Local governments, businesses, and property owners should replace conventional grass lawns with clover lawns in order to create habitat for pollinators, save water, and reduce maintenance, which will also lower carbon emissions.

Essay Instructions:

Write a Research Question, Thesis, and Outline ASSIGNMENT: Following the Topic Selection Guidelines below, choose an argumentative topic to research. This will be your topic throughout the entire course (excluding Touchstone 3.1), so the activities required for this assignment will provide the foundation for your future Touchstones. The topic for an argumentative research paper must be an arguable topic, meaning that it involves a stance that advocates for a concrete course of action and at least three supporting reasons which are defensible with credible sources. Additionally, it must take a stance that someone could hypothetically disagree with. You will need to take a firm position on the topic and use evidence and logic to support the position. Touchstone 1.2 includes a research question, a working thesis, a detailed outline, and a reflection on this pre-writing process. You may choose any topic you wish as long as the stance is arguable and the supporting reasons are defensible with evidence. Your topic should be current, appropriate for an academic context and should have a focus suitable for a 6-8 page essay. In order to foster learning and growth, all essays you submit must be newly written specifically for this course. Any recycled work will be sent back with a 0, and you will be given one attempt to redo the Touchstone. EXAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS (off-limits): 1. Rather than ending at age eighteen, compulsory education in the United States should be lifelong in order to improve civic engagement, teach new skills, and stave off cognitive decline, thus extending life expectancies. 2. Local governments, businesses, and property owners should replace conventional grass lawns with clover lawns in order to create habitat for pollinators, save water, and reduce maintenance, which will also lower carbon emissions. 3. Colleges and universities should prioritize academic freedom for students because sensitive discussions on difficult topics are necessary for students to learn, confidence in their own expertise is essential to teachers being effective, and students should be prepared to be exposed to many different opinions. Below your assignment, include answers to all of the following reflection questions. Learning to conduct research is important because it is a skill you will use both in academia and in your professional life. It improves critical thinking and empowers you to find information for yourself. Consider the process of researching as a whole. What was the most challenging aspect of the process for you? (2-3 sentences) The working thesis statement is a proposed answer to your research question. It should clearly identify an arguable topic and take a position on one side of that topic. Analyze the effectiveness of your working thesis statement. (3-4 sentences) A detailed outline is an effective tool for laying out the progression of an argument. It allows you to consider the arrangement and organization of your ideas, as well as choose places to incorporate outside source materials. Review your detailed outline and summarize the argument you've presented. (3-4 sentences) You will use the same topic on three of the remaining Touchstones in this course. What kind of feedback would be helpful for you? What are specific questions you might have as you go deeper into the research process? (2-3 sentences)

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Touchstone 1.2 Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Topic: Local Governments, Businesses, and Property Owners Should Replace Conventional Grass Lawns with Clover Lawns in Order to Create Habitat for Pollinators, Save Water, and Reduce Maintenance, Which Will Also Lower Carbon Emissions Climate change has triggered the need for new strategic approaches when it comes to steering sustainability and protecting the environment. Partly, efforts must be put into all the key prospects that can affect the environment adversely and the strategies that can be deployed to address the issues. To that effect, the above title reflects an environmental protection initiative that could trigger positive outcomes in the global race toward reducing the carbon footprint. Clover lawns could steer the much-needed biodiversity besides setting a platform to protect the environment relative to conventional grass lawns. By implementing clover lawns, people will be creating habitats for pollinators to increase biodiversity. Also, considering the low water consumption of clover lawns, the move will save the world from the misuse of such a vital resource. Further, the fact that fewer machines and work hours will be spent in maintaining the lawns, their impacts could extend to lowering carbon emissions. The above benefits of clover lawns amidst the growing need for environmental sustainability have influenced the choice for this topic. Notably, it is not universally agreed that clover lawns can achieve all the above benefits without any demerits. For instance, some argue that the clover lawns may require equal, if not more, inputs on maintenance. Research Question Should local governments, businesses, and property owners consider replacing their conventional grass lawns with clover grass lawns considering the suggestions that clover lawns bear benefits such as creating habitat for pollinators, saving water, reducing maintenance and use of machines, as well as lowering carbon emissions? Thesis Statement Encouraging local governments, property owners, and businesses to replace their conventional grass lawns with clover lawns could be an insightful move toward protecting the environment and reducing carbon emissions as clover lawns come with a range of environmentally-friendly benefits like creating habitats for pollinators to enhance biodiversity, saving water resources, reducing the use of machines and maintenance costs, as well as lowering carbon emissions. Paper Outline I. Introduction * A. Background on conventional grass lawns ...

Updated on September 17, 2024

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