Present an argument about one aspect of difference from the social norm. You may choose to write about difference in terms of race, gender, class, species, ability, religion, politics, mental health or any other difference that you believe has an important impact on people's lives. Support your argument with evidence from 3-5 texts outside of our assigned readings (although you may refer to these as well if you wish). Your texts should be taken from a mix of sources and include at least one peer-reviewed journal article, one printed book (accessed via ebook if necessary), and one web-based source.

As with all of your papers, your research paper should have a clear and focussed thesis. Students often struggle in the research paper, perhaps more than any other, to keep their theses narrow enough. This is important however, in order to allow you to discuss your topic in sufficient detail. I am not looking for a broad overview of the struggles faced by racial minorities in the US, for example. Even a thesis about employers' discrimination against racial minorities would be too broad. Instead, consider focussing your research on something like the experience of Asian women on LinkedIn. This will not only make your paper more original; it will also make your research easier, narrowing the sources you have to sift through from several thousand to fewer than a hundred perhaps.

When incorporating your research into your paper, you will need to quote from, paraphrase, or summarise other texts as appropriate. While doing so, you should make sure that your own voice remains the strongest one in the paper. All of your sources should be correctly cited in MLA format.