Conflicts of Russia & the United States

In your first research essay, your job is to compare and contrast two modern day conflicts – Russia invading Georgia and the United States invading Iraq. The topics chosen are to help you understand and see how war (or the possibility of war) can directly affect you and your family through the economy, gas prices, and possibly your freedom.

In class we read two articles telling the facts of the events in each region. If you need a refresher, you can access both the “U.S. Attack in Iraq Is No Surprise to Many Insurgents” article and the “Russian Forces Capture Military Bases in Georgia” article to complete your compare & contrast map. Using the quote worksheet, write three quotes (REMINDER – quotes are words from the article the author wrote. It does NOT have to have quotation marks around it within the article) from each article that will support your paper.

Now it’s time to create your rough draft. You were provided with a third and final graphic organizer to help create your draft. This organizer is broken down to help develop your introduction, the main idea for your 1st, 2nd & 3rd paragraphs, and finally your conclusion. This organizer will assist you in hand-writing your very first rough draft.

If you need help with creating your parenthetical citations, be sure to refer back to your MLA formatting notes.

 

MLA Citations

MLA, or Modern Language Association, is a style of writing that is most commonly used when creating manuscripts and research papers. This style also gives the author of the paper a way to reference their sources through the use of parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page. MLA also allows the reader to have access to the sources, giving credibility of the paper to the author and leaving no thought of plagiarism.

You will be using MLA formatting throughout this semester. You can view the MLA Powerpoint here, or you can read more about MLA formatting by visiting this link.