Week 1: Student Response and Assignment 1 and 2

TuesdayJun 5 at 10:37am

Manage Discussion Entry

The global societal issue I considered researching for my Week 5 Final Paper is global climate change. I see this as a great opportunity to learn more about the progression of climate change and what is currently being done about it.

Ashford University presented numerous effective methods to identify and narrow down a specific topic for my research paper. First, I considered which overall topic I would like to investigate further; as I said, I chose climate change. Next, I narrowed the topic down by coming up with a few subtopics of climate change. I ultimately decided to pursue the link between climate change and food security. So, my research question became: “ How does climate change affect food security?”

It is very important to critically analyze sources to determine if they are scholarly before I can consider using them for my paper. There are three main ways to do this: check the publisher, the author’s credentials, and the language used throughout the publication. According to Ashford University, if the publisher is an academic university or the government, generally it will be a credible source. If the material is self-published, or if the intent behind it is to sell something rather than to educate/inform, there is a good chance this source is not scholarly. The author’s credentials are also a good indicator of the validity/authority of a source. Has the author been cited anywhere else? What makes them an expert in the field? Lastly, we need to be sure the language used in a potential source is free of bias, supported by evidence, and has been reviewed for accuracy (Ashford, 2018).

Scholarly sources should be used to support my writing because it will make my ideas more credible and validate the assertions I make. It will also give my readers perspective on the relevance of the topic by exposing them to “expert opinions,” meaning there is an active conversation regarding the topic in the academic community. It is a relevant topic to examine.

I found two sources to support my topic. One is a study compiling existing literature on the subject of climate change in order to assess the impact it will have on food security in developed countries (Iain et al, 2012). The other is a collection of facts about climate change asserted through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This second source will be particularly helpful in establishing the currency/relevance of the issue with an established governmental agency providing confirmed facts (NASA, 2018).

Resources:

Ashford University. (2017). Developing a Topic. Retrieved from http://writingcenter.ashford.edu/developing-topic (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.