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Assignment | PSYC 2301 Research Paper (Stalnaker): Writing

PSYC 2301 | Prof. N. Stalnaker (Spring 2025)

Develop Your Thesis

Thesis statements...

  • give a preview of what arguments you'll be making
  • usually one sentence long
  • last sentence of your introduction paragraph

Thesis statements should be:


Specific

lay out exactly the arguments/reasons you're using in your thesis


Contestable

if you can find a definitive yes/no answer within a few minutes of Google searching, it's not arguable enough


Narrow

not about all of [topic], but this little sliver of a [topic] in a particular context


Provable

or at least something you can persuasively argue

Instead of Quoting...

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  PARAPHRASE. *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Original Text from Source:

A much larger analogue of the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is a cosmic junkyard, full of rubble thought to be left over from the formation of the solar system. But whereas the asteroid belt is made mostly of rock and metal, objects in the Kuiper Belt are composed largely of frozen water, ammonia and methane.

How should you add this information to your paper?

"A much larger analogue of the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is a cosmic junkyard, full of rubble thought to be left over from the formation of the solar system. But whereas the asteroid belt is made mostly of rock and metal, objects in the Kuiper Belt are composed largely of frozen water, ammonia and methane" ("Two Years On," 2017).

The Break-down:

  • Too long of a quote for a 4-page paper
  • Doesn't use any original content to introduce the quote or finish up the thought

The Kuiper Belt consists of icy chunks of frozen water, ammonia, and methane believed to be "leftover from the formation of the solar system," much like the rocky field of the asteroid belt ("Two Years On," 2017).

The Break-down:

  • Only directly quotes what is needed
  • Original content introduces the quote

Though both the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt are believed to be remnants of the solar system's formation, the Kuiper belt consists mostly of ice rather than rock, including frozen methane and ammonia as well as water ("Two Years On," 2017).

The Break-down:

  • The source material is almost completely re-written
  • This would much more easily fit into the organization of my paper.

A bigger version of the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is a cosmic junkyard, full of rubble believed to be left over from the formation of the solar system. But while the asteroid belt is made mostly of rock and metal, objects in the Kuiper Belt are composed largely of frozen water, ammonia and methane.

The Break-down:

  • No citation is given
  • Even if there were a citation, there are no quotation marks around the words repeated verbatim.
  • A few words have been swapped out for synonyms but this does not actually introduce originality.

References Citation:

Two years on, the Kuiper Belt is in sight. (2017, September 16). The Economist. http:// www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2017/09/16/two-years-on-the-kuiper-belt-is-in-sight

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