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• Research Proposal In Chapter 8, Section F or your textbook, Handbook for College Research, you will find information on how to write a Research Proposal (pages 77 through 81).  For the most part, this will be your guide to how to write the Research Proposal.  However, I will be adding certain material that I will expect you to include in your paper, and I will be changing some of the criteria based on the early point in the semester that you are writing this paper.  Normally, a Research Proposal is written after you have had time to choose your topic and do considerable research.  With this proposal, you will need to have done some research into the topic, but you will not have had time to do extensive research yet.  I will make changes to the assignment to account for this. Your Research Proposal should present the topic you most want to do for your final research paper, your favorite topic that you hope will be approved and accepted by your Instructor.  However, you will also need to identify two other topics that you MIGHT do if the first topic is unacceptable for some reason.  You may decide, as you do your research and get further into the semester, that you simply don't have enough information or the topic is not working out the way you had hoped.  For that reason, this proposal will have a section that will identify other "backup" topics that you also might like to do.  If your main topic is not acceptable, I will identify another topic from your paper that you can do. Your research paper will be written in MLA format.  The sample Research Proposal will show you exactly how your paper should be formatted for MLA and how you should use headings over each section of the proposal.  You will need a title, centered, before you begin your proposal.  Your sample essay is for an informative paper, but you will be doing an argumentative paper.  That means there will be differences in style and content of each section, and your Research Proposal will be somewhat more formal than the one in your book.  I will explain this more in class and as we go through each section. Your Research Proposal will be divided into four parts.  Three of those parts are identified on page 78 of Handbook for College Research.  The fourth section will be explained below. Section One:  A General Framework. As your book states, your first purpose is to answer several questions to explain your interest in and knowledge of the topic you will be writing about.  You will identify the topic you want to write about, explain why you are personally interested in the topic, explain what knowledge and experience you have with the topic before starting your research, what you hope to prove through your research, and also discuss how much knowledge you believe your readers will have of the topic that you are proposing.  This is slightly different from how it is worded in the book.  Since this is an argumentative paper, you will explain what it is you hope to prove instead of "What will you learn through your research?" as stated in the book.  Also, since your research paper is written for a general audience, you want to anticipate what they may or may not know about the topic.  Is it a topic widely covered in the media and well known to everyone?  Is it an obscure topic only people with a specific interest would be aware of (Football fans, people who study the American Civil War, Star Wars fans) and most people may need help understanding the topic?  You can use personal stories to explain why the topic is of special interest to you or to demonstrate what knowledge you have of the topic in advance.  One difference between the sample essay in the book and what we will be doing is that you want to be slightly more formal.  Some of your topics are ones of national interest and debate, so you may not have specific personal stories to tell, but you can talk about how long you have been interested and through what media (television, internet, books) you have kept informed about the topic. The second section of the proposal, "Establish a Specific Focus", will explain for the reader exactly what you propose to prove in your research paper and state clearly your thesis and what arguments you might give to support and prove your thesis.  For example, if you were arguing that the American war in Iraq was unjustified, you would explain the arguments you would put forward to prove that thesis (Iraq did not attack the United States, there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan stretched our military resources and troops too thin).  You would explain how you limited the topic by time (instead of covering sexism in America, you are looking at sexism in the 1970s).  How you limited the topic by geography (instead or covering sexism in the United States, you are looking at sexism in Indiana only).  Have you limited the topic by special circumstances (Instead of covering sexism in the workplace, you are looking at sexism in hiring coaches and staff in professional football).  What questions do you have that will need to be answered through research before you can effectively prove your thesis?  What arguments from the other side will you likely have to overcome? The third section is "Research Sources and Strategies".  Since you are only just beginning your research, you will not have the long list of cited sources that the sample essay has.  Instead, you will explain what sources of information you intend to use in order to find evidence to support your argument.  You should look through the library database for books on your topic, and you should look through the many ISU databases for articles on your topic from magazines, journals and newspapers.  You should also look online for professional websites devoted to your research topic.  It is very important that you have some idea of what sources are out there before you begin.  If there are very few sources on your topic, you may wish to abandon the topic for another one.  In this section, you will explain what kind of sources you intend to use for your research (books, professional journal articles, documentaries, government websites, etc.) and name any sources you have found already that look promising.  Unlike your sample essay, you will have a combination of written text explaining where you hope to find source material, but you will also cite (as is done in the sample proposal) any souces you have found that you think you might use. The fourth section, which is not in your sample essay, is called 'Other Potential Research Topics" and will give me two other possible research topics that you might do should the first research topic fail or not work out for some reason.  You want to explain clearly what you would seek to prove and what arguments you might put forward, but keep it brief.  You will write this out in sentences and not just use shorthand phrases like "Climate Control" or "Animal Cruelty".   You would say "Another topic I would enjoy doing would be to argue that Climate Change is real and a serious threat to your world because of rising sea levels, more intense storms and flooding, and the danger of extinction of animal and insect species".  Or, you would say, "I would also consider arguing that the laws punishing people who commit acts of animal cruelty should be much tougher than they are now."  This will not be a long section, but is important you include this section. Your first draft of the research proposal is due Monday, June 9 for in class peer editing.  Your final draft will be turned in to me on Wednesday, June 11.  You will submit your first draft and final draft in a folder to me in class.  You will also need to submit it to the Turnitin link on Blackboard on June 11.