English 102 Informal Research Proposal

1. Identify the topic you have chosen (Why did you choose this topic?)

2. Identify your audience (in our case, intelligent non-specialists)

3. A specific question within the topic. (You’ll be “teaching and taking a course” to find the answer.)

4. A statement of significance. (Why should anyone care?)

5. What you already know

6. What you need to know

7. How you will acquire the information (textual, archival, field research?)

Purposes:

To inform (research Report)

To persuade (Thesis-oriented Research Paper)

To solve a problem (Scientific/experimental)

A “working bibliography” (annotated?) is a list of possible sources—none of these have you studied in detail. Abstracts, inside jacket covers, electronic card catalog info will help.

Buy and use 3 x 5 cards or, better, 4 x 6 cards, ringed is good

Be sure to get ALL publication facts.

For Print Books or e-Books

Book’s title, edition, author(s), Date (copyright date (year)), name of publisher, city, state.

For Print or Web Magazine, Journal, and Newspaper Articles

Title of article, author(s) name, name of publication, publication date, volume number, or volume and season, page numbers, DOI (digital object identifier), URL of article, name of database/search engine.

For Websites/ web pages

Title of website, Title of web page (subtitles?) name of author(s) of the website, sponsoring organization, first date you accessed it, Date the page was posted or last updated, URL, the database (how) where you found this source.

For any Web sources—Print out everything you can. Be sure to record all information.

Annotation: A sentence or two about this source’s relevance, how likely you’ll be to study/use it.