Thought papers

The thought papers are an opportunity for you to express an informed opinion and to seek resources to support your ideas.  It is important that you clearly indicate the position that you are taking on the issue.  Sometimes it is difficult to wholly support extremes.  A position between extremes is a more common stance.  If you outline or cluster your ideas first, the papers that you write will be more coherent and compelling. 
Some will want to use webpages as resources.  This is okay as long as you realize that many webpages are themselves opinion with little evidence backing the ideas.   Carefully screen the pages that you plan to use.  Advocacy groups such as Sierra Club or Better living through Plastics will likely bend "facts" to their advantage.  Be critical and careful of using such resources.

When quoting a webpage, you must make reference to the page.  Use the format of (URL, date of page, date of your access; example--www.environ.iss/, 1995, 1999). In the bibliography for the paper, you should give the name of the webpage, its author (if avaliable), the URL and dates indicated above.  If you cannot find the date of the page, use the date of your access only.  This will let the reader know that the page is still active as of the date of the writing.  There are several meta search engines that you can access through the library.  Refer to the virtual library materials for the class and on the USF homepage for help with these.
There are many different formats (eg APA, MLA, and CBC) for citations within a text.   We will use CBC.  When you want to make a reference within the text, you should give the last name of the author(s) and the date (eg Smith, 1995 or Smith and Jones, 1996 or Smith et al. 1995; et al. is used when there are more than two authors).  If you are using a direct quotation, you should enclose the quote with quote marks and  give the page number in addition to the last name and date (eg Smith, 1995 p63).  When the quotations are long, you should indent the entire quote and put the information about the author, date, and page at the end of the long quote.   For the long quote, you do not need quotation marks.  The indentions alone indicate the long quote.

Below is an example of a thought paper done by a student in a previous class.  The paper is not perfect, but it is well done.  I will point out what I consider flaws in the paper by inserting red comments.

Malathion Spraying

The main issue with malathion is to spray or not to spray.  Malathion is a pesticide used to control the infestation of Mediterranean fruit fly which preys on citrus in Florida and elsewhere.  Citrus is an important business in Florida and when   Med flies are spotted as they were in 1998 near Tampa, spraying begins.  The truth is that malathion is very dangerous and poses a great health risk to those who come into contact with it. (there should be an elaboration here about some of the potential health risks; these can be extended in another paragraph)  The spraying of it should have been banned long ago once it was found to be hazardous to humans.  However, once again in the interest of money, human safety is put at risk.

Sasikala (1993) studied the effects of malathion on humans.   Chromosomal damage can occur from exposure of human cells to this pesticide.   Human contact with malathion can also show suppression of the immune system.   Children and the elderly are most susceptible to this because they have the lowest immune systems (www.chem-tox/malathion/research). (you need to clarify what you mean by the "lowest immune system"; this is a little vague).  These findings should be very important to officials of southwest Florida because of the large number of elderly in the area. 

Malation has not only been shown to suppress the immune system but has many other harmful health effects.  It has caused serious injury and even death to farmers exposed to it  (you need a reference for this assertion)  It is also a carcinogen causing cancer (this is redundant, a carcinogen potentially causes cancer as a part of the definition) not to mention large amounts of genetic mutations.  The spraying not onlyaffects humans but other animals as well.  Malathion can be absorbed through the skin and effects animals from amphibians to bees (you need to reference this assertion;   expand on how these animals are affected).  I cannot understand why our state government continues to place us in danger (careful about interjecting clear personal view) by spraying this harmful chemical.  What frustrates me even more is that I as a taxpayer am paying to be polluted.  I do not want them sprayed on me or my family.   I have not found one person not associated with the citrus industry who is in favor of spraying (this kind of anecdotal information may be used, but you should include polls or other formal survey information where possible; a "he said, no he did not" kind of scenario will convince few people).  The only people who benefit are in big corporations;  most of them are not in areas being sprayed. (when you make a sweeping set of statements like these, it is easy to point to exceptions to cast doubt on you arguments; build the arguments with fact, not inuendo or hearsay)  The decision should be left up to the people.  I believe there needs to be a referndum vote on the issue statewide just as there was a vote on the sugar cane tax some years ago.  The citizens in the state should decde whether they wish to be polluted for the sake of the citrus industry. 

References

Sasikala, 1993.  Mutation Research 301.  (you need the complete citation including the author's initials, the title of the article and the page numbers)

www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research --webpage maintained by the University of South Florida to include articles of interest on malathion research