Public sector labor-management relations

Final Paper MP 504 Instructions a. The paper must be at least 1500 words long and no longer than 2500 words. The word count does not include the reference page, title page, or an optional abstract. You must use APA guidelines. b. The paper must have at least 6 authoritative references in your reference list that are dated after 2008. Use APA for citations and reference lists. c. An argumentative thesis statement must be included. Directions: 1. Your paper should evolve around a thesis statement and, thus, arguments to support that thesis statement; this is a statement, i.e., ONE sentence. Information about thesis statements can be found in many places, but a decent source is 2. Do not overcomplicate the thesis statement. Just write a statement of the main point; it should be a one-sentence answer you would give to a question, if you had to answer in just one sentence! It is a definable, arguable claim. 3. The key to this is that you are making a clear claim in your statement. The thesis/claim is not a normative OR descriptive statement. Do not state what should be; state what is and then research it to see if your claim is true, false, or undecided. [You may find that your assumption is incorrect OR has not been wholly established.] 4. The thesis statement must be on the title page of the paper. It is a statement (an English sentence) and not a question or a paragraph. Review what a thesis statement is supposed to be. 5. Tip: When you write your statement, does it answer a so what? question? d. You may support your arguments using some of the assigned readings, along with additional library sources. The majority of sources must be from those that were not directly provided in class. When doing your library research, you must use legitimate, authoritative sources of information: scholarly books, academic journals, and government sources only. No Wikipedia, no news sites, no newspapers, no magazines, no tech sites, no blog sites, no websites, no presentations, no dissertations, etc. [Caveat: You may include those types of cites/sites, but your primary arguments and justifications must be based on the legitimate sources of information; these do not count for your minimum reference number.] e. Please edit your paper. There are absolutely no excuses for submitting poorly edited papers, typos, grammar, no flow, etc. These are mistakes that you could catch yourself; if you see problems in your returned essays, I strongly recommend scheduling an appointment with the campus-writing center to go over the paper with you. You could have a brilliant paper and still receive a poor grade for not editing it well. By the same token, you could have a perfectly edited paper and get a low grade for meager substance. You must have a quality argument, based on quality readings and it must be well edited. You need to demonstrate: a) your understanding of the subject you are writing about; b) good writing skills; and c) ability to craft good arguments. f. Do not do indirect citations. There is a method of citing works that are cited in your readings; it is improper to cite them directly unless you have access to and have read the original source material. g. Remember that this is research and neither a case study nor a general topic review. Think of it like this: you are trying to establish your thesis (or you may refute it or you may have missed findings). h. Final papers are to be submitted online. All papers will be checked for plagiarism. There is zero tolerance for issues with this. Repeat: zero tolerance. i. This is a research paper and is not a personal or reflective essay. Please be impersonal about it. Do not use I. k. You may not use papers from previous courses for this effort. l. Final advice: dont cut corners. Follow the directions within this syllabus. Topic Selection The paper may be written on any public sector labor-management-related topic you choose, something we covered in class or something you have an interest in writing about. But the requirement is that the paper address one side of the issue…this isnt a research paper, its a thesis paper. If there are issues or problems developing a thesis, I will provide some guidance upon request, but this is your research effort and needs to reflect a thesis that grows out of the issues and topics addressed in this course.