In order to prepare yourselves for the "big paper," you will conduct two separate topic investigations or "I-searches." From these investigations, you will write two I-search / Topic Selection papers (see criteria below). Begin by asking yourself:
- "What interests me?"
- "What do I want to know more about?"
- "What do I need to know more about?"
- "What should I start learning about?"
- "What topics might be discussed in classes I plan to take?"
As a first step, please determine five possible topics. We will then go through them and eliminate three and you will continue working with two of them.
At this stage in the process, you will not, of course, have statements to make about these topics (thesis or otherwise). Go instead for research questions, which means questions you will be attempting to answer in your research sessions. Once you have completed a bit of research, however, you will probably have assumptions to make (and include) in regard to the research questions.
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Purpose:
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To delve into two topics in which you are interested and begin thinking about which one you may want to investigate even further... throughout the semester. To make sure you all have at least moderate skills researching academic topics and finding credible, scholarly source materials.
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Audience:
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You, your classmates, and me.
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Length:
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As long as it takes
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Resources:
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You should have some sort of bibliography or list of sources you've found as well as ideas for avenues of further primary research. While you won't be expected to have read completely every single one, it would be to your best interest to have at least nibbled on all and digested a few. You will locate at least ten (10) sources for each search. The ten will include a variety of source types, but will consist predominantly of scholarly and/or professional journals.
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Format: APA or MLA - but not a hybrid or mix of the two.
Project Guidelines:
- Include TWO I-searches on two DIFFERENT topics.
Address the following in separate, labeled sections:
- What academic setting you could complete such a project for
- What you knew about this topic
- Why I would be writing about this topic / Any personal connection to topic
- The Search - what you have done and what else you could do if you were to fully explore the topic and write a significant essay about it. This section should be very detailed and be approximately one page.
- What you learned and your gut feeling about topic's likelihood of keeping you interested through end of April.
- The "What I Learned" section will be relatively brief; in this section, you may end up discussing why this particular I-search is or is not about a topic you would like to further investigate for your "big paper."
- Citations should be given for specific information included in any section.
- You are not required to submit drafts of the I-Search Paper, but I am more than willing to give feedback to your draft.
- You won't be expected to use all the sources you present in your I-search, but it would be to your best interest to choose strong sources you could use in the future-duh.
- Because this is a 200-level composition course, we will not discuss in any detail the "basics" of writing an essay-paragraph structure, grammar, thesis, topic sentences-but I expect you to utilize these strategies when writing your I-search papers. If this is something you are concerned about, you may always visit the Writing Center for feedback.
- The omission of running spell check and proofreading from your essay will adversely affect your grade.
- You will not be required to work with these topics/research questions for other projects, but it would, of course, make a lot of sense and save you significant work in the in initial stages of later projects to do so.