Analytical Research Paper

6-8 pages, 12pt type, double-spaced, with one-inch margins

This is an analytical research paper.  This means that you will not simply be collecting information about your topic; you will also be interpreting your research findings and drawing conclusions about your topic.

Topics:  Your first task is to come up with a topic for your research paper.  Your topic must be connected in some way to our semester’s broad theme of FOOD.  On Wednesday, April 7th, be prepared to share three possible topics during our Zoom session.  As you select your topic, keep the following questions in mind:

–Is this an interesting topic?  It’s particularly important that the topic genuinely interest you!

–Can I find adequate sources to research this topic?

— Is this a topic that will yield analysis, rather than simply the reporting of information?

–Is this topic either too broad or too narrow for a paper of this length?

Research Proposal:  Before our class meeting on Monday, April 12th,  you will submit your Research Proposal in writing by uploading it to our Google Doc Folder, either in the form of a one-paragraph articulation of the topic, a traditional outline, or some combination of those two formats.   You should be able to express your topic in terms of a single question that will guide your research.  Then think about the writing of the paper as an effort to answer your research question.   

Sources: In writing this paper, you must employ a minimum of four sources.   You will cite your sources in accordance with the MLA guidelines (8th Edition).  We will be reviewing the guidelines together in class, and you will receive more detailed instructions about using and citing sources.  Think broadly about what constitutes a “source.”  This could include audio, video, blog posts, personal interviews, and other non-traditional source formats.  The sources you end up using in your research paper will be listed in a Works Cited page at the end of the paper, using MLA formatting guidelines.  At least one of your sources must be a source you access via  the Newman Library’s databases.  (Our goal here is to move away from Google as your primary research strategy!)

Creative Re-Mix

At the same time that you are researching your topic and writing your analytical research paper, you should also be thinking about how you want to present your topic in your “creative re-mix”. The re-mix project gives you an opportunity to explore your subject in a more creative, subjective, or personal way.  It’s up to you to decide what form your re-mix should take and how it should relate to your research paper.  Your Research Paper and Creative Re-Mix should be related, but not identical.  This is NOT about creating a powerpoint presentation that summarizes your research; it’s about producing a creative project that complements your research.

 Some possible formats you might consider for the creative re-mix are:

Comic strip/cartoon

Blog

Video

Photo essay

Creative writing (short story, poetry, song)

Visual art

Interview

Interactive map

Timeline

Social Media Based Project

Podcast

Oral History

Community Service Project

You will be presenting your Creative Re-Mix to the class during our last two sessions on Wed., May 12th and Mon., May 17th. We will pick numbers from a hat (or the virtual equivalent)  to determine the order of the presentations.

Our focus this week is on your Personal Narratives.  By the time you read this, you should have received some feedback from the members of your writing group via the peer review process and should be turning your attention to the REVISION process.  Please keep in mind that REVISION  is not the same thing as EDITING or PROOFREADING.

REVISION is the process of rethinking and reshaping both the structure and the content of your essay.  As you gain greater clarity about what it is that you really want to say, you will often find that you need to eliminate large chunks of your original draft, create new material to respond to important questions that have arisen, and reorganize the essay in order to make it more effective.  Very often, when we begin drafting an essay, we are focussed on meeting the length requirement and on simply unlocking our creative energy by getting our writing going; this usually means focussing less on content, style, and structure and more on simply getting our thoughts down on the page.  When we revise, we take a step back from our draft, review the goals and purpose of this writing project, and use this as an opportunity to refocus and refine our plan.  In short, revision (which literally means “seeing anew” focuses on the big picture of our essay’s ideas and execution.

EDITING is the process of making our writing as effective as possible.  It is during the editing process that we turn our attention to word choice, sentence structure, tone, and other elements that might fall under the loose category of “style.”  Here too we might find ourselves moving things around in our essay in order to make our paragraphs more effective.   A great strategy to employ during this stage of the process is reading aloud.  When we read our work aloud, we can hear awkwardness, errors, and stylistic issues that our eyes simply don’t catch.   Through the editing process, your writing should get brighter, sharper, and clearer.

PROOFREADING is the last step that you take before submitting work to your professor, before pressing send on an email, or printing an important document.  During the proofreading process, we look for typos, spelling errors, spacing problems and anything else that might detract from the polished quality of our finished work or distract our reader.  It is often really useful to swap papers with an eagle-eyed friend for the proofreading process.  Sometimes we have a hard time spotting our own errors.  Do NOT rely on spell-check to find all your errors for you.

On Monday, February 22nd, you will be meeting with me in your Writing Groups according to the schedule listed below.  Additionally, you should be connecting with your Writing Groups without me in order to go over the feedback from the Peer Review, get additional advice, and formulate your next steps.  Your group should decide how it would like to meet.  (Some options are Slack, group chat, facetime, or Zoom.  I am happy to schedule and host zoom meetings for you.)

11:30 – 12:00  Group 1: Geselle, Kaylen, Abdu

12:00 – 12:30  Group 2: Samantha, Gianni, Nicole

12:30 – 1:00  Group 3: Melanie, Mokhitobon, Sydney

1:00 – 1:30  Group 4: Lorraine, Danna, Brian

1:30 – 2:00 Group 5: Destiny, Lelani, Mindy

To prepare for your conference, please do the following:

• Read your peer review feedback carefully and connect with your partners if you need further clarification.
• Begin your revision process (as described above) and be prepared to discuss it on Monday.
• Add an update to the #essays channel in our Slack workspace in which you share one piece of particularly helpful feedback that you received about your draft and describe how you will be addressing it through your revision.  You can also use this update as an opportunity to share whatever aspects of the process you are having difficulty with.  Keep an eye on this channel, and respond to your classmates’ updates where you think you can be helpful or encouraging. (If you still haven’t joined our class’s Slack workspace, go to the “Technology” tab at the top of the blog.  You can find a link for Slack in the information posted there.)

For Wednesday, February 24th:  Please read Sam Anderson’s essay “I Recommend Eating Chips” which you can find on the blog under the “Texts” tab.  Before class, please post to the blog:

–One word you had to look up from Anderson’s essay, together with its definition.

–A line that made you LOL or at least smile.

–If you were assigned an essay like this – a love letter to a particular food or eating experience, what would it be? Why?

For Thursday, February 25th:. Your essays are due by midnight.  As I explained in the essay assignment, you will create a folder with your name plus English 2150 in its title and share the folder with me.  Add your finished version of the essay to the folder.