Paper Goal:? Trace the trend in public opinion on a specific issues over time and examine potential reasons for the trend. You will compare your personal opinion on the issue to that of t

Paper Goal: 

• Trace the trend in public opinion on a specific issues over time and examine potential reasons for the trend. You will compare your personal opinion on the issue to that of the public opinion and examine factors influencing public opinion. 

Paper Assignment:

1. Identify a salient political or social issue of interest to you, such as abortion, capital punishment, same sex marriage, immigration, or climate change. (These are just examples. Feel free to choose another topic.)
2. Go to the Gallup Polls homepage. Locate long term trends (20 years +) in public opinion for your selected topic. (You can search on this site for public opinion on key political and social issues by using the search feature in the upper right-hand corner of the website.) 
3. Write a paper that covers the following items:

• Describe how public opinion has changed over time. Include a graph from Gallup that shows the trend in the body of your paper.
• Analyze the trend, using research to assist with your analysis. Questions to consider – What factors may have contributed to the change (or no change) in public opinion?  Given your analysis of current trend, predict the future. What will opinion on this issue look like in five or ten years? Explain.
• Explain your opinion on the selected topic. Questions to consider — Why do you hold this opinion? What factors have influenced your opinion? Has your perspective changed over time?  Why or why not?  How does your opinion compare to recent public opinion on the issue? 
• Make sure to explain in your paper how what you learned during this project relates to two course concepts or key terms.

Make sure to include a work cited page.