of your research paper will be assessed for the success of the finished product according to commonly accepted standards of professional writing (how well it meets the assignment, displays serious and significant thought, stands alone without oral explanation, establishes and supports an appropriate logical structure, meets acceptable standards of written English, etc.). In addition, it is expected that your research paper will be free of mechanical errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.