Directions:  In the appropriate conference on our class WebBoard (YourGroup; Rules of Research), propose your tentative thesis.

First, you need to review the Rules of Research included in the research paper assignment.  Again, these may seem a bit stiff and formulaic, and as you progress in your academic careers, you can be less formal about them, but for now, they serve as good guidelines for integrating the works of others into your own writing.

Example:

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If comics have have traditionally had an awkward relationship with larger social issues, the 1970's pairing of Green Lantern and Green Arrow stands as a striking example.  The Green Lantern/Green Arrow series "broke with all tradition" by including themes of social relevance (Jacobs and Jones 157), including racism, treatment of Native Americans, and drug abuse.  The ways in which these issues were dealt with, however, was often overly simplistic and even troubling.  For example, nearly all DC readers are familiar with an often-reprinted panel in which an elderly African American man asks Green Lantern why he has done so much for alien races, but nothing for the oppressed races in his own country.  It's a powerful accusation, and yet the implication that the answer to racism is a costumed vigilante with a power ring is more than a little disturbing.  For all that it probed relevant and current social issues, Green Lantern/Green Arrow never moved beyond the common comic book assumption that the solution to all problems is one person acting independently of law and democracy.  As with so many answers to real-world issues, the answer to racism presented in Green Lantern/Green Arrow is overly simplistic.  

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Notice that the quotation is fully explained and integrated into a larger argument, and tied back to the thesis at the end.

Now, it's your turn.

Post:

Using your sources, either write a paragraph for your arguments section, or look at one you have already written.  make sure this paragraph follows the Rules of Research. 

(Note: we're doing several exercises in these topics, so it will help of you put "Yourname Rules" as the subject of the post).

Response:

Respond to two of your group members' posts (try to respond to people with no responses, or only one response).  Make sure they follow the rules of research.  Even if the do follow the rules, suggest ways they might improve the paragraph.