This document provides guidelines for a 2500 word paper on a debatable U.S. state or federal government issue. The paper must include a historical background on how the issue and related laws have changed over time, discuss the issue in relation to the U.S. Constitution citing evidence from amendments or other sources, and provide scholarly and topical sources to support a hypothesis while also including counterarguments. An outline is suggested beginning with an introduction of the topic, a research question, a thesis statement as the hypothesis, more background details, a pro-con debate over the thesis, and a conclusion weighing the pros against the cons.