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AIS 1203: Research for Debates (Dones)
Head of Research and Education Services
Debate Topics
The purpose of this guide is to offer a few research tips to help you prepare for your class debates.
Topics
- College should be free for everyone.
- College athletes should be paid.
- Fines should be scaled depending on income.
Identifying Keywords
Figuring out which keywords to use is a crucial first step of your research. Once you start searching, look for clues and further ideas in your results. A few suggestions:
- Free tuition, tuition-free college, "free college"
- College athletes paid, pay, compensation, salary
- Progressive fines, income-based fines, day fines
Key Resources
These are key resources presenting opposing views to start your research. Experiment with the keywords. Depending on your topic, you may or may not find relevant results, but give it a try!
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Opposing Viewpoints in Context (Gale) This link opens in a new windowProvides information on contemporary social issues including pro/con viewpoint articles, statistical tables, charts and graphs, primary documents, biographies, court case overviews, images, video and audio files, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles. Periodical content includes Lexile reading levels. Updated continuously.
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CQ Researcher This link opens in a new windowProvides in-depth, analytical reporting on the most current and controversial issues of the day. Each issue examines a single topic of public concern giving the reader a broad overview of the subject, including historical background, and a discussion of current controversies and initiatives, highlighting the range of opinions among experts.
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ProQuest This link opens in a new windowProvides access to journal and newspapers articles. Use filters on the left-hand side to limit by dates and types of content.
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Pew Research CenterNonpartisan research and statistics on a number of topics including immigration, social trends, U.S. politics, religion, the media, technology, and more.
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AllSides.comAllSides presents news and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum and provides tools to recognize media bias.
After you check out these resources, explore the links provided below for each topic. Look out for the type of source, how credible it is, when it was published, and author's credentials.
Free College
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Google Scholar on Tuition Free CollegeScholarly articles on this topic. Click on Cite By link to see what else was written on this topic.
College Athletes Pay
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Google Scholar on Compensation for College AthletesScholarly articles on this topic. Click on Cited By link to view more recent articles citing this source. Try other keywords, such as salary, pay, paid.
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DuckDuckGo on College Athletes CompensationTry other searches with this search engine using get paid OR salary OR pay in place of compensation.