First Draft of the position paper: abolish the death penalty

• Points50

Remember,submit only oneFirst Draft: submit your draft here for the abolish the death penalty first draft.

Please review the Student Position Paper Final on abolishing the death penalty. This PDF file is a decent example of your First Draft and your Final position paper (this paper has a few minor glitches--paragraph unity problems, wordy sentences, and overuse of passive voice, but overall, it is a good example for you to use as a guide).

Although this writing pattern evolves from a decent pro/con list (which I provided), for expediency, effectiveness, retention (of the pattern), and accomplishment, your position will be toabolish the death penalty. Please focus on learning this pattern, using a variety of strategies, and developing confidence in looking at both sides of any issue (we want to help you become a critical thinker, a good citizen of the world, and one smart cookie!).

Need a title and an opening quote (italicized).

Need three to five pages of body; and at least ten works cited (actually, at least ten signal phrases in paper body). Use active voice and strong and clear verbs. Please pay attention to paragraph unity. Use a variety of strategies (for example, do not overuse illustrations (stories), and please avoid plagiarism.

Use MLA citation system; make sure to mark your boundaries with a signal phrase and a parenthetical citation; Include one footnote (brief sentence or two that would not go in your paper body). Times New Roman, size 12, double-spaced. Do not triple-space, and use one inch margins.

Include at least one Amendment from the Bill of Rights (or the 14th amendment), and at least one article from the UN Declaration of Human Rights;

Make sure your draft follows the required five-point pattern. Use bolded sub-titles; and capitalize important words in all sub-titles.This draft must be properly formatted, according to the listed requirements.

Remember, your position is to abolish the death penalty; then, you must use atleast two "reasons" bolded as sub-titles (bolded sub-titles help you organize and control your paper):

For example, you might useRacial BiasandEyewitness Mis-identificationorClass BiasandCruel and Unusual.

Only submit one counter-argument;just take only one of the following objections, bold them, add a question mark, and then only two paragraphs for your counterargument. Spend most of your time and energy on arguing directly to abolish the death penalty:

Deterrence?

Brings Justice?

Saves Money?

Brings Closure to Victim's Family?

Your Call To Action section: only use subtitlesLooking ForwardorWhere Do We Go From Herefor your last section.

Remember, this is not a pro/con paper; this is not a "Introduction, support, and conclusion" paper.

This is a source-based paper; this is not a reflection, pro/con, or response paper. You must use sources for every section!

For example,when you look over the sources I listed, you will see several links with my comments before the link; or you can just do a word search in some of the strong organization websites--ACLU, DPIC, The Innocence Project, etc.

For example, there are several good sources forRacial Biasin all of the above noted websites--but especially the ACLU. Also, look for the links I posted for the State of Washington and Gov. Inslee. Washington State recently abolished the death penalty because a professor from the UW Seattle researched and argued that racial bias is very evident in the death penalty. I believe I have at least two links, maybe three. So, you would have one or two sourced paragraphs from the ACLU and then two sourced paragraphs from the UW professor. Easy.

Use strong and clear signal phrases: According to, or Source argues that, or Source claims that, or Source states that....

Remember,cruel is different from unusual.Go to the ACLU website first and then look around the other websites. But most definitely take the time to review the Source list. You can use "botched executions" for the cruel argument. There are many linked examples of botched executions in the websites or you can just do akey-word searchon the internet to find good examples. You can also use an opening story of botched executions, but only if you also plan to use Cruel and Unusual as one of your reasons.

please submit only .doc or docx. pdf is also ok.