The Research Paper as an Act of Citizenship: Possibilities and Pragmatism.

Presents the author's views on possibilities and pragmatism of a research paper as an act of citizenship. Information that one has seen the rising status of service-learning and an allied emergence of what is being termed variously civic engagement, rhetorical democracy, or community writing; View that many instructors are drawn to service-learning and civic-engagement writing projects because they sense that these types of writing assignments make their instruction "real" in the sense that students see the effect of their rhetorical practice; Opinion that service-learning tied to composition has created changes in how instructors teach, making them seriously rethink instructional methods.