10th Grade English Research Paper "reliable sources" (on mustachian-type things)

[NickV]

So I've gotta write a research paper for my tenth grade English class. We're allowed to write it on nearly any subject we want. I've chosen to write mine on "The Benefits of Anti-consumerism/Minimalism" (probably not the final title)... so mustachian sorts of things, basically.

I need some of what my teacher calls "reliable" sources, which apparently includes major news websites (hmm...). So what I would like to ask of the kind people of the MMM forums is to help me with finding some "reliable" sources. What I'm looking for specifically is interviews on major news websites, like The Washington Post, with people like Mr Money Mustache, Jacob from ERE, the guys from The Minimalists, and other bloggers. I would prefer those sorts of people, but they need to be backed up by a "credible" sources.* If anyone manages to find something from someone with, say, a PhD in economics, she would probably take that as credible enough.

Here are my planned sub-topics:
1. Town: bike-friendliness including suitable roads and cost of living.
2. House: size (heatableness), buying cost (obviously), closeness to work, closeness to shops.
3. Car: fuel efficiency, reliability, appropriate size.
4. Bike: generally just ride one. reliability, cost, snow suitableness, apparent-seeming price (how much someone would want to steal it).
5. Stuff: buy less, fixing and maintaining things, buying used/quality things.
6. Saving electricity: keeping your home efficient, using renewable resources.
7. Saving and investing: Index funds, Roth IRA/401(k), precious metals, relatively slowly inflating currencies, deflating currencies (cryptocurrencies**)(most likely going to be split into more than one sub-topic)

So basically it's an outline of, like, everything finance/eco related.

What I'm planning on doing for each sub-topic is first describing what you can do, and then what the financial and eco benefits of it are per year. It should probably be reasonably easy to find sources for the environmental part, but they're still more than welcome ;) .

See, my problem here is that although I feel it wouldn't be too hard to just do the calculations and figure out the benefits of these things, I've got to have sources from some sort of what's generally referred to as an "authority" on the subject. I feel that this is entirely non-logical in reality, but the point is that we're writing a research paper, which means that it's gotta be jam-packed with citations, basically.

*She said no bloggers, but I asked her if interviews on major news websites would make them "credible"... and apparently they do.
**Yeah, I believe in things like Bitcoin. If you'd like to try to prove to me my ignorance/naiveity on the subject, send me a message, please.

[Unionville]

I'm sorry about your teacher's definition of reliable sources being major media.  The things that have changed my life have come from forums and podcasts.  They are pretty reliable.  At least more than the Washington post advice.  I meet people who actually DO THESE THINGS whereas popular media usually only "talks about" people who do these things (or criticizes them).

btw: you are really cool to write on these topics.  You sound like a genius.  Tell your teacher that.

[galliver]

He was on WSJ Marketwatch recently, it was pretty thorough. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-retire-early-35-years-early-2014-01-17

In fact he has a list of interviews/media appearances here: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/road-trips/

Your teacher would probably also accept books: I just read MMM's review of "Millionaire Next Door" and it sounds like it could be helpful to you (I haven't read it but plan to). There are other books that show up on this site often: Early Retirement Extreme and Your Money or Your Life come to mind.  There's a recommendations forum on the topic.

Unrelated: Even PhD's have to justify their work by putting it in context of others' work. Even if you're an expert at running numbers on [thing], you have to put it next to someone else's numbers (calculated or experimentally measured) and say "look we got almost the same thing!" Don't hate your teacher too much.

[the fixer]

You should ask if personal interviews are okay. You could get content for the paper by finding, say, 5 different people in various life stages and discussing how each approaches the topics in your outline. Of course you may end up implicitly stating generalizations, for which you'd want authoritative sources to back you up. If you ask on this thread, I suspect you'll get plenty of us willing to do email interviews.

Easy-to-find sources would be contrasting this with mainstream culture. Look for stats on how much the average person spends on their car each year (AAA I think publishes this). Ditto for houses, average commute distance, etc.

I think two recurring themes to use when discussing this topic are: demonstrating that minimalism requires lifestyle engineering, making a series of related choices that work well together and avoiding choices that would make the whole thing fall apart; and how people are using minimalism to enjoy life more. We aren't just sitting around gleefully watching our Vanguard balances go up every day, we have lives and use all of this to let us live more of them.

You could also do an intro section if you need to make it longer on historical precedence for minimalist lifestyles. You can go all the way back to Buddhism and other religious teachings that reject materialism, and/or discuss events as recent as the Great Depression and how it taught an entire generation to be extremely frugal. This is all easy to back up with sources, of course.

Another option: see this MMM guest post by arebelspy. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/07/08/early-retirement-cant-work-or-id-have-heard-of-it-before/ Much of ARS's assertions can be backed up with sources, so you could do the research and present the same historical argument for why it works. To go along with that, look for Keynes' prediction from the 30s that we'd only need to be working 8 hours per week today.

[galliver]

By the by, I forgot to mention: your outline looks very ambitious. Maybe your 10th grade papers are longer than mine were, but consider choosing *one* of those topics and elaborating on it. It would allow you to go much more in depth on the subject.

[amha]

Robert Frank, an economics professor at Cornell, wrote an essay that I read in 11th grade that changed my life---and which hits on a lot of subjects related to anti-consumerism. The title is "How Not to Buy Happiness", and there seems to be an ungated PDF here: http://scaview.org/pdf/How%20not%20to%20buy%20happiness%20frank.pdf

[NickV]

By the by, I forgot to mention: your outline looks very ambitious. Maybe your 10th grade papers are longer than mine were, but consider choosing *one* of those topics and elaborating on it. It would allow you to go much more in depth on the subject.

We've got an entire quarter's worth of class time to work on this paper, it's supposed to be a good ten pages or so... I'm liking your ideas so far, what you suggested about stats is one of what I was thinking about doing.

I'll look into all of you's ideas tomorrow, I'm going to bed now, though.

[gooki]

I concur with reducing the scope. 1-3 topics would be more than sufficient for a 10 page essay.

[alexismcgrath]

i'm sure you are well int your paper by now, but, if you are still focusing....focus. Read until you find a compelling debatable source that argues an (much smaller than your original topic) interesting point. Look at the sources referred to in this article, look at the sources in those article, keep reading and making notes (with the references attached to your notes so you know where the information came from. Start to define your opinion about the focused (debateable) issue and have conversations with people about these ideas to help further develop your position. Do more research about new ideas that come up (and follow the references from articles). One strong sign that a source is credible is that it has references. Following reference trees is like an upside down 'tree' the roots (references) of each article leads to more and more smaller roots (references). Just make sure to read widely enough that you use a number of credible original articles and that you look at a variety of viewpoints, not just the sources tat agree with your thesis/opinion.BTW an oldschool approach is to find a book on your toic in a reasonable sized library and skim the books shelved adjacent (on the same topic) for more useable sources.