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Question 2 (10 points)

Refer back to the first question and try to come up with some problems related to what most people believe about the topic. You might start by thinking about your own beliefs before you started doing research. What did you learn while doing research that changed your view of your topic? What information is missing from most people's understanding of your topic? Explain the problems inherent in the status quo view of the subject that you discussed in the first question. For each thing that you propose people feel, think, believe, or know about the subject, explain at least one problem or drawback that is caused by people have too little information or the wrong information. For example, if your topic is the bottled water, most people will think that bottled water is cleaner and better for you. A problem with this knowledge is that it is incorrect. Bottled water is NOT better for you and it often has more germs and chemicals than tap water. In relation to lung cancer which I mentioned earlier, most people who have lung cancer have never smoked. That doesn't mean that everyone should start smoking. On the contrary, however, it does mean that most people do not understand the role of genetics and other environmental issues related to lung cancer.

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Question 3 (10 points)

Identify and explain a crisis in the status quo. In other words, what problems are caused by the way most people feel about your topic? Write a full paragraph that explains why it is necessary that people change their attitudes, feelings, knowledge, or beliefs about the topic. If we stay with the topic of bottled water, one crisis is that making the plastic bottles that are required to fulfill our demand for bottled water takes huge amounts of petroleum products and so it is contributing to the peak oil issue in this country.

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Question 4 (10 points)

Consider alternatives to the status quo. In a full paragraph, explain at least two ways that people could think or behave differently than they currently do in regard to the subject.

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Question 5 (10 points)

Finally, how would the world would be different if people thought or behaved in the alternative ways you propose. In this paragraph, explain both a benefit of this new way of thinking or acting and a drawback to it. These will help you focus your thesis statement. For instance, sticking with the bottled water issue. If everyone knew how much energy is used and how much pollution is caused by the high demand for individual bottles of water that are sold in the vending machines on campus, they might start bringing their own water bottles to fill at the drinking fountain. If they knew that the water from their faucet at home is cleaner than the water in the bottles they buy on campus, they might boycott buying bottled water. This would help keep thousands of tons of garbage out of the land fills, and it would save students hundreds of dollars a year that they spend on bottled water. It would also save thousands of gallons of non-renewable energy used to make the bottled water bottles and ship them across the country.

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Question 6 (50 points)

Thinking about the status quo and what needs to change, write a thesis statement that will provide the main CLAIM for your paper. The thesis statement should be formulated like this: CLAIM because REASONS. Here's an example from the bottled water issue: Sinclair Community College should ban the sale of bottled water BECAUSE it causes students to waste money, it results in more trash being placed in already full landfills, and tap water is just as healthy. Another thesis statement might be: The sale of bottled water should be banned in the United States because of the savings in money and resources.Even if you are writing about a topic that is not controversial, you can come up with a main claim. Let's say you researched the issue of some hospitals requiring that all employees receive a flu shot as a condition of employment. Your thesis might be something like this: Although flu shots are thought to be an important advancement in the prevention of wide-spread disease, studies show that not everyone needs a flu shot. In fact, for some people, flu shots cause more health problems than they solve; therefore, requiring employees to get a flu shot as a condition of employment is unfair and sometimes even detrimental.

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