Research Paper

2021/5/3 Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

https://ccsf.instructure.com/courses/40540/assignments/754214?module_item_id=2146070 1/5

Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

Due May 17 by 11:59pm Points 1,500 Submitting a file upload Available Apr 26 at 12am - May 21 at 11:59pm 26 days

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English 1A -- Research Project: Due May 17, 2021.

Research Project: at least 7-8+ pages* of your writing in the form of an extended argument, utilizing comprehensive reading skills, research skills, and appropriate comparative and/or cumulative analysis. Use standard essay guidelines and MLA formatting, including a “Works Cited” page.

*7-8 pages = 1,750-2,000 words +/-, using 12 point font, standard margins.

Dear English 1A students,

The key idea is to show that you can move from what we’ve read and studied to additional material and back again in meaningful ways.

First, I present the essential matters that will govern what you will write and what you need as sources to complete the following major task, the research project.

Second, I present the various approaches I recommend for developing your specific topic and completing your research project.

Please read carefully, and let me know if you have questions.

--MD

HERE ARE SOME ESSENTIAL MATTERS OF CONTENT, STYLE, AND FORMAT:

-1. An essay that is at least 7-8 pages in length is NOT fundamentally different from the essays you’ve produced in the past. You still need an introduction, body, and conclusion. Your introduction should set up the project, name your main topics and sources, and end with a clear statement of what you will be presenting in the body of your essay. In the body- section, you develop what you promised to present, offering examples and explanations to your reader, using outside sources to support your claims, and generally helping me to see this material the way you want me to see it. (I often imagine that I am talking to the reader, and I find that helps me to aim at clarity and to stay focused.). In the conclusion, ideally, you remind your reader of what you’ve done and why it’s worth reading about. Perhaps, you save a last insight or revealing details

2021/5/3 Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

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from your main focus (accident, person, authoritative source) to act as a hook or salute to the end – and that’s a good way to avoid being boring or merely repetitive.

-2. In your essay, you should both explain and argue. When you explain, your goal is to get the reader to understand what’s important about a topic; when you argue, your goal is to persuade the reader that your stance on a topic, that your analysis of a topic, is the right one. “Right” here means credible and supported.

-3a. You need at least six reliable sources in your Works Cited page beyond the assigned text or texts from our course that you are using as your foundation. Those sources should be weighed in terms of number, credibility, utility, length, depth, and actual usage in your project by you. So, this isn’t strictly a numbers game. I’ll be checking how many sources, yes, but I’ll be looking at how you use the sources you provide in your project.

Note: You will need to use at least three academic sources drawn from the online library database (that you used in the online library workshop). I can imagine wanting a scientific article on the effect of triggering the amygdala on human behavior in order to check Gonzales, perhaps, and to expand the discussion of the importance of the amydala. Similarly, I could imagine wanting a scientific essay on risk factors for recreational sports in Hawaii, if I were expanding Gonzales' chapter "Danger Zones."

At least three other sources may be less formal, but still credible; for example, a video- interview with TMM could be a very useful source, depending on your project; likewise, having Laurence Gonzales in a TED Talk going beyond—in a helpful way—our Deep Survival could be useful too.

A reminder: These sources must be credible—written by authors with sufficient credentials and published in a source that is reputable. The Library Workshops that have you working with library databases, for example, also emphasized reputable sources. Technical sources and academic sources will be the best to use. Technical sources and academic sources written by experts outside the media—professors, linguists, researchers—in peer-reviewed journals are more desirable than articles from within the popular media—newspapers, magazines, TV—because journalists are not typically experts on the topics they are writing about. Documentary film clips of events and interviews will not necessarily be “academic,” but will qualify as the appropriate, less formal sources. Finally, the established media is much more credible than Wikipedia, About.com, or random blogs, which are not edited and therefore remain academically untrustworthy.

-3b. Your citations and “Works Cited” page must conform to MLA format as presented in the Online Library Workshop on MLA. There is also an accessible section in the handbook that presents MLA citation I posted about a month ago in Canvas. (Note to self: add link here.) What matters most is that you document your sources as you use them in the body of the essay—and

2021/5/3 Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

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Gonzales is a good model for introducing sources—and in your Works Cited page. On that page, you list in alphabetical order the actual sources you use in your essay.

Note: Gonzales gave us a “Selected Bibliography,” which is a partial list of his research materials, a list of the most important of those research materials; you don’t have to list all the materials you consulted; you only list the ones you used in your essay.

-4. You should recognize the following tips from the practices of the authors of the books we’ve read this semester: When you use evidence from experts—quotations, summaries, statistics, etc.—use signal phrases to introduce the author first, letting us know why this person is a credible source. You need to also explain the context of the quote or summary—what the study or article is about so the evidence makes sense. After you give the evidence, explain how the information relates to the other evidence from experts you have used. Does it agree or disagree with what they say? What new value does it add to the discussion? What weaknesses does the evidence have? Why do you trust it or distrust it?

Here are the approaches I am recommending for developing your specific topic.

Please read the first one, especially, to get the sense of what I am expecting from your topic/project.

-Approach A. Do a Deep Survival Treatment on Our Reading(s)

Write a “chapter” in the manner of Laurence Gonzales’ Deep Survival, addressing John Aldridge from Paul Tough’s “A Speck in the Sea,” Tori Murden McClure from her own A Pearl in the Storm, and/or Tim Severin and his crew from Severin’s The Brendan Voyage. You’d probably be using the principles and examples from Deep Survival to show us how and why those people were successful. Gonzales calls Steven Callahan a perfect survivor: What would he say about John Aldridge? You would need to use Deep Survival as a main source along with a few academic sources (from our CCSF library database) and a few less academic, but still appropriate sources (TED talks? YouTube interviews, etc.).

(And, if you had enough to dig into and explain with support, you could just focus on Aldridge, on TMM, or on the crew; that is, you could focus on one person/group’s experience to show us how and why they survived. I’ll bet Gonzales could get 7-8 pages easy out of “A Speck in the Sea” by bringing up multiple aspects of the event and especially Aldridge’s attitude, decision-making, and the oceanic context itself.)

-Approach B: Do a Deep Survival Treatment on Other Athletes/Sport.

Write a “chapter” in the manner of Gonzales’ Deep Survival on certain athletes and/or on a certain sport. (As a kayaker and diver, I have books on accidents in those sports with explanations

2021/5/3 Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

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of what went wrong, usually.) If you have an interest in a certain sport and have some knowledge to build from, you could move back and forth from Deep Survival to materials that would make a good match from that other sport. If you are a climber, for example, there’s plenty in Gonzales’ book relating to climbing specifically, but also generally to any outdoor accidents, that could be brought into consideration. That is, apply what you have learned from Deep Survival.

Perhaps you look at what went wrong or what went right in a specific accident. Perhaps you help us see the risks involved in the general pursuit of a particular sport—and perhaps help us to see how reading Deep Survival attentively could lead to greater safety.

Some of you may know what happened to Aron Ralston, the climber who had to cut off his own arm after getting trapped on his own in the wilderness; there’s his book, Between a Rock and A Hard Place, as well as the film version. Climber Tommy Caldwell’s PUSH is an impressive book that covers all sorts of accidents and incidents upon mountains, using a table saw incorrectly, and even being captured and held hostage by rebel forces while climbing in Kyrgyzstan.

(A non-climbing example: Diana Nyad caps her long open water swimming career by swimming from Cuba to Florida at age 64!)

-Approach C: Update—in some meaningful and research-based way—our reading. Going further into the science and practice of survival? Comparing TMM’s efforts, difficulties, and successes with other rowers? Finding other practical anthropological boating experiments to compare/contrast with Severin’s project?

-Approach D: Take the essential philosophy of life from Deep Survival (or from the other books) and expand in some meaningful way? Perhaps, the model of a Gonzales-chapter mixed with a TED Talk would work here? (I will give you some sample TED Talks in a “recommended viewing” page on Canvas that may help you to imagine what I mean.)

-Approach E: Make up a topic/project of your own along the lines of the above approaches. For this one, you need to pitch your topic/project to me by May 5th. You would still need to move from our reading to research-based materials and back again. Feel free to ask questions.

***For all of these approaches, these topics/projects, feel free to ask me questions before you start, as you develop your ideas, and as you revise and polish your work.

2021/5/3 Research Project -- 15% Course Grade -- due May 17

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