Freedom and Control in the Research Paper

search anthologies for the long paper imposes considerable, sometimes deleterious, control. I want to describe an approach designed to realize the best and avoid the worst of both approaches by a combination of group learning and individualized instruction. But first, I think, I must acknowledge that some Freshman Composition instructors do not want to teach the research paper (term paper, multiple source paper, or investigative paper) by any method or by any name. I want not so much to argue for teaching the research paper, as to suggest a possible improvement for those who are going to teach it anyhow. Those who would like to drop it have formidable support from Albert Kitzhaber, who has contended in Themes, Theory and Therapy that secondary source research is not an activity endemic in English studies and should not take up time in an English class which can better be devoted to writing several shorter papers.' That's a compelling position, but there is another view. If the research paper is not exclusively the concern of English, it is at least as much its business as that