PART I:  Finding a Resource

Go to the Library's homepage.  To do that, you can either go to the MCTC page and click on the Library link at the bottom of the page (next to the D2L link), or go directly to http://www.minneapolis.edu/library/index.html

• Click on the Research Help icon on the left side of the page below the search box, then scroll down to Research Guides.
• Scroll down to Course Guides and find English 1111: Focus on Gender.

Now answer these questions

1. What is your tentative topic? (Note: "gender" is too broad. Choose a specific aspect. You don't have to use this as your actual paper topic, but one point of this exercise is to help you to move in that direction.)

2. What kinds of conversations have you had about your topic (for example, with family, friends, in other courses, etc.)?   Who else do you want to talk to about the topic, and what specific questions do you want to ask? Note that if you really don't have any questions about the topic, it is not a good choice for research (because research is a process of asking questions, right?)

3. Choose one source from the Research Guide that is relevant to your topic. Provide citation information - title, author, publisher, publication date. If it's an article, provide both the article title and the title of the book or journal where the article is published

4. Address these questions about your tentative source:

5. a) Describe what KIND of source it is (for example, is it an article in an encyclopedia? an e-book? a journal article? are you unsure what it is?) b) after briefly skimming the source, record its main point AND describe what you think is the purpose of this source c) explain why this source seems useful for YOUR topic in particular d) describe something (a fact, an idea) you learned from the source so far

NOTE that you MUST skim the sources to answer these question. So don't choose a print book for this exercise unless you're going to go to the library physically and pull it off the shelf and read part of it.

Part II: A prelimary research question

This part of the exercise is asking you to work on focusing your research question. Your ideas will continue to evolve as you do more research, but this step should help focus your research efforts (and hopefully same sometime as you move forward!)

1. What is your general TOPIC? What FOCUS area(s) - information, history, assumptions, goals, outcomes, policies - are you interested in exploring about this topic?

2. What specific QUESTION do you want to answer about your issue?

3. How did you decide on this question? Be specific. For example, you may have come to it through this research exercise, the reading, the class discussions, a life long preoccupation, a vivid experience, etcetera.   Why do you think this question is interesting and important to answer, for your readers as well as for yourself?

4. Identify any resources you've found so far that look promising and explain briefly why you chose them. Note that you may use the assigned class reading as resources, as well as the resource you identified in the first part of this exercise.   You should have AT LEAST 2 resources at this point!!!Provide full MLA citations for each potential source.

5. Without further research, answer your question in one complete sentence. (Not a paragraph. A sentence. I'm not kidding. A sentence.)