Research Project Report:

Objectives:

1- To expose you to film- and literature-related scholarly articles and databases. As you have chosen to enter this far into the discipline, you must develop at least a minimal working knowledge of the discipline's modes of discourse.

2- To cause you to think critically about the relationship of your sources and communicate effectively to an integrated community of learners who are by definition interested in and supported by each other's work.

A Research Project Report is an articulate discussion of your research from its inception. It is a snapshot of your research as it has proceeded over a finite period of time. In general, you describe your interests and how they change, and describe, more or less objectively, the reading you have done on your topic.

Specifications: at least six double-spaced pages, New Times Roman 12 pt. font, Works Cited.

Requirements:

1- Submission by one of the two due date in the schedule.

2- At least four outside sources. Two of these sources MUST be from one of the FSU databases such as Academic Search Complete, accessible from the library home page. The other two sources may be from the databases or from articles in reputable newspapers or magazines that originate in PRINT, that is, on paper.

Note: don't select just any old source. Employ sources that actually help you to learn about your topic, and that make the writing of this paper less difficult. Hint: in all cases, solid research makes writing EASIER.

3- The Report will be divided into several sections, all of which must be labeled. Below, I have provided numerous questions that you can use as prompts as you begin the first draft of your Report. You don't have to answer ALL the questions, and you may want to include information that the questions below don't ask for. The goal is to provide an interesting narrative description of your research project AS IT IS PRESENTLY. (Naturally, it will have to be developed enough to write a complete Report.)

Section One

What is your topic? (An idea related to a film maker or to a film or films can be a topic, as well as such literary movements as Film Noir and Classical Hollywood Cinema.) What specifically did you want to find out about your topic when you began? If there was nothing specific at the beginning, how did your interests become more specific? (That is, you might have been interested in Orson Welles to begin with, but as you read you became interested in how he portrayed women.) What drew you to the topic? Why are you interested in it? Describe any personal experiences with the topic including ambivalent feelings about it. How would you describe all of your research in one succinct thesis statement? (That is, what does all of your research have in common?)

Hint 1- How do you discover a topic? Consult your text. Virtually every paragraph will reveal a potential topic.

Hint 2- This project is not in itself an essay, though it contains an essay (Section 3). Therefore, your topic may be quite broad.

Hint 3- In Section 1 or 2, describe to me how you narrowed your initially too-broad topic. (Sometimes your initial topic may be too narrow for this project, but this is rare.)

Section Two

Describe how your understanding of your topic has changed since you began. Have you been forced to narrow your topic to fit within the confines of this assignment? What have you found out about your topic? What new questions are being raised as you continue your research? How do you feel about your sources? Are they giving you enough information? Do they agree or disagree with each other on your topic? What particular problems are you encountering in your research and writing? Has your project been difficult of easy or in-between so far?

Section Three-Informative Synthesis

In this section, a kind of short essay, you are to employ the techniques of comparison/contrast in order to analyze the relationship of your sources. The intent is to generate a basis of comprehension of your topic upon which you will later build ideas and a position of your own.

The word "synthesis" is a combination of the Greek words "syn" (in short, a bringing-together), and "thesis" (meaning the central idea of an argument). Basically, a synthesis brings together two or more theses for purposes of discussion.

There are two main types of synthesis: the informative and the argumentative. An independent essay is normally argumentative; this one, however, will be informative.

Your purpose is to inform your readers about the breadth of opinion on your topic. Thus you will not be arguing, for example, for or against an interpretation of a film. In other words, you will be taking a neutral attitude toward your topic. Follow this organizational scheme:

Synthesis Introduction

As you want this paper to be actually useful and interesting to an audience, you will of course need an eye-catching lead-in. This will be the first sentence of your introduction. One way to begin an essay of this type is to ask a provocative question such as "Is Orson Welles the greatest director of all time?" (Naturally, you would only want to ask such a question if Welles's greatness was the major topic of your sources). The intro should conclude with your thesis statement. The thesis should be comprehensive in nature, informing your audience, in a nutshell, what you intend to tell them of the range of opinion on this issue. Although you might begin your draft with a working thesis that states, in effect, "Some of my sources argue that Welles's childhood contributed to his ultimate failure; others argued the opposite," you will want to modify it later to say something about what kind of arguments you found on this topic. An example might be something like "Opinion about the effect of Hildegaard Bibberblatt's upbringing on her film work are varied. On the one hand are those who see a woman tortured by her father's philistine choice of soft drinks. On the other are those who see Bibberblat as having transcended her childhood, taking as her topic the ultimate freedom of all humans to determine what kind of soda they prefer, as long as it's Coke or Pepsi."

Synthesis Body

The primary content of this section is at least four summaries of the kinds of articles described in "Specifications," all of which are related to your topic. Each summary will contain at least one quote and one paraphrase. Begin this section, after your introduction, with a summary of your favorite, or most important, source. In each subsequent summary, begin with a transitional statement that links the source in this particular summary with the other sources. For example, you might begin your second summary by saying something like, "unlike my first source, my second source opposes says that Welles was remarkably deficient in his narrative skills." Or, "unlike my first source, which favored Welles's directorial skills, my second source takes no position on the matter, emphasizing instead the extraordinary lack of public response to Welles's oeuvre.

Section Four

Conclude your research report with general observations about your topic. Were your sources hard to understand? Was there terminology that you had to do further research on to understand? How do you feel about your topic as you conclude your research?