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Research Project

For your presentation and research paper, you will be required to conduct research,

evaluate sources, and present your findings in both oral and written form. This is your

opportunity to explore your field, learn about it, answer questions, and fill in your knowledge

gaps. As this class is interdisciplinary, I will not provide anyone with a topic. I may, at my

discretion, provide examples of topics. However, anything I provide as an example cannot be

used as the subject of your project.

 You will come up with an area of interest within your current academic discipline

o I suggest you look to trade publications in your field as well as topics

covered in your degree specific classes.

 You will seek out and find at least five sources from academic journal articles,

trade publications, and books relevant to this area of interest.

o You will be assessed on the quality of your sources

o You must search beyond Google. Papers that are researched using Google

and or Google scholar as a primary method will receive an automatic F.

 Google is only useful if you are looking for what is happening in

your field.

o You must use the PBSC library resources.

o You must actually read, the materials you discover.

 The secret to writing good prose is reading good prose.

 Five of these sources will form the basis for your project and presentation

Presentation

 The presentation will take the form of a work in progress report.

 You will prepare a short (7 minute) brief covering:

o How you arrived at your area of research/ interest?

 A brief description of your research journey.

o The methods you used to find and select your materials.

 What databases, journals, etc. did you use?

o A brief summary of the main idea/argument for each source.

 You should select two to three as you will not have time to cover all five.

o A brief evaluation of the usefulness of each source.

 This evaluation should be akin to an oral Annotated bibliography entry

(see below)

 Use the same two to three that you summarized.

o What have you learned about your subject and the research process?

Research Paper and Annotated Bibliography

 The written submission has two parts:

o An APA style annotated bibliography

 These annotations are roughly 250-300 words per source. Plan ahead.

 The annotations should consist of a brief summary( 1 paragraph), and an

evaluation ( also roughly 1 paragraph) of the source covering each of the

following:

 Currency

 Authority

 Reliability

 Objectivity vs Subjectivity

 Bias

 Academic style and conventions

 Tone

o A research paper (minimum1,500 words) where you bring no less than three

sources together in service of an argument of your creation.

 This paper will also be in full APA style.

 Your paper should contain no more than 15% quoted, paraphrased, and summarized

material.

 Each body paragraph should use two pieces of support for your argument. Each of these

pieces of support should come from a different source.

o Your ability to connect different sources and explain said connection, as it

pertains to your argument, is key to success in this paper.

 Submission order for the final research paper is:

o Cover page

o Abstract (150 words, this does not count toward your paper’s word count)

o Research paper ( introduction, body, conclusion)

o References

 Only list the sources that you used in the paper

o Annotated bibliography.

 You will be assessed on:

o Critical thinking

o Argument construction and support

o Analysis

o Mechanics

 A full rubric is posted in Bb.