McDaniel College - COM1103 Introduction to Mass Communication (Online) - R. W. Dillman
Paper Assignment #3

Getting Balanced

The Writing Assignment

Suppose that you are a U.S. citizen who would like to get as objective an understanding as you can of an issue that is under debate for the 2008 Presidential election. Can you do that successfully, or is the media so biased that an objective understanding is impossible?

Your paper should be in the range of 2000 to 4000 words. Here is the process that you need to follow in order to write this paper.

First, pick one issue from this list:

• Is the U.S. winning or losing the war in Iraq?
• Will the U.S. Social Security System be able to cope with the "baby boom" generation as it retires over the next thirty years, or will the system go bankrupt?
• What is the best way to deal with the illegal movement of people and materials across the U. S./Mexico border?
• Are citizens in the U. S. generally better or worse off economically than they were six years ago?
• Can the U. S. health insurance system be improved so that it covers most U.S. citizens at a lower cost?
  

Second, using the Library, the Internet, and other sources -- gather the data you need to write a balanced report on the issue. Do not write a report on the issue, simply gather the data.

IMPORTANT: I do not want you to write a paper on the question. I want your paper to describe and explain any bias that you found in the media's reporting about the question. What you find in your research matters ... but what you can't find may matter more.

Third, write your paper. The paper will contain four sections.

1. SUMMARY OF THE ISSUE DATA Briefly summarize your knowledge of the issue. This summary should be less than one page long. It is very much a summary - it should be brief and include only facts. It should include lots of citations. (I am not grading your opinion of the issue. I am looking to see that you have reviewed many different media sources and gathered a lot of data about the issue.)
2. CHRONOLOGY OF YOUR RESEARCH Write a chronology of your search. A chronology is a list of events, organized by time. In this case, each item in the list will be a description of a search that you conducted. The chronology will show me what you had to do to gather the data you needed to write your summary. (This is your evidence that you have actually done the research. So be thorough.)
3. EFFECTIVENESS Analyze your search results: are they balanced? To what extent is your report unbalanced or biased? What data is missing, and why could you not find it? (This is the FIRST time in your paper that you will mention bia, fairness, balance, etc. This will be the longest section of the paper. It will be mostly facts.)
4. BIAS Assess the effect of media bias in your report. Did media bias prevent you from finding all the facts? Or did you find that bias was not an impediment? (This is your conclusion. It will be mostly your opinion as to what the facts showed you.)

Except for an optional summary paragraph at the front, these four are the ONLY sections that should appear in your paper. Your paper must also have a bibliography that lists all the sources that you investigated, whether you quoted from them or not. I have created a sample paper that shows how the paper should be formatted with section headers and explains what content should be in each section. I strongly recommend that you look at this sample paper.

My Goals For This Assignment

This is the most difficult paper that you will do in this course. It requires a lot of research time.

Along with my usual insistence on good grammar and style, I am looking for completeness, analysis and effort.

• Completeness: I am thoroughly familiar with all of these issues, and I have a good knowledge of the sources that are available to you. I expect that you will spend the time (it will take hours) to do a complete search. This will be worth 5 points.
• Analysis: It is not enough just to gather data. You need to fit the data together so that you have a good enough understanding of the issue that you can spot data that might be missing. This is the hardest part of the project, and it will be worth 5 points.
• Effort: I realize that you might not be able to find all the data that you need. So I will be making an estimate of the amount of effort you put into the project and awarding 2 points for that.

This assignment is worth 15 points: 12 as just described, plus 3 on format and style.

Tips and Hints

• This project is not extremely hard - but it takes a lot of time. Please start your research at least two weeks before the paper is due.
• Do not pick an issue if you have a strong opinion about it one way or the other. Your opinion will get in the way and make it difficult for you to accept facts from opposing points of view. It is best to pick an issue about which you are basically neutral.
• There is only "bias" if there were facts that you could not find because someone was keeping them from you -- so this part of the paper depends on your analysis of what you do not yet know.
• The purpose of the issue summary is to prove that you did enough research to guarantee a balanced understanding of the issue. Do not write a "paper" for this section, just do a summary that lists the key points. The more sources you can cite, the better - because this proves that you did a thorough search.
• The best way to do the chronology is to think ahead and keep a log of your time as you do your research. A "log" is just a notebook in which you jot down the date, time and a quick summary each time you look at a new source. If you keep a good log, all you need to do for the Chronology is copy the log and format it for the paper. Notice that the chronology will provide me with a timeline - I will know when you started on your project and how many searches you conducted.
• The analysis is the hardest part because you have to make an assessment of what you do not know. The best way to do this give yourself plenty of time to think about the issue as you develop your sources. You should write the paper about a week before it is due and plan to re-read it at least twice. This will help you find places where data is missing.

What I Expect From You - Or, How I Will Grade Your Writing

1. As always, you will need to provide quotations and cite your sources.

2. Format and style as are they were for the first paper. The only exception is that you will have two sets of citations: one for the "issue" summary, and a second set for the analysis that follows.