The Research Paper: Life Centered

Abstract

FOR YEARS ONE of the most feared and at the same time hated projects for the freshman composition student in college has been the writing of what is traditionally known as the research or term paper. Students do everything to avoid this task. Some simply drop out the day the assignment is given in class, and others drop out the day the assignment is due in class. Others try to plagiarize a paper, to buy, borrow, or even to steal one. Still others have used the services offered by the publishers of certain encyclopedias, if they own a set, or they use the services of the so-called professional research agencies who will send the student a documented paper at $2.75 a page for those titles listed in the catalog or $6.00 a page for an original. Through such shifts, if they remain in class, students may solve their immediate problem; but they have not learned to use the resources of the library, a skill which they will need in college years to come. Because of this response to the assignment of a research paper, it was necessary to develop an assignment that satisfied the requirements of the English department at Broward Community College as well as satisfying the needs of the students in class, so that the research paper not only could be completed but also would prove to be a worthwhile project for the student. As a result, a life-centered research paper was devised which has proven to be one of the best programs available for the student. Grateful students return each year after completing the course to say that they had learned to use the library sources well or that they no longer fear the research paper. The assignment begins long before the student is aware that a research paper will be assigned later in the term. Each day for about five minutes there is a period of trivia. At first, only the instructor offers the flotsam and jetsam, as some students term it. For example, one day the instructor may read an article such as the one that appeared in the Miami Herald (Raleigh Mann, Family Education-Ending Trouble Before It Begins, 18 June 1976, p. 4). The article is concerned with divorce and its effects on both the children and the parties involved. In the article one of the psychologists, Dr. Paul Moskowitz, is quoted: