Reflecting on your work this semester, you’ll firstdefine a specific research question related to the operation and success of your chosen discourse community. This should be a question or issue that warrants exploration and contributes to the existing knowledge in the field. Consider questions like: what is a problem this community is facing and/or discussing? You will then survey existing literature available on this topic. Next, you’ll identify a gap in that research, develop a plan for filling that gap, and assemble an annotated bibliography. In class, you will be given specific instructions for how to create one of these. Finally, you will begin creating your research paper which details your findings and solution.
Assessment: Your instructor will be reading this paper with an eye towards the following:
• Thesis
• Organization of ideas
• Detailed Annotated Bibliography
• Familiarity with Current Scholarship
• Familiarity with Current Discourse Community Dialogues/Genres
• Strong, Well-Supported Claims (In-Text Citations of Content)
• Appropriate Choice of Resource Integration
• Coherence of Language
• Attention to Audience and Purpose
• Multimodal Considerations (Use of Media/Images)
• Works Cited Page (MLA 9th Edition)
Specifics: Your work for this project will be completed in stages. You will identify a territory for research, craft a working research question, find a minimum of two scholarly articles already at work in your area, craft an annotated bibliography, then compose your rough draft. Draft 1 should be a detailed outline of your plan for the paper, including a working thesis statement. Next, you’ll complete a walk & talk peer review for this draft, then begin work on a final draft.
Your final, MLA-formatted paper should be a minimum of 6 fullpages of writing (maximum of 12), not including cover pages, images/media, or the works cited page. It should be revised and turned in via Canvas before the end of our final examination time.
You will all be required to attend a 1-on-1 meeting with your professor either before or after peer-review.
This project may resemble some of the research conducted for Project #2, but like Project #1, you will be working alone. Use the same level of scrutiny with your topic, as the more specificyou can be with your claims and supporting evidence, the better focused your paper will be. Here are some additional guidelines:
• Try not to cite questionable sources such as Wikipedia and/or highly biased sources, unless it’s necessary for your project (e.g. your topic is about Wikipedia’s “open source” formatting, or some other aspect, or there are wikis relevant to your topic).
• Be cautious of sources that seem too complex to integrate into your paper.
• If needed, replace a source (or more) during the writing-research phases.
• Be mindful of your peer and professor feedback.
• Be sure that your paper follows MLA 9th edition practices and that it also includes both in-text citations from your sources, as well as a works cited page.
• Prepare ample material for your meeting with your professor, and not only starting idea(s)—bring up anyconcerns related to your topic or some of your sources.
• Visit the student service center and consider one, or multiple tutoring sessions.
• Visit the Salmon Library for additional help with your research.
