GEN499: General Education Capstone

• Develop a Research Topic
• Incorporate Sources into Your Research Paper

It is also recommended that you review these tutorials from the Ashford University Library:

• Searching in Databases
• Evaluating Sources

You may also want to review the Week Five Sample Final Paper Guide, so that you can start preparing your rough draft that is due in Week Four.

Reflect: When considering a research topic, consider an interesting topic that is worth further research. For instance, having a strong opinion on a specific topic may deter you from thinking more critically, and therefore the research might end up being one-sided. It is a good idea to pick a topic in which you can provide a good argument for both sides of the societal issue.

Write: For this discussion you will address the following prompts:

• Identify two global societal issues from the following list that you would consider researching further for your Week Five Final Argumentative Essay: adult illiteracy, funding for General Education vs STEM in primary and secondary schools, minimum wage, oceans desertification, overcoming the digital divide, refugee (escaping persecution, war, or death) crises, species extinctions (modern), tax havens, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), universal statement of human rights (pick one), airport security, or wealth disparity.
• Describe effective methods you used in identifying and narrowing down to just one of the two topics to further research for your final essay.
• Explain three ways you can critically analyze sources to determine if they are scholarly and credible.
• For one of the topics chosen, summarize information from at least two peer-reviewed journal articles from the Ashford University Library that will support your claims.
• Explain why scholarly sources should be used to support your writing on the selected topic.
• Download and attach PDF copies of the two articles that you found from the Ashford University Library to your answer using the “Attachments: Add/Remove” function located below your response. Please view this Attaching Documents to Discussions tutorial for more guidance on how to attach your article to your discussion post. You can also view this Citing and Saving Articles in FindIt@AU tutorial if you are unsure how to save articles found from the Ashford University Library.

Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length, which should include a thorough response to each prompt. You are required to provide in-text citations of applicable required reading materials and/or any other outside sources you use to support your claims. Provide full reference information of all sources cited at the end of your response. Please use correct APA format when writing in-text citations  and references