Order Description
The “What a Scandal!” Research Paper
Assignment: Choose a major scandal or controversy?this is a specific event that made the news and was covered by multiple media sources. The determining factor as to whether the scandal/controversy was major will be if you can find enough sources to write a paper on the topic. You will examine how the scandal/controversy was presented to the public by the media, the public’s reaction to the scandal, and any aftermath of the scandal/controversy (especially any impact this historical event had on society). My definition of a scandal or controversy is pretty broad for this paper; however, it must be a well-documented event that you are able to draw significant conclusions about in order to formulate a thesis.
Length: The paper should be no less than 8 pages and no more than 10 pages (this does NOT include the Works Cited page).
Research Requirements: The paper will include a minimum of 8 quotations or cited paraphrases from 8 DIFFERENT sources; therefore, the Works Cited page will have a minimum of 8 sources.
The following THREE types of sources must be referenced:
A major newspaper article from the day/first couple of weeks after the story hit the news (Source 1).
An EDITORIAL response [an “editorial” is an opinion-based piece] to the event whether it is from a journalist, an informed source (interview), or a reader responding (editorial page in a newspaper periodical) to an article in a periodical (if it is reader response, make sure you have the article the person is referring to). (Source 2)
In addition to the breaking newspaper article and/or editorial, there must be at least one other article retrieved from an ONLINE periodical database–this is different than an Internet Web site source (Source 3).
This paper has three components: summary of events, reaction to the media/public response, and the discussion of the impact (or lack thereof) of the event. You will:
teach your audience about the event in two-three pages,
explore how the event was handled by the media (big story/small story; who was interviewed; who was vilified, etc.) in two-three pages;
and then discuss the impact of the event in two-three pages. Impact can be something concrete (i.e., a new law was passed) or it can be perceived (people?s attitudes changed), but you should discuss it and have opinions about it.
Source page must have annotation for each source.
