DR. CLOVER
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english_assignments.docAssignment 2 Research Proposal
The purpose of the Research Proposal is to mold the preliminary ideas you have about your topic and to develop them in an academic manner. This development occurs as a direct result of your research on the subject. Therefore, this is your first formal articulation of your project. The Research Proposal is the next step towards writing assignments that will help you construct your Research Paper.
Description:
In this 500-600-word, essay-style Research Proposal, you will develop the project that you intend to write about for your final Research Paper for this course. If your Research Proposal is less than this word count, then it is likely you have not fully developed your proposal or adhered to the assignment appropriately, which can severely impact your grade for this assignment. Your Research Proposal will include the elements listed below.
Your Research Proposal should also include a list of references in APA style and should adhere to APA convention throughout for in-text citation and style. When you write for academic or public audiences, it is imperative that you are supported by voices other than your own. In other words, even if you are an expert, you still must support your assertions.
In a Research Proposal, the same is true. For this assignment, you will include at least one source in your description of your tentative argument. The source cannot be yourself, an interview, or your text book. You must research your topic in order to gain a valid academic source that speaks to your topic in some way.
Elements:
Your Research Proposal grade will be largely based on your inclusion of the elements listed below, as well as your development of the project. For assistance, you might want to refer to Chapter 1, Section 1a, of The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises (pp. 3-4). Your Research Proposal must contain the following elements:
1. Cover page and APA formatting:
You will include an APA-style cover page for your Research Proposal. See the example on page 16 of The CSU APA Guide (6th edition). Your cover page should include the following: the title of your future Research Paper (this may be changed as your project develops), your name, and the name of your university (Columbia Southern University). The cover page must also include a running head which should include up to 50 characters from the title of the paper, along with a sequential page number in the upper right-hand corner. You can find instructions for formatting the running head on pp. 9-11 of The CSU APA Guide.
2. Purpose:
Review the purpose statement on p. 333 of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers. You may also want to refer to Chapter 1, Section 1c of The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises (pp. 6-7). The following questions should be addressed in the first paragraph of your Research Proposal, which should be dedicated to establishing your purpose for doing this particular project.
• What is your rationale for this project?
• What do you hope to learn from the project, or what to do you want to see happen as a result of it?
• Who is your audience for this project? Chapter 1, Section 1d, of The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises (pp. 7-8)
• What role will you play in this project: investigator or advocate?
3. Statement of qualification:
Address the following questions as they are applicable to your project.
• What is your investment in the topic? • What personal experience do you bring to the topic? • What special qualities do you bring to the project? • How might your investment, experience, and special qualities make you particularly apt at developing this project?
4. Tentative argument:
Your final Research Paper for this course will be an argumentative, research-based, academic paper. While it is unlikely that you will have a concrete idea of what your entire argument will be at this point in the writing process, it is necessary for you to articulate your argument as you understand it to be right now. Address the following questions.
• What is the context surrounding your topic?
In other words, is there some event that was a catalyst for bringing your topic into the public eye? (Optional)
• What is your explanation or definition of the topic?
• What is your analysis of the specific issue surrounding your topic?
• What is your tentative thesis statement or hypothesis?
5. References:
Include a references list as the last page of your Research Proposal. All entries are those that have been cited in the text. No others are to be included. No textbooks should be included on the references list.
This long proposal example pulls together everything you have learned in this unit, following the elements listed above. Click here to access the long proposal example. Link:
Assignment III Annotated Bibliography
Purpose:
The purpose of the Annotated Bibliography is to summarize the sources that you have gathered to support your Research Proposal project. These summaries help you to think about the complex arguments presented in your sources and the massive information therein in terms of short, digestible articulations. In addition, these summaries will likely form the basis for Draft 1 of your Research Paper (the review of literature) that you will complete in Unit IV, which is largely comprised of summaries that are transitioned together and that form a conversation about the issue.
Description:
In this assignment, you will create an Annotated Bibliography consisting of five sources. Each entry will consist of a reference list citation that precedes a 100-150 word summary of the source. If each of the five entries is less than the word count, it is likely you have not fully developed your summary, and this lack of development can severely impact your grade for this assignment. Your Annotated Bibliography will include the elements listed below.
Elements:
Your Annotated Bibliography must contain specific elements. Your grade is largely based on your inclusion of these elements, as well as your ability to summarize your sources. For assistance, you may want to refer to the example in Chapter 20, Section 20f, of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers (pp. 436-438). The elements include the following.
EH 1020, English Composition II 7
1. Cover page and APA formatting:
You will include an APA-style cover page for your Annotated Bibliography. See the example in The CSU APA Guide (6th edition) on page 16. Your cover page should include the following: the title, your name, and the name of your university (Columbia Southern University). Your title will appear in the running head which should include up to 50 characters from the title of the paper, along with a sequential page number in the upper right-hand corner.
The following conventions should be followed as well. See the Annotated Bibliography example (linked below) for guidance:
• The entries should be ordered in alphabetical order according to the first substantive word in the reference list citation.
• The entire Annotated Bibliography should be double-spaced, with no additional spaces between entries.
• No reference list should be included with the Annotated Bibliography, as the entries themselves will contain the reference list citation information.
• The first line of each reference list citation should be flush left with the left-hand margin (no indentation), and the second and proceeding lines should be indented ½” from the left-hand margin (hanging indent of one-half inch).
• The summary paragraph begins on the line following the end of the reference. It lines up with the indented portion of the reference, with the exception that the first line is indented an additional one-half inch. (Look at the example to see how this formats.)
Link:
2. Entries:
Each of the five entries should begin with a reference list citation in APA format and be followed by a 100-150 word summary of the source’s information. An Annotated Bibliography summary should include the most important information from the text. Sometimes, this means that you will broadly summarize larger portions of text (as in main ideas of a whole essay); other times, this means that you will focus on summarizing one paragraph out of an entire source. Whenever you quote information, use APA in-text citations.
Annotated Bibliography Example:
The purpose of the Annotated Bibliography example is to help you with the formatting of the Annotated Bibliography, which can be confusing. Use the document formatting as a guide.
