Your paper begins with a fact-finding search on a topic of your choosing. Your paper must be a three-to-five page report on your chosen topic, with summary and description kept to a bare minimum. Start with something that interests you. Ideally, you will choose some emerging idea, product, trend, movement, etc. that you are into but the rest of us might not yet know about; or, you could put a new twist on something we all think we know enough about but are missing something critical. The topic is open. Your job is to help create a deeper understanding of something uncritically. Whether you like it or not is virtually irrelevant, as would be any attempt to convince the reader that they should or should not like your topic. Your research paper needs to incorporate three-to-five sources. Choose a subject that you will be excited about, maybe something that you are familiar with, yet would like to know more about. Possible ideas:
• An intriguing technology: hybrid cars, touchscreens, tooth whiteners
• Sports: soccer, snowboarding, ultimate Frisbee, basketball
• An important world event: the Arab Spring, the Fall of Rome, the Black Death
• A common object: hoodies, gel pens, mascara, Post-it notes
• A significant environmental issue: melting Arctic ice, deer overpopulation, mercury and the fish supply
• The arts: hip-hop, outsider art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
• If you are taking a course in your program this semester (or have taken a program course in a previous semester), you can research a topic for that course.
Approach: Your paper does not have a chance to be substantive unless you have substantive sources. Find three-to-five sources – including professional journal articles and professional publications, Internet sources, and possibly (but not required) an interview. It is a balancing act to find sources that you can understand – that relate to your level of study in your discipline, and, at the same time, challenge you intellectually. In this paper, I do not want you to try to solve a problem or necessarily reach a conclusion. What I am looking for is evidence that you can gather a body of knowledge on a particular subject, narrow it down to a particular focus, and show that you can synthesize the information and make some intelligent, insightful observations about the subject. What I do not want is just a regurgitation of information strung together. A significant part of the paper should be your interpretation of the information and how your knowledge about the subject has been enriched.
Introduction: Your introductory material should set up your topic for your audience. Briefly summarize your findings on the subject – If the sources disagree about the value of or perspective on the subject, point out the areas of disagreement. Your introduction should not meander around the point of your paper. It may be more than one paragraph in length, but at some point, very early in the paper, you then need to start the substance of the paper. Your thesis should come at the end of your introductory material. State your thesis in the form of a sentence or two. It should not be in the form of a question. Your thesis should be a brief statement, in your own words, that point out the major issues about this topic that you discovered in your research. If you cannot articulate in a sentence or two what your main point is, then you probably do not have a good idea of what you will be writing about.
Body of Paper: Use subheadings, where appropriate, to separate different aspects of your paper which support your controlling idea (your thesis). The body of your paper should provide supporting evidence to support your thesis, in a logical, fully developed manner. For each new topic, which supports your overall thesis, provide a topic sentence or two that is, in effect, the thesis for that sub-topic. If you do not use subheadings, you need to provide transition sentences to move your reader from one paragraph to the next.
A writer of a research paper should synthesize the information gained from sources and weave them into a well-ordered discourse, using the sources as evidence to support key points. A paper which is just a string of quotes shows that the author made no attempt to come to grips with the subject and is relying on the sources to speak for them.
Conclusion: Your conclusion should make some “wrap up” statements about what you learned about your chosen topic and the possible impact of your findings on people and perhaps society in general. Also, address any issues that may still not be resolved for you. I am not necessarily looking for a neatly wrapped up conclusion with no loose ends. I am looking for a conscientious, thoughtful look at the topic of your choosing, sharing of the major significance of this issue, and any unanswered questions, if any, you are still dealing with.
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Audience: You will have to explain concepts and not expect your audience to understand in-house jargon. Have a target audience in mind (more than your peers). Who would be interested in and benefit from your treatment of the subject? By anticipating your audience, you can anticipate the kinds of questions that may arise.
Format: Three-to-five, double-spaced pages of text (not including Works Cited page). Pagination: Put page numbers in top right hand corner of each page, excluding the first page. Also, include your last name: Wallschlaeger 2
Sources: Take notes on your sources and photocopy or print out original source material.
Use a minimum of three-to-five sources. Check the source of all information for reliability. Is the Internet site sanctioned by a reputable institution or organization? Does the person you interview have credentials and experience with your subject? Does he or she have a built in bias you need to address in your paper? What biases of your own may you have to be aware of to produce a scholarly look at this subject?
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