Research Project Topic Proposal
RESEARCH PROJECT: TOPIC PROPOSAL (20 points)
M. Brown
In order to most efficiently work on and submit your Topic Proposal assignment, please follow
the guidelines precisely. Not doing so will result in losing points unnecessarily. If you have
questions on how to complete this assignment, the time to ask is before, not after, you have
submitted it.
The topic can be anything you like as long as it relates to something in this class, not any other
class. I also strongly recommend - though do not require - that it be something in which you
have some personal interest, not something that you would find uninteresting.
Topics that students have written on in the past have included arguing one side or another of:
abortion; drinking age; legalization of or reclassification of marijuana; mandatory jail sentences;
2 nd
Amendment; hate speech; standardized tests for public school students; higher tuition rates
for out-of-state (or international) students; copyright violations in song-writing or other areas of
the arts; regulation of tattoo parlors; antitrust issues in major league sports, e.g., NFL, NBA, etc.;
non-employee classifications for amateur athletes in college and university sports; body cameras
for police officers; surveillance of non-criminal activities; net neutrality; euthanasia; regulation
of commercial animal husbandry; regulation of exotic pets; animal cruelty laws in general;
regulation of sky-diving; and many, many other possibilities.
Otherwise, my suggestion is to go into Google and type in keywords that correspond to whatever
interests you. For instance, go into Google and type in keywords such as "skiing," "skydiving,"
"running," "stamp collecting," "animal rights," etc. etc., along with keywords that pertain to this
class, e.g., "crime," "criminal law," "regulations," "business," "legal," "law," etc. etc.
Doing such a search will probably recover tens of thousands of hits. Just begin reading whatever
catches your eye. Inevitably, you will find some things interesting and others not. At this stage,
since all you are doing is scoping out the confluence between the legal system and whatever you
are interested in, the most important thing is to simply read whatever interests you. Inevitably,
too, you will almost unconsciously begin forming opinions about what you read. This is the
beginning of your formulation of your thesis statement, which is, in fact, a formal statement of
an opinion.
Once you have formed an opinion, your next steps are to simply think of 3-4 main arguments
you can make in order to support your opinion/thesis. And, presto! You have the basics, the
starting point (thesis statement and arguments) for your paper, just like in the first part of the
outline in the Sample Presentation!
Example:
You have an interest in fishing.
Go into Google and type in keywords that link your hobby to the law/legal system. So, you use
keywords such as “fishing,” “law,” “legal,” etc. You’ll probably come up with 10,000 or more
hits.
You glance through the hits and find some links that seem interesting and others that don’t. Start
reading what seems interesting.
After you have read a dozen or so of the hits, you will have begun to form an opinion. For
instance, you might conclude that the nearly universal, albeit somewhat uncontroversial,
discrimination against non-state residents in fishing license fees is illegal. You have just formed
an opinion!
Note: no sentence should be longer than ten (10) words (not including the names of laws or
people); and must be argumentative, a statement of opinion, not a description.
You will then write out your thesis statement (10 points):
“Higher fishing license fees for non-state residents violates ____________________
[insert name of a law or a broad legal principle*].”
*such as, “the 14 th
Amendment,” etc.
Now, you will articulate your 3-4 main arguments (10 points). You come up with:
Argument 1: Discriminatory license fees violate the _________________________
[insert name of a law or a broad legal principle].”
Argument 2: Discriminatory license fees violate the __________________________
[insert name of a law or a broad legal principle]”; and
Argument 3: Discriminatory license fees violate the __________________________
[insert name of a law or a broad legal principle].”
There you have it! All you have to submit are the sentences above (thesis statement plus
however many arguments you have, which should be no less than two arguments and not more
than four arguments, for a total on the Topic Proposal of between 3-5 sentences).
You now have your topic proposal in the correct format: 1) concise, argumentative thesis
statement in a grammatically-complete sentence 2) concise, argumentative supporting arguments
in grammatically-complete sentences and 3) some explicit reference to either specific laws or
general legal principles in each sentence you have written (you need not be thoroughly familiar
with all – or even some – applicable law(s), but you are required to express each of the sentences
with some explicit reference to something explicitly pertaining to the law/legal system/legal
principle(s).
Because the format is given you to here as an example, there is no reason to deviate from this
format. If your submission does deviate from the format, it will result in lost points.
BELOW IS WHAT YOU WILL SUBMIT:
Thesis Statement
“Higher fishing license fees for non-state residents violates ____________________
[insert name of a law].”
Arguments
Argument 1: Discriminatory license fees violate the _________________________
[insert name of a law];
Argument 2: Discriminatory license fees violate the __________________________
[insert name of a law]; and
Argument 3: Discriminatory license fees violate the __________________________
[insert name of a law].
Congratulations!
You have also now established the overall structure of the next stage of the Research Project:
the Written Presentation. After you complete your Topic Proposal, all you have to do is research
to fill in the gaps according to the format in the Sample Presentation document. Rev’d 010322