Chapter 3

Jennifer should probably have thought first about whether her topic really fits the audience, the context, and the assignment first. It might be that her audience will be very interested and informed by the topic of why the United States no longer uses the gold standard, and if she wrote a paper on it for history (and presumably got a good grade and did good research), she will know more about it than the rest of her class. In the history of the U.S., it is an important topic, but she will have to spend some time explaining why and how it currently affects the audience, the economy, trade, inflation, etc. It might be that the topic is too big (too much material) and she should focus on a subtopic of it.

As far as the sources are concerned, since she has read the sources, she can still use them, but she will want to be careful not to take her paper and basically deliver it, in an outlined or oral form, to her class. One, her instructor might use originality detection software, and she will be caught, and her college may have a policy against “self-plagiarism.” It is questionable ethics for her to use the paper twice. Second, a speech is not a research paper, and again she needs to think about the purpose, context, and audience. The history professor knows about the subject already and gave Jennifer the assignment so she would learn about economic policies of the past and how to write a good history research paper. The classroom audience, and the instructor in the speech class, aren’t looking at the assignment in the same way. Also, Jennifer will need to cite her sources differently in an oral medium.

In regard to Beth’s problem, Jennifer should empathize with Beth but firmly tell her she can’t give Beth her outline or sources. Perhaps she can help Beth brainstorm about a good topic for her class. The situation will most likely end up badly for Beth and Jennifer if they share the outline.