Chapter 5 The Research Paper

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          Research papers are complex papers that involve the skills you’ve learned so far in this course—paraphrase, summary, analysis, library skills, MLA documentation (in-text citations and works cited page), and critical thinking—plus newer skills such as synthesis and how to determine if sources are from authoritative sources. Your teacher and your course handbook will be very important as you work through the process of writing a college-level research paper. For this assignment, the research paper must meet the following criteria:

• 5-8 pages long plus a title page and work cited page(s)

• at least five reliable sources that are not Wikipedia or any other encyclopedia (Your teacher may specify requirements for paper and electronic sources.)

• An electronic copy of the paper must be submitted to the D2L dropbox so it can be checked for plagiarism via Turn It In and for assessment via Chalk and Wire.

• A paper copy of the research paper needs to be submitted to your teacher unless your teacher indicates otherwise.

 

The Research Paper as Observing, Reflecting, and Telling

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          The purpose of writing a research paper often is not understood. Students tend to think these assignments are just “school work,” but the world of business and the professions demand research, reasoning, conclusions, and effective expression. These processes yield many forms: reviews, police reports, feasibility studies, grant proposals, marketing reports, and legal briefs. Each form demands appropriate methods of handling and expressing material. In a research writing assignment, you are being trained to gather information to evaluate it critically, to reflect on its meanings, and to clarify issues, generate new knowledge or apply principles for fresh interpretation. In order to do effective research and to express it in a manner that communicates clearly and credibly with others, you must learn about the resources available to you. You must then learn to access these sources, read them closely, make notes, quote, summarize, and paraphrase accurately. Then you reflect on their findings and meanings. Can you put two ideas together and generate a third? If the approaches taken by two scholars differ and yield contrasting results, can you reconcile them? Do you see new interpretations of data that the earlier scholars have ignored? Can you offer convincing answers to the best arguments that disagree with your theory?

 

          As you read, ask questions of your material: What does it prove? What does it ignore? What does it say about its own time and place? What does it mean to contemporary society? How is it slanted or limited, obscure or famous? These general questions, when applied to the specific object of your investigation, yield a tentative thesis that can focus and order the next stages of the process: selecting supporting details, patterning them into coordinate and subordinate positions according to their relative importance to your thesis, clarifying the issues, writing an outline, comprising a draft, rethinking the thesis and refining it in view of what you have learned from your research, reflection, and writing. Then, having checked your incorporation of sources to make sure you have not plagiarized, you revise to weave them into your own text as gracefully and effectively as you can, providing clear transitions to help the reader follow your reasoning. The paper is given a final editing, proofread, and submitted for evaluation.

 

          You should be pleased with your workmanship, but the real test of a written document comes when another person reads it. Does it communicate what you intended? Are there confusing sentences, distracting errors of punctuation or spelling, unsupported assumptions, slanted information, phrasing that comes too close to an original source? Your instructor is a trained reader, obligated to teach you by encouragement and discipline, so his or her comments represent what any good reader would be likely to see in your work. You are writing this not just to fulfill the teacher’s assignment and not just to make a good grade. You are learning to dress your ideas in forms appropriate to any situation or work assignment, learning to write in such a way that causes others to listen to your “voice,” to attend to your persuasion and argument with respect, to discuss your ideas and understand your conclusions, and, ultimately, to choose the solutions you recommend. The best ideas for making a company more efficient, for building a safe house for children in dangerous neighborhoods, for applying for a scholarship or a research grant are useless unless they can be articulated well.

 

Gathering Information

          Beginning the research process for a paper may be compared to a person entering a room filled with people who are already discussing a subject. As you go around the room, you simply listen to the different people. Some state opinions with clear and convincing reasoning; others are stridently certain about their own judgments but offer little evidence to back them up; others are quieter, only occasionally interjecting a few points, but the points are very enlightening on the subject. As you listen, you come to recognize what purpose the speakers have, what tones they convey, what they believe is true. You also recognize that some speakers have more credibility than others, speaking with detailed knowledge and authority; these have obviously studied the subject for a long time. Others seem to draw only on their personal experience or depend on their assumptions or prejudices to make their observations. You wonder about the speakers—do they know what they are talking about? You ask your host to identify them for you. Some, you find, are researchers in the field being discussed; some are newspaper reporters; some are popular novelists. After you listen carefully, you find your own opinion on the subject becoming clearer. You venture a comment or two in response; you listen to how the others respond to what you have added. You may combine a couple of ideas you’ve heard, making an informed and thoughtful synthesis. You gradually find yourself part of the “scholarly conversation.”

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          Taking your part in the “scholarly conversation” results from gathering sources, accurately and fairly reading them to generate your own ideas—resulting in your own thesis. As a researcher, you too are trying to hear as many voices on your subject as you can, but you also need to know the purpose and establish the credibility of each source in order to formulate your position on the subject. Libraries and the Internet provide many sources on nearly any subject. You need to discern which voices you can trust. A source taken from a scholarly or professional journal has certain credibility, for it has almost always been evaluated and approved by the author's peers—fellow experts in the field. Similarly, a book published by a university press or by a major publishing house carries with it the weight of authority. In some fields, such as science and technology, the more recent findings with new discoveries are usually more authoritative than older studies.

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          It is more difficult to establish the credibility of sources taken from the Internet or even from online data banks, but you must make an effort to do so. A source published there by a reputable magazine or journal carries the same credibility as if it were published in a hard copy. A signed source provides a way for you to check the credentials of the author. Unsigned material is more problematic: Are the data correct? Is the author knowledgeable? Is the author biased? These are questions that can be difficult to answer satisfactorily in some cases. But before you cite any of these sources in your own paper, you need to be sure that the source is accurate in its facts, valid in its argument, and credible. Your teacher and your handbook for this course can give you more guidance on how to determine if your sources are reliable or not.

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          When you incorporate sources into your writing, you need to quote, paraphrase, or summarize accurately. As you learned earlier this semester, students often think that they need to cite sources only if they are using the exact wording and therefore are using quotation marks. However, even if you paraphrase or summarize information from a source, you still need to cite where you found the information. In this course and several other disciplines (e.g., history, languages, music, art, and government), we use parenthetical citations, which follows the documentation practice of The Modern Languages Association (MLA). It’s worth being reminded that The OWL and your handbook for this course provide lots of examples of how to cite various types of sources.

 

          Besides accurately citing sources, you need to pay attention to how accurately you’ve paraphrased or summarized the information. It’s very important to not misrepresent the original material either accidentally or intentionally. Such distortions are usually inadvertent mistakes; however, taking quotations out of context or choosing words to distort what the source is saying, omitting words to slant meaning, or otherwise misusing the sources are ethically unacceptable in the writing process. Here are some examples of ways one can deliberately falsify sources, of course, through carelessness, these can also be committed unintentionally:

Intentionally misleading—purposefully misrepresenting something

• taking something out of context—separating an idea or fact from the material surrounding it, resulting in misleading, distorted, or false information

• misquoting—incorrectly quoting someone, either accidentally or on purpose—“Reds, … is most moving and unforgettable. It approaches epic proportions.”   —Rex Reed (movie critic). The entire quotation reads, “[The movie] Reds, when it abandons historical movements for personal relationships, is most moving and unforgettable. It approaches epic proportions, but only in a ponderous, stumbling way.”   – Rex Reed (movie critic)

• ambiguity and equivocation—using expressions that are not clear because they have more than one meaning

• card-stacking—inflating one’s own argument by ignoring evidence on the other side of a question

• false authority—supporting an argument with claims by someone who is not a reliable authority on the topic in question or has lost credibility over time. “Prince Charles has chosen the Cincinnati Bengals as three-point favorites in the Super Bowl.”

 

Refer to The OWL and your handbook for additional information, and then reread your material in its original context to test if you have dealt with it fairly.

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Synthesizing Information from Multiple Sources

          Writing essays and research papers involving several sources requires the skills of synthesis—that is, the ability to weave together information from multiple sources. It is a mistake to think that merely summarizing a few texts and sources results in a synthesis. As the related word “synthetic” suggests, you are creating something different out of component parts that fuse to each other in ways that result in a new creation. Academic essays called “research papers” demand more than summarizing the ideas you get from each source. Juxtaposing in two paragraphs what C.S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers say on a subject gives you two summaries, not a synthesis; nor is a synthesis simply a restatement in your own words of the material you may have discussed in class. A real synthesis provides a new idea or application, perhaps a thesis that you propose and argue. In other words, you use the information cited and interpreted by your sources to lead you to new concepts, applications, clarifications—to generate the meanings and the thesis that you want to understand.

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           An analogy to an artist weaving a rug may help in understanding the process of synthesizing. The weaver begins with wool yarn from many sources. It has different textures and colors. As she envisions her possibilities—floral designs or geometric patterns—she imagines how each color or texture will complement the others and determines coherent design and chooses a dominant color. This is like a researcher drawing on many diverse sources and determining the shape of his or her own synthesis or research paper will follow. The weaver, mixing the colored yarns in intricate ways, sits at her loom to weave a rug, the colors and textures corresponding to her carefully imagined design. Her pattern of the rug becomes clearer as she works. When she needs shadow or contrast, the darkest shades set off the brilliant highlights. The dominant color controls the design, as in synthesis writing a dominant idea controls and orders the subordinate material.

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          When the weaver completes her work, it reveals clear traces of the original; wool, their colors and textures now a part of the design. But all observers note that the material she started with, the rolls of solid-colored yarn in her baskets, are not just patches of single-hued squares in her design but have been transformed into an intricate and ordered pattern by her synthesizing craft. The word “weave” is important. A synthesis does not present information in “chunks” from each source; instead, it must intertwine and integrate information to create a smooth and continuous document. It is not put together like patchwork but rather by weaving threads of information together to create a beautiful design.

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          A writer must be careful in working with sources, however, because there can unethical ways of synthesizing material. Synthesizing may be misused when the ideas of texts or other sources are presented in a biased way. This may be done by over-emphasizing or under-representing one point or attitude in the original text. A writer must be careful to present the source material fairly and accurately. If a work is devoted to the raising of orchids but has one small section on tiger lilies, it is inappropriate to represent it as being “a book on lilies.” An extreme form of this overemphasis may so distort the meaning of the original as to constitute unethical interpretation, as may be seen in some movie advertisements. A critic says, “This picture continues Woody Allen’s increasingly sad attempts to create a string of comic masterpieces.” Wanting some good copy of the newspaper advertisement, an unscrupulous writer may leave out some important words: “This picture continues Woody Allen’s… string of comic masterpieces.” The three spaced dots, signifying the ellipsis, technically save the writer from telling a lie, but because the sense of the original statement is completely inverted, his quoting it in this way is unethical.

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          Finally, the synthesis may be faulty and its conclusions invalid if important information is not revealed and considered. Historical context, cultural attitudes, particular or extraordinary conditions—all these kinds of things need to be understood and accounted for. A student writer comparing a Hemingway story about suicide, such as “Indian Camp” and a story on the same subject by a Japanese writer, such as Yukio Mishima’s “Patriotism,” could not write a satisfactory synthesis of the works unless he or she explored the very different cultural attitudes held toward this subject in America and Japan.

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          Writing research papers and synthesis essays, like weaving, is a craft that you can learn. Taking pride in your workmanship, you deal with the information and ideas of your sources with respect and care. The resulting essay credits and shows appreciation to the thinking of those artists or scholars you have drawn from, for it is by their work you have been able to form your own thesis, and their ideas have provided—to continue the analogy—the loom on which you weave.

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          With your information gathered, analyzed, quoted, paraphrased, and summarized, you are ready to reflect on how all strands of it best fit together to build an insightful synthesis essay or research paper. By asking good questions as you reflect, you can establish some links among your sources—perhaps even identifying some issues that are best explained by a cause-effect pattern. You then are ready to narrow your focus, writing a tentative thesis that provides a guide for the ordering of your supporting material and for your further research. After you have completed a thorough search and selected the best, most authoritative sources you can find, you may discover that your thesis for the paper is insufficiently supported; you then need to modify your tentative thesis to conform to the information you have found. You may be making discoveries during research, or even during the writing of the essay, that change details in the thesis, so your wording of the thesis must not be considered final until you completed the essay. Before you invite your peers—or your teacher—to see your work, you want to be sure you have creatively woven your information, insights, and sources into a nicely written document.

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Revising

          Revising is a necessary step in the writing process if you want to produce a well-written essay or research paper; however, many students do not bother to revise. Professional writers know that a polished piece of work does not suddenly spring forth the first time they sit down to write. Henry David Thoreau revised Walden eight times, and Ernest Hemingway meticulously revised each work dozens of times. Well-written novels, poems, and essays develop over time as writers let their thoughts mature as they repeatedly return to their works to reread and revise. Good writing takes time and effort; consequently, writing the assignments the night before they are due doesn’t allow any opportunity for thoughts to mature or sentences to be reworked and refined.

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          Effective writing requires time and revision. Give yourself time to read and reflect on your work before handing it in. The secret to good writing is to read the first draft, revise, set it aside, read it again, and revise again. Sometimes when we write, we get so absorbed in the work and know what we mean to say that we don't recognize the fact that it is not clear to a reader who is not so involved in the subject. Therefore, we end up writing something that may make sense to us but not to the teacher or other readers. That is why it is important to set aside the work for a day, then read it "cold" after your mind has cleared, to see if it really does communicate your ideas and express them gracefully. Often it helps to let someone else read the work before you make your final revision. Professional writers, both fiction and nonfiction, depend on good readers (editors) to test their writing. Editors do much more than indicate errors in a text; they often suggest stylistic revisions—cuts, amplifications, reorganization, and changes in diction. Your peers may not be able to tell you how to fix something in your essay, but they can point out an awkward phrase, a confusing sentence, a grammatical error, the lack of a transition, and a gap in your reasoning.

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          One thing to remember when revising is that revision is not the same thing as proofreading. Proofreading is correcting for surface errors such as spelling and punctuation. Revision ("re-vi-sion"), on the other hand, is "re-looking" at the work to see if it is fulfilling the assignment, if the organization is logical, and if thoughts are clearly stated. Remember, true revision demands time away from the work so that you can view the work with clear vision. When you look at your writing again, you may see problems in organization or wording that you missed earlier.

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          When you revise, keep a dictionary and our course’s handbook nearby for quick reference. Even if the computer has a spellcheck, you still need a dictionary because spell checking programs miss homonyms, such as "their," "they're," and "there," and they can't recognize an incorrect spelling as long as it is a word, such as not recognizing that you meant to type "cart" but put in "car" instead. Because dictionaries give definitions and thus help you figure out which word to use, you can avoid problems with commonly confused words like "affect" and "effect" and homonyms "stationary" and "stationery." Our handbook offers writing instruction such as composing good introductions and conclusions, documenting sources, blending quotations into the essay, and also revising. Working with our handbook can help you with your particular problem areas, but it can also help with these three common (and often overlooked) problems—ones that are especially important in developing a graceful, mature style: diction, sentence variety, and transitions.

 

Research Paper Topics and Additional Guidelines

          What has been presented so far in this chapter is general instruction for writing a research paper, but writing a research paper is the most complex assignment in this course. Consequently, your teacher will be providing more specific information and guidelines for your class’s research paper assignment:

• Topic: Your teacher may specify a choice of topics or may restrict topics because they’re too broad or have been overused (e.g., abortion, dress code, racism).

• Some teachers may require the thesis and research paper to be an argumentation research paper. If so, the instructions are below.

• Some teachers may require the thesis and research paper to be a cause and effect paper. If so, instructions are below.

 

Presenting an Argument

 

          With the type of discourse called argument, humans explore their different views on any issue. The most ideal end of argument is to arrive at the best interpretation of a set of data and resolve issues under dispute. One person may affirm his or her reading of the facts; the other person may then respond with a counter reading point, counterpoint, thesis, antithesis, assertion, and denial. By this kind of dialogue, the argument proceeds, moving from assertion to other important elements: confirmation, concession, and refutation. By paying close attention to the opponent’s points, the disputants can refine the issues, understand them better, and come to some resolution. They may not agree with each other yet, but by arguing the issue carefully and responsibly, they have clarified and solidified their reasoning, testing it against strong opposition.

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          But argumentation can, like persuasion, be abused. Some formats for argumentative discussions seem to be programmed to ensure disagreement. In a formal debate, for example, the purpose of reaching clarification and resolution is not always an obvious end. Each team or each single debater is already committed to a position, which is defended as the best position, the one the audience should agree with. Debating tactics encourage competition, the debaters focusing on winning, becoming defensive or aggressively offensive, or losing sight of their purpose to explore all aspects of the issue to reach the most satisfactory resolution or answer. They resort to using flawed logic, biased statements, or invalid interpretation of data just to win the argument. The opponent’s arguments are unfairly slanted or oversimplified by labels and stereotypes. Debate is effective to highlight the debaters’ differences, but it rarely leads to satisfactory solutions to the problems being debated. Senators still have debates on the floor of Congress, but one must wonder if these do more than provide them with sound bites for the local news in their home states. The real decision-making and deal-cutting occur off stage, in the Senate hallways and offices, as freer discussion permits more valid argument, and the give and take of good minds momentarily forgetting public images and partisan definitions and focus on real solutions to real problems.

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          Focusing on finding the truth, as much as it is possible, and resolving issues requires one to understand and deal respectfully with other points of view. You do not need to agree with them, of course, but you need to know and understand what they are saying. Christian students sometimes think they should read only Christian writers—and, sometimes, only writers who are “certain kinds” of Christians. These students take a fearful or defensive stance toward any idea that they have not encountered, or heard approved of, from the authority figures of their beliefs. The modern evangelical Christian scholar Frank Gaebelein answers this affirmatively in his essay “The Debasement of Taste”:

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The wholesale avoidance of all modern literature and entertainment will not do. Not everything the world does is corrupt. Under God’s common grace unbelievers write great novels and plays, paint beautiful canvases, compose fine music, and produce worthy motion pictures.

 

          Even if we do not expect valid or good insights to come from writers or artists who are not Christian, are we justified in refusing to receive their works? Jesus requests water from the Samaritan woman, an ethnic group scorned by the Jews of His day, before He speaks to her about the water of life. Similarly, we should not be reluctant to know and appreciate and learn from the creative products of all humans, even if only to acquaint ourselves with enough knowledge to begin a dialogue. If you wish to discuss your differences, even your religious differences, with others, how can you do that effectively without taking care to hear and understand what they are saying?

 

          Unfortunately, informal arguments seem less concerned with exploring issues and reaching resolutions than with proclaiming the “rightness” of the speaker. Our arguments with each other may become loud, emotional, and dramatic, and as individual positions are staked out and vigorously declared, the need to defend oneself leads to more and more intransigent positions. Rather than seeking to resolve issues or solve problems, typical arguers fall into prideful, ego-protecting declaration and even name-calling.

Slogans are built out of this need to proclaim one’s “rightness” to the world. Bumper stickers are an example of this kind of self-proclamation, not calling for rational discourse on a subject, but advertising a position, attitude, or cause supported by the one displaying the slogan. “America, love it or leave it” proclaims an either/or claim that equates thoughtful criticism with being unpatriotic. Indeed, most “either/or” declarations are faulty because “either/or” dismisses the full range of actions available. A democracy thrives on the ability of its citizens to be informed, to discuss rationally, to question, and to offer thoughtful suggestions and criticism. Unthinking allegiance to any party or cause represents not freedom, but slavery. Even God, as seen over and over again in Scriptures, allows people freedom of will.

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          Religious slogans, like religious jargon, usually put people off rather than attract them. Real dialogue about religious matters comes when humans address each other personally, with respect and mutual concern. Relating your religious beliefs in order to share them with others has little effect if you have not bothered to get to know them, their own beliefs, and their problems. If you want to speak meaningfully to them and have them listen to you, take the effort to open a personal discourse and listen to them; don’t just “do your duty” by quoting Scripture. Otherwise, rather than manifesting the love of Christ, your presence may convey an impression of smug self-righteousness.

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          To come to resolution on disputed issues, you need to understand the other person’s argument, the data he or she draws. In a written argument or thesis essay, stating the opposing side clearly and accurately is essential. Argue rationally and review these logical fallacies that often sideline an argument:

• Don’t set up a “straw man,” a distorted version of the other’s ideas, to argue against.

• Don’t confuse the issue by a “red herring,” that is, an irrelevant distraction from the main point.

• Don’t “beg the question” by assuming basic issues that have not been previously established by both people arguing the question (refer to the earlier part of the chapter for a description of the abridged syllogism called an enthymeme).

 

          A helpful way of understanding how these and other logical fallacies work is to note that some provide evasions of the real question or issue: “begging the question,” “red herring,” “ad hominem” (that is, arguing against the person rather than the issue at stake).

Other fallacies are oversimplifications of the argument or supporting material: “hasty generalizations,” “either/or fallacies,” “false analogies,” “stereotyping,” and the “slippery slope” (framing the issue with extreme consequences: “If we do this, it will consequently lead to more and more extreme measures, finally reaching an evil extreme”).

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          You can find examples of these fallacies in letters published in newspapers or magazines and in comments people make on radio or television talk shows, for many people feel intensely about subjects they know little about. And they feel free to express themselves on these subjects whether or not they have thought critically about the issues or have done needed research to become informed about the history or context of the issues.

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          You should review the section on logical thinking in your handbook. It provides definitions and examples of various kinds of logical fallacies that you need to avoid. Refer also to the handbook for detailed information on writing persuasive and argumentative essays.

 

Cause and Effect

 

          In chapter 2 is a brief explanation of organizing and presenting information in a cause and effect arrangement. In using cause and effect reasoning, writers try to explain why something happens, what causes precede and constitute a later effect. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in “The Channeled Whelk,” uses cause and effect as she writes about her activities, listing how very specific things about her life, relationships, and social involvement cause specific effects in her emotions. Similarly, Margaret Sanger, in “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery,” details her graphic experiences as a nurse in New York in the early 1900s as she delivered babies to poverty-stricken women unable to feed another child and fought to save women who had tried to abort their own pregnancies. Sanger uses these experiences to illustrate the cause and effect connections between poverty and women’s health and how the lack of contraceptives and family planning can lead to large families and even more poverty.

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          A cause and effect presentation shows a relationship between events. It does not simply tell what happened; it explains why. Usually there is not one simple cause for something or one simple effect; instead, there are usually numerous factors involved, both long-term contributing factors as well as immediate causes. Likewise, there may be immediate effects and long-term effects. Students must be cautious about making assertions of causality, though, because it’s easy to mistake a relationship in time for a cause/effect relationship, for example, assuming that “A happened and then B happened” is the same thing as “A happened, therefore B happened.”

Here are a few pointers to remember when writing a paper showing cause and effect relationships:

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1.  Make sure what you say really is a cause and/or effect. At first glance, something may appear to be the cause of the effect, but on closer analysis, you discover it really isn’t.

a.  Avoid hasty generalizations and stereotypes because they are not based on carefully researched evidence. They use only surface evidence, lack critical thinking, and ignore possible underlying—and therefore less obvious—causes and/or effects.

b.  Avoid a post hoc fallacy, which assumes that something is the case just because it occurred around the same time, for example, blaming a roommate for keeping you up past midnight when the real reason you stayed up was that you were writing a paper. True, your roommate was also up late, but he or she didn’t cause you to be up late, too.

 

2.  Be care not to confuse the words “affect” and “effect.” “Affect” is a verb, so you could write a statement that says, “The hurricane affected the lives of Floridians for more than a decade.” “Effect is a noun, so you might say something such as “The devastating economic effects of the hurricane were felt for more than a decade.”

 

3.  Make sure you actually show the relationship (the causes and effects). Just giving information and expecting the reader to discover the cause and effect relationship does not make the paper a cause and effect presentation. Words that show this relationship include “due to,” “since,” “if…then,” “because of,” “because,” “consequently,” “therefore,” “resulting in” and “so.” Verbs showing such relationships include “influence,” “brought about,” “produced,” “directed,” “resulted in,” “benefited,” and “affected.”

 

          Look at the two paragraphs below. They contain the same information; however, the way they are worded and presented make them different. The first one is a narrative (it tells what happened), but the other one shows the relationships (causes and effects) involved. Notice, too, the words (in bold font) that clearly indicate the cause and effect presentation of the information.

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Narration

The Mid-Continent Nuclear Reactor was built in 1985 after much debate in the community over the safety features included in the core and structure surrounding the radioactive materials. The government asked several scientists and architects to speak to the nearby residents to explain the construction of the dome, the various back-up safety systems, the minimal impact on the environment, the tax benefits given by the government, and the numerous jobs that would be created.  After much discussion, the community agreed to have the reactor built.

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Cause and Effect

The building of the Mid-Continent Nuclear Reactor in 1985 caused much debate between the government and the residents of the community in which it was to be built.  Some items that produced concern were the safety features in the reactor and the possible impact on the environment. Because of the community’s alarm over the reactor, the government sent experts to speak with the nearby residents and explain that there would be beneficial effects, such as new jobs, tax breaks, and no negative environmental effects. This open communication resulted in the community’s approval to build the reactor in their neighborhood.