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Jacob Cook

Jennifer Molnar

College Writing 102

16 September 2021

Research Paper Narrative

My topic is should the United States redistribute its wealth and how. I chose this topic

because it’s becoming very popular with especially young voters since the 2016 election after

Bernie Sanders was in the primary for the Democratic party. Around the end of 2019 I learned

about redistributing wealth and what people who support it mean when saying that phrase or

others like “tax the rich” or “eat the rich.” I do support redistributing wealth but I believe that I

don’t have all the answers so I hope researching this topic for my paper will help me figure out

the “how” on my topic. Research strategy is the actions I take when I’m researching for a paper

and what I am looking for in research. I needed more research on the solutions for redistributing

wealth, so my research strategy for my paper was to find more articles and sources about the how

of redistributing wealth because most of those articles will explain why the Untied States or any

country should redistribute wealth.

To start my research, I had to narrow down a topic, so I was able to narrow down my

topic to redistributing wealth because this topic was the most interesting and the most

controversial of my topic. Also, this topic has the most misinformation out in the media about it

so I want to at least try and put my thoughts and research about this topic. Next was finding

useful keywords to do my research. For my keywords I had three categories: First are words for
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money, so words like wealth, income, wages, and more specific gross or net wage, and

household income. Second are words for distribution, so redistribution, predistribution, welfare,

and Land reform. Third are words for the location, so The Untied States and America. The third

topic was the least helpful because many sources don’t give specific solutions for the US but any

nation in general. Then next was finding my sources.

First were tertiary sources. These sources are websites like Wikipedia so that is exactly

where I went to start find basic information and some other sources I could use. I used Wikipedia

to find all my keywords. I was able to find definitions for most of these keywords like

predistribution and land reform. These terms are specific parts of redistribution so learning the

different ways to redistribute wealth was helpful. Also, just a fun fact that I got from Wikipedia,

Divorce is a form of wealth redistribution, so America has had wealth redistribution for some

time. Other things I found on Wikipedia were historical accounts of wealth redistribution in

leftist project or old colony in the new world. So finding information of what these societies did

was useful to know, but more useful was finding out why these nations fell or don’t exist now.

This is helpful to know if the failure of the state was because of the wealth redistribution of from

outside forces like imperialism.

Next were popular sources. To find these sources, I just did a simple google search. Even

though that doesn’t sound like a good idea, but I was able to find three good sources that would

help me with my topic. My method of finding good sources is using the CRAAP test which

stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose test. All the articles that I

found did very well on the test. Even though none had a perfect score, all did good enough for

me to decide to use the articles for my paper. The First source is a journal entry from yahoo by
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Kristin Myer about how wealth redistribution isn’t stealing from the rich but giving the working

class their fair share of income for the work they do. Then she states that specifically racial

groups would benefit most from this and how wealth redistribution would help close the racial

gap. Next source is also a journal entry from Time magazine by Nick Hanauer and David Rolf.

This article specific talks about how after the COVID-19 pandemic that we need wealth

redistribution because the rich gained more wealth and rest of the population lost income and

even lost jobs. The article explained how the rich exploited the rest of us by making us cut some

of people’s wages and having to buy more products to protect ourselves. The last source is a

journal entry from NBER by Matt Nesvisky. This source is comparing the social programs of

European countries and The Untied States. This article explains how even though that people in

European countries have less economic freedom, which isn’t only caused by social programs,

those countries have lower poverty rates than the Untied States. Also, these countries have easier

access to education. After finishing finding these popular articles, I was time to find scholarly

sources.

Lastly, I found three scholarly sources. I found these sources by scrolling through the

giant databases the college, Cleveland State University. I used my keywords that I figured out

earlier in my research to help filter the sources I may want to use. Many of the sources I found

for scholarly sources didn’t have specific solutions for wealth redistribution in the Untied States,

but I was able to find research done about how successful wealth redistribution was in other

countries. Even though I couldn’t find anything specifically looking at the Untied States, finding

the sources still give me solutions to wealth redistribution. The first source I found was

explaining how wealth redistribution can be more efficient than true economic freedom. The

second source I found explained how to establish wealth redistribution when the rest of the world
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doesn’t follow. The last source I found is about how to promote wealth redistribution in countries

like the Untied States. This is helpful to try and get people on the fence to agree with wealth

redistribution. After finding all my sources, I cited all of them in MLA format and made a work

cited page.

I believe that my research strategy was decent. I don’t believe it was perfect, but I believe

it would be good enough to have good research. I was able to find good sources and information

on my topic. I believe that I have a good start to my research for my topic, and with a few more

sources, I should have enough to argue my point with enough evidence. A lot of sources can give

me answers on how to redistribute the wealth and why it is the right option in our society. I

believe that my research strategy is a success.

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Work Cited

Drenik Andres, et al. “Wealth Redistribution after Exchange Rate Devaluations.” AEA Papers

and Proceedings, vol. 108, May 2018, pp. 552–556. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-

com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26452800&site=eds-

live&scope=site.

Galdi, Silvia, et al. “The Bright Side of Pessimism: Promoting Wealth Redistribution under

(Felt) Economic Hardship.” PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 12, Dec. 2020, pp. 1–34. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243486.

Hanauer, Nick, et al. “America's 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion from the Bottom 90%.” Time, Time,
14 Sept. 2020, https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/.

Myer, Kristin. “America Needs 'Wealth REDISTRIBUTION,' NOT 'Income Transfer':

Economist.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 11 June 2021, news.yahoo.com/america-needs-wealth-

redistribution-policy-for-descendants-of-slavery-economist-154309438.html.

Nesvisky, Matt. “Redistribution, Inequality, and Happiness.” NBER, National Bureau of

Economic Research , www.nber.org/digest/aug01/redistribution-inequality-and-happiness.

SHAW, Alex, and Andrew W. DELTON. “Share the Wealth: Redistribution Can Increase

Economic Efficiency.” Political Behavior, vol. 40, no. 2, Jan. 2018, pp. 279–300. EBSCOhost,

search-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=ijh&AN=68.5883&site=eds-live&scope=site