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ENGL 100/105 (Lawrence)

Before You Start

two students looking at a laptop

Take a few moments to actually sit down and spend time thinking and writing about your topic.

Ask yourself questions like:

  • What do I already know about this topic?
  • What don't I know?
  • What do I assume?
  • What questions do I want to answer?
  • What do I want to say?

Once you've done that, go back and review what you've written and look for keywords, ideas, and themes to help start your searching.

Planning Your Research

Decide whether creating Hamsterdam was the “right” thing to do or not, and support and explain your point of view using evidence from the texts. Use examples from The Wire as your primary text, and then use secondary evidence from the supporting articles to comment on what we saw in the show.

Was hamsterdam the right or wrong thing to do?

  1. Decide whether or not creating Hamsterdam was the right or wrong thing to do.
  2. Develop your argument for whether it was right or wrong, and why, and write it down
  3. Think about how you can use real world examples to support your ideas, and write that down.
  4. Use those examples to find secondary texts to support your ideas.

It was right because...

  1. Use your notes from Step 2 to create a search strategy and search online, in the library catalog, and in the library databases.
  2. Create a place to make notes and save what you find.
  3. While you're searching, keep your eyes open for opposing ideas and counterarguments to your position.

Search terms for Hamsterdam

Some terms to help you star your searches...

word cloud

  • drugs
  • decriminalization
  • violence
  • crime
  • drug markets
  • police
  • community policing
  • black market
  • drug markets