You should focus on a particular problem, process, or event within the area you choose.
You should develop a core question, and a thesis which attempts to answer that question, and a body of evidence. In other words, your paper should take a theoretical stance in the form of the use of theory. What is your read on what is happening here and why do you think it is a good one?
You should incorporate at least 4 in-course sources and 4 external scholarly sources. More is better. You should cite everything, quote any words that are not your own, and provide a bibliography. Tell me a compelling story about the way people’s lives are in your polygon, draw me in with detail, and convince me with interesting support from rigorous scholarship. If your polygon does not allow for a full exploration of the question, it is ok to spill over its boundaries. It’s okay if it’s longer than the max.
One of the key goals of this paper is to be able to capture something phenomenological about the texture of life in this place. What does it feel like to live there? What did it feel like to live there? Think of how you would describe similar things for yourself and about your life. What kind of things about how you live would be very difficult for a researcher to uncover, though you know how to uncover it for yourself or your friends.
Your paper should be 5-7 pages doubles spaced, meaning five full pages of text, exclusive of title and bibliography. It should cite all sources in text and in a bibliography. Visuals are great, and feel free to add them, but they don’t count towards your page total. So if you have a lot of images, your paper should be longer.
