2- Mapping

Issues rarely—if ever—have only two sides. This assignment asks you to explore, explain, and analyze the multiple perspectives on a chosen issue.

In order to develop your Mapping the Issue Essay, begin by identifying sources related to a current, real-world issue. Once you have gathered, read, and annotated a significant number of sources, you will be ready to begin your Mapping the Issue Essay.

Begin by asking yourself the following questions about your issue: What caused the issue? What prompted past and present interest and concern with it? Who is interested in the issue and why? What are the various views in the ongoing conversation about this issue?

Identify the multiple perspectives on the issue. Summarize at least four of those perspectives, noting how people who identify with each perspective support their arguments. Be sure to discuss each perspective in neutral, unbiased, objective terms. In other words, you should not reveal your own perspective on the issue in this paper.

Each of the four perspectives you include in your Mapping the Issue essay must belong to an identifiable, namable group and be backed with relevant source material.

Your audience is a group of readers who are interested in your topic and who hold firm opinions about it. You will need to make sure to represent all four perspectives on the issue in such a way that readers from all four “sides” of the debate could agree with your description of their perspectives on the issue.

For this assignment you must:

Identify an issue for readers and establish the why it matters.
Explain the issue and describe at least four perspectives on the issue without revealing your opinion
Integrate and cite your sources correctly. Include quotation, summary, and paraphrase in the essay
Write 3-4 pages in MLA Style with Works Cited in 12pt. Times New Roman font.
Employ effective transitions between paragraphs

Using Sources

Note: All uses of sources require citations. When you refer to sources within your text, do the following:

1) Introduce the sources to let readers know who is speaking: According to John Smith, editor of the New York Times. . . . .

2) Present the source in a summary, paraphrase, or quotation.

3) Cite the source. If you have named the author, you need to include only the page number in parentheses after you have used the source. If you have not named the author, you need to include the author’s last name and page number in parentheses after you have used the source. If there is no author, use the first few words of the title. Remember that the purpose of the parenthetical citation after using a source is to lead readers to the full information about the sources in the Works Cited list.

4) Comment on the sources. Source material should not be assumed to speak for itself. You need to introduce it, share the source material, and then comment on (contextualize) what the source means

Summarizing

Capture the main point and sub-points as succinctly as possible in your own words.
Use summary to represent the whole of an article in a sentence or two when the reader does not need to know all the details or when you want to provide an overview before you discuss the source in more detail.
Paraphrasing

Represent the author’s argument in your own words. A paraphrase differs from a summary in that it represents a passage of similar length. A 25-word paraphrase represents an author’s idea that took about that many words. To paraphrase well, you need to really understand what the author is saying. Paraphrasing is not just a matter of replacing the author’s words with synonyms and keeping the sentence structure more or less intact.
Use paraphrase when you need to present a more specific excerpt from a source but want to use your own words so the reader is not required to shift from your voice to the voice of the sources.
Quoting

Word-for-word from the author, indicated as such by quotation marks at the beginning and the end.
Quotes should always be introduced. Readers need to know who is speaking (whose words are inside the quotation marks).
Quote only what you need.
Be sure to quote accurately. Don’t take only part of the quote or leave out words that change its meaning.
Use quotes when you want to be especially careful to represent the source’s ideas exactly, for example, if the quote is strongly worded or represents a strong point of view.
Use quotes when the author uses specialized language that can’t be paraphrased easily.
Use quotes when the language is stylistically effective.
Synthesizing

Synthesizing texts means bringing together more than one source and generalizing about them. You might say, “Researchers disagree about the cost of rebuilding North Carolina following the recent hurricane. Some sources believe the cost outweighs the benefits. Others believe that North Carolina must be rebuilt at any cost.” After those generalizations, refer to the sources that led to those conclusions.

TOPIC: The effects of lockdowns on consumer buying power. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that extreme circumstances are dangerous to the economy. It also offers insights into how to avoid making the same mistakes. Analyze them with this proposal topic idea in business.