Building on your assignment from Week 2, this week you will expand on your topic and develop a thesis statement and an outline for your Final Paper.

Prepare: This is the second step in writing your Final Paper, so please be sure to re-review the POL201 Assignment Guide and the POL201 Final Paper template within the online classroom. Reflect on the policy topic that you determined last week and review your instructor’s comments and feedback regarding the policy and preliminary research. Review the research articles you found last week and determine what other aspects of the policy still need to be discussed and supported.

Reflect: Reflecting on your policy and your previous research, think about how to best structure your thesis (the argument) that you are supporting within this assignment. For this assignment, you will establish your thesis and then outline your paper with your supporting resources. You will utilize your four references from last week and add at least two additional references this week, for a total of six sources for this week’s assignment. At least four of these resources should be from the Ashford University Library. The following resources will help you to use the library effectively to find resources for your assignment:

For guidance on using library databases to locate scholarly, peer-reviewed articles click on Help! Need Article (Links to an external site.) and then click the “How Do I Search for Articles” button from the menu.

For guidance on identifying the types of sources you can use for academic research, watch this interactive tutorial on Evaluating Sources (Links to an external site.). Continue the research process and find sources that support your ideas and that can be integrated into your paper effectively. The POL201 Research Guide (Links to an external site.)is designed to help you find sources for your paper. Be sure you make use of this librarian-created resource for your assignment.

The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Be sure that the sources you are utilizing to support your ideas are valid, reliable, and not overly bias. For more information on identifying information bias, watch this interactive tutorial on Subjective and Objective Statements (Links to an external site.).

Write: You will establish and develop a strong thesis for your Final Paper. The thesis (see Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.)) will serve as the backbone of your Final Paper and should showcase in one complete statement what your policy is, why it is important, and how it relates to policymaking and government program administration within the American national government.

Once you have established your thesis, you will then outline (see Outlining (Links to an external site.)) your Final Paper utilizing outline format. When utilizing an outline, be sure to include the elements from the Week 2 assignment and remember to use headings and subheadings. All sentences within your outline should be complete and should help to support your ideas.

To complete the assignment, save the Week 3 Outline Worksheet to your computer, fill it out, and submit it via Waypoint. Within the worksheet, you will state your thesis statement, provide an outline of your paper, and integrate the four sources from your annotated bibliography, plus two more sources, into your outline to showcase how these resources support your ideas. Provide a full APA references list with a minimum of six sources. Please be sure to utilize outline format and to support all statements with scholarly research. All references should be listed in full APA format and cited appropriately.