The Research Process Discussion! Only for Quality!

Remember that, when writing your discussion sections, they should:

· Be topically organized around an argument.

· Include subject headings to set off the points for the reader.

· Be longer than 1 paragraph (you want to unpack your arguments, and 1 paragraph won't cut it).

· Move from general-to-specific.

There are several significant rhetorical moves within the discussion sections. So, consider this organization to help develop your discussion sections:

· Make a point (i.e., topic sentence)  

· Explain your point. ( e.g., In other words, this means that _____.)

· Offer evidence and sources to support or foil your point.

· For example, we see this in the research when _____.

· This point is supported by other sources. For example, so-and-so writes that _____.

· Introduce your source to your unfamiliar reader by first and last name and article title.

· Summarize/paraphrase the source that you'll be using to support your point.

· Quote from the source to support your point.

· Bring it all together (identifying how the sources connect back to your original point. e.g., This is important because of _____. )

Notice that the models below follow this organizational model. While the topics may differ, they demonstrate PIES (i.e., point, interpretation, example, so-what).

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Here are two examples of discussion sections from previous students' papers. 

Example 1: Horror Film Paper Topic

Daring the Nightmare

One purpose that horror films serve is that they allow audiences to "dare the nightmare" and remain unaltered.  Horrors film create suspense using images that symbolize our fears about death, destruction, the afterlife, or the unknown--all of which we might be curious about but also frighten us. Good visual images keep the audience on the edge of their seats since they don't know what is to come--yet they are often begging for more. Stephen King writes about this effect in "Why We Crave Horror Movies," “When we pay four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.” King argues that we want to be scared and want to be on the edge of our seats with the unknowing ahead. It feels cathartic to see the worst that can happen to someone or to see the worst behaviors in others, and then we can leave the theater knowing that we are safe and that there are people out there worse than we are. Just like in the classic horror film, The Sixth Sense, we want to "see dead people," too.

Audiences see this characteristic illustrated more specifically in The Orphanage when audiences are encouraged to dare the nightmare of being haunted by ghosts after her son goes missing during a party. In the film, Laura, her husband, and her adopted son, Simon, move into the old home that she grew up in as an orphan. From the onset of the film, though, something seems mysterious about the house: the swing set outside would start to move and make creaking sounds and then Simon starts speaking to imaginary children, including his new friend Tomas who has a secret room in the house.  Audiences are introduced to a nightmare world when, during a party, Simon mysteriously goes missing, and it's as if he'd vanished into thin air. While Laura and her husband search for Simon with the help of the police, Laura decides to enlist the help of a psychic, Aurora, to find Simon. In one scene, audiences see what Aurora sees, the presence of ghosts who are angry and scared.  The presence of the ghosts suggest that something sinister happened in the house many years ago.  When Laura is skeptical of what she thinks might have happened in the house and to her son, Aurora tells Laura, "Seeing is not believing, it's the other way round. Believe, and you will see."  In this case, Aurora is also telling audiences that they need to suspend their disbelief--both while watching the film and in their own lives.  We all have those moments when we think someone might be watching us or when we wonder if there are ghosts near us.  The film is tapping into those fears that we all share and asking us to dare the nightmare of the unknown and death.

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Example 2: Sample Discussion 1

Media Stereotypes of Disability: The Supercrip

After viewing many movies with the supercrip stereotype, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape feels refreshingly honest in its portrayal of disability. It moves away from the impairment defying story of the supercrip and instead shows a more realistic take on the effects of a cognitive impairment. The supercrip is a particular narrative of the media that makes us feel more a bit more comfortable with the idea of disability. The media thrives from these stories of the supercrips who are able to overcome their impairment in an uncharacteristically awe-inspiring way, driven by their own sheer will. There is nothing particularly uplifting or spectacular about mentally retarded Arnie Grape, and that’s just fine. He is lovable in his unabashed, innocent manner and leads a simple life that he is content with. In the opening scene of the movie, we see him and Gilbert anxiously waiting for the long line of RV’s to drive through the town like they do every year. Watching this gives Arnie pure pleasure and joy, although seemingly mundane to those around him. Arnie doesn’t have any special talents that make him exceptional, he isn’t trying to go attend college despite all odds; his family is just relieved that he is able to live till his current age of eighteen. He isn’t there to be an inspiration to us and to make us feel more comfortable about his impairment. Arnie is just fine being Arnie. The most important thing that we should recognize is that there is no reason for him not to be satisfied with his life or condition. It is rare that we see a film that conveys a side of disability that is not aspiring to be more like the rest of the general population.

As a society, it is easy to adore these supercrip narratives because we are attracted to the thought of someone who had once made us feel a little uneasy become more like the rest of the general public. Time and time again we are fed a cookie cutter image of success that we then begin to attribute to all those who are disabled. This becomes an issue for the disabled community because supercrips make up a very tiny percentage of the handicapped population. These expectations are not something that can generally be regarded as realistic. Yes, there are those who can overcome all odds and do the impossible, but to most, there are things that just simply cannot be obtained because of the severity of their impairment or the barriers that society has unintentionally placed in their way. Eli Clare, a writer and transgender activist with cerebral palsy writes in his essay The Mountain about the supercrip saying, “Supercrip stories never focus on the conditions that make it so difficult for people with Downs to have romantic partners, for blind people to have adventures” (116). Because the media rarely shed light onto these issues, we tend to remain unaware of the barriers that are long lasting within the disabled community. It is important that we recognize these issues and stop putting all our faith into the expectations that a supercrip provides us so that changes can be made. The different and more straightforward portrayal of a cognitive disability like Arnie Grape’s is so important because it can represent a more significant portion of the disabled community (as opposed to the smaller supercrip population) to a mass audience; therefore raising more awareness of how an impairment effects those who are disabled.