the spark

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Writing Assignment: A Spark

You spend all summer trying to get close to your crush. You go bowling even though you hate bowling.

You send emails and IM and finally you are out on date, just the 2 of you. Unfortunately, the

conversation is forced, your date is answering text messages all through dinner, and you just want it to

be over. Luckily, it will be because you aren’t married.

At this point, you are not married to your research topic yet either. You are in the dating stages and if

things are not going well, you can look for a new topic or give this one another chance. The work you

are doing in this assignment is like dating your topic. You are seeing if you like it and if there is enough

substance to take this topic all the way.

Nothing is more frustrating than discovering at the eleventh hour that there is not much information

about your topic, that all the sources say the same thing, or that the topic isn’t as interesting as you

thought. To avoid these pitfalls, this assignment will give you a little preview of how the project will go

and give your instructor enough information to guide you toward successful discovery.

1. Complete the chart that presents your overall research question and the series of questions you

will explore in relation to the main question. Add as many additional squares as you like to the

middle levels. Feel free to complete more than one chart if you are considering more than one

topic or more than one direction in the same topic.