19 Apr Select at least one book and provide a short synopsis of what you gleamed from the reading.

INVESTING IN AMERICA!

Goal: for students to have an opportunity to become somewhat familiar with the process of personal investing, be it in financial securities, real estate or something else of YOUR interest.

Due Dates:

Week Three: Draft Sources you anticipate (6 to meet each of the sections described in the next section)

Week Five: Draft outline

Week Seven: Final paper due, posted to our website and emailed as an attachment to Dr. LaClair

YOUR PAPER SHOULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING SOURCES ( could be the beginning of a good outline for your paper if you like)

Books on investing

Select at least one book and provide a short synopsis of what you gleamed from the reading. Because of the short length of our term I don’t expect you to read every word (although you might want to!), but enough to get the main recommendations from the book.

Internet sources (Google etc)

Check our the mired of sites on the Internet and provide a short writeup of two sites that caught

your eye.

TV shows like Jim Cramer’s MAD MONEY (CNBC) etc Comment by Charlie LaClair:

There are a number of good reoccurring shows on TV focusing on investments. Watch at least

two to gain a favorite and write up what you’ve learned from them.

Professionals in the field

Professions were students once too and enjoy passing along knowledge. Don’t take too much of

their valued time, but get their key points and write it up as part of your paper.

Friends/relatives/colleagues

Certainly you know people who are participating in the American dream of investing. Talk to

them about how they got started, what their goals are, what strategies they are following, what

advice they may have for you.

Your Plan

From above, provide a beginning set of strategies on how, when the time is right, you will approach investing for the future.

PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS, TECHNIQUES AND SUGGESTIONS

This class is included in the Cochise College General Education cluster as an intensive writing class. To be in accord with College standards, the paper must be a minimum of 10 pages in length counting the title page through work cited page(s). Business papers must be written in a professional manner with proper writing style, grammar and documentation. Our class will follow these business standards. If you need assistance meeting these standards work with the online writing lab listed below .

This is primarily a research paper, thus information provided should be frequently and properly noted throughout your paper

MLA FORMAT

We will use MLA format for our paper. Documenting the paper will be a part of the evaluation. Citing sources appropriately and giving credit where credit is due is an important part of economics. Remember, this is a “research” paper, meaning that the writer is not obligated to have “original” thoughts throughout. Knowing where to find information and sharing sources with the readers is important not only in academia but in business. The “original” thought takes place in the amalgamation of the overall data and conclusions. Soooo…document, document, document. On the other hand, this is not an English class, so the evaluation emphasis will be on the content of the paper.

One of the best online website for documenting papers is Dianne Hacker’ site http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/sample.html

SOURCES

A minimum of six authoritative sources required.

GRAPHICS

Charts, graphs and other graphics are the language of economics and business. Your paper should include some graphics to enhance your paper for the reader.

HEADINGS

Papers should employ major and minor headings as a convenient way to guide the reader through the paper

SPACING

Papers should be double spaced

PAGE NUMBERS

Page numbers should appear on the top right of each page, except for the first page.

INTERNAL CITATIONS

Within the paper one should use Endnotes where the majority of the information for a section of the paper was drawn from. The purpose of the endnote is to indicate to the reader where the content came from, and to point the reader to the Work Cited page where a complete citation will be provided. Hacker’s site provides a good description of how to do this http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/intext.html.

WORK CITED PAGE

Each paper should be accompanied be a Work Cited (bibliography) section. Work Cited should be a major heading and centered (like above). For citations running more than one line, the second and subsequent lines should be indented 5 spaces (use the Tab key or figure out how to use a Hanging Indent in Word). Listings are in alphabetical order.

Here’s how to easily do it in WORD:

I suggest that as you find potential sources along the way of your research, create on ongoing WORD file and type in all citations starting at the left (normal) justification and allowing citations to word wrap to next and subsequent lines. Click the enter key only at end of each citation. When you’re done with your paper, eliminate those that you did not use and follow the following sequence to have WORD do all the hard work in getting it in proper MLA format (it’s really easy!). Copy and paste your Work Cited page(s) to the end of your research paper.

1) ALPHABETIZE

highlight the entire citation listing. Select the Home view, click on the A-Z↓ box, your citations should now be in alpha order.

2) PROPER INDENTIONS and DOUBLE SPACING

with the area still highlighted, click on Page Layout view, under the “paragraph” tab, click on the little arrow box on the bottom right, under “special” select Hanging and under Line Spacing, select Double

Citation Examples

Web Site : name of the author (if known), title of the web site, producer of the web site, date the site was posted or last updated (or date found on the Internet if posting date is not known), and web site address.

Elliot, George Jr, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, November 20, 2001 http://www.pearl-harbor.com/arizona/specifications.html

Interview: Name of the person interviewed, his/her position, date of the interview

Smallwood, Joe. Director of Facilities, ABC Contracting. Personal Interview,

August 20, 1999

Book Author : name of the author, title of the book, publishing company, date of the

publishing

Jamison, Janice. Working With Word 97. Computer Technologies Publishing Company.

September 1999.

Periodical: name of the author (if known), title of the article, title of the publication, Volume number, publication date.

"Computers in Sports". Sports Illustrated, Vol. 219, 18 October, 1999

CHARTS AND GRAPHICS

Charts and graphics are very important to business papers and presentations today. The good thing for us non-artist types is that we can borrow (with proper documentation – citing sources) these from a variety of electronic sources.

The easiest way is to find a graphic we wish to insert, say off of the web, Right click on it, and either Save As to folder in your C drive for future insertion into your paper or simply Copy and go to your Word document and Right click and Paste it directly into your research document.

Cropping Graphics – you can cut out extra stuff on a graphic if it is on any of the sides of the graphic (vs in the middle). In Word, click on the graphic and get the little back dots around the edges. If the picture tool bar isn’t automatically up, then click on Tools/Toolbars and click on Picture toolbar. You will see an icon with two +’s like this:

Click on the crop icon and go to one of the top/bottom/left or right buttons on the side of the picture and drag to eliminate unwanted portions.

EMBEDDING GRAPHICS IN TEXT

Click on the graphic, from the Page Layout tab, select Wrap Text, and Tight

Here’s an example:

This is an example of inserting a chart from the Internet and citing the source appropriately. The source was

Source: MSN.com 2/17/ 08 manually typed in, sized a little smaller, the

text flowing alongside the graphic.

ONLINE RESEARCH PAPER HELP

The College supports our students with an excellent online writing lab.  Here's their website address: [email protected]

Contact them if you need assistance and see what kind of help they may be.

You do need to give them ample time to review your drafts , but if you need help, then they are of great assistance.

Remember, nobody in business pays any attention to papers full of errors, and we'll be applying that model to our papers as well.

TURNING IN YOUR RESEARCH PAPER

Email a copy directly to [email protected] and post a copy to our website as part of week seven

,

RESEARCH PAPER CHECKLIST

·

· THOROUGHLY RESEARCH SUBJECT MATERIAL BASED UPON REPUTABLE SOURCES AND PERSONAL ANALYSIS

· MINIMUM 10 PAGES (INCLUDES TITLE PAGE AND WORK CITED PAGE)

· MINIMUM OF SEVEN AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES INCLUDING:

· One book

· Two Internet sites

· Two TV financial series

· One financial professional

· One relative/friend/colleague

· PROPER COLLEGE LEVEL WRITING AND GRAMMAR

GET HELP FROM THE COLLEGE WRITING LAB IF NEEDED

ALLOW SUFFICIENT TIME

USE SPELL CHECK AND GRAMMAR CHECK IN WORD

· APPROPRIATE HEADINGS LEAD TO EASY READING AND ORGANIZATION

· INTERESTING CHARTS, GRAPHS AND GRAPHICS INSERTED INTO THE PAPER

REMEMBER, ECONOMICS IS OFTEN DESCRIBED IN GRAPHS

AND CHARTS

CITE EACH SOURCE UNDER THE GRAPHIC

· PAPER SUBMITTED WEEK SEVEN AND COPY EMAILED TO [email protected]

MLA FORMAT

Check this website for MLA format and examples:

http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/sample.html

· PAGE NUMBERS

· DOUBLE SPACED

· MAJOR THOUGHTS TAKEN FROM SOURCES DOCUMENTED WITHIN THE PAPER USING ENDNOTES

· GRAPHICS SOURCE CITED UNDER THE GRAPHIC

· WELL FORMATTED AND INCLUSIVE WORK CITED PAGE

· PROPER NUMBER OF RESOURCES CITED AS NOTED IN THE RESEARCH PAPER REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT.

· CENTER WORK CITED HEADING

· ALPHABETIZE WORKS

· FIRST LINE OF EACH CITATION LEFT JUSTIFIED, ALL OTHERS INDENTED 5 SPACES

· DOUBLE SPACE

Works Cited

(example)

Elliot, George Jr, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, November 20, 2001 http://www.pearl-harbor.com/arizona/specifications.html

Osier, Michael J. Tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, November 19, 2001 http://krunch.med.yale.edu/~og/hawaii/arizona.html

USS Arizona 1916-1941, Department of the Navy, December 31, 2000 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-a/bb39.htm