Research Project

Due Date (Research Proposal – one paragraph + list of one possible text for research): Thursday, March 31, 2016

Due Date (Final Version): Tuesday, May 10, 2016 HARD COPY IN CLASS

You are now at a stage where you need to begin thinking about a topic for your final research paper. The stages of this assignment are designed to help guide you in this direction. We have studied several subject areas, and doubtless some of these areas hold greater interest for you than others. Please begin by focusing on a subject area of interest to you (including, but not limited to: the Camelot years and how they shaped a decade; the Civil Rights movement; the women’s rights movement, or the women’s liberation movement; music and culture, or music and social movements; advertising and the Baby Boomers; protests against, or support for, the Vietnam War; present-day environmental movements and antecedents in the 1960s; the Black Power movement and #BlackLivesMatter; 1960s fashions and their symbolic references – and so forth). Each stage of this assignment will also give you the opportunity to look more closely at the social and historical contexts of this decade, and assess how key texts, concepts, and images are intimately connected in ways that help define this decade—and which are defined by this decade. Please note: This project may be a 7-10 page Research Paper. However, if you would like to present your research in a format outside the traditional research paper model, you may do so as long as the format and methodology are approved by me. Thus, you may present your work in the form of a short film, which is accompanied by a summary of the film’s conception and goals (the goals, of course, need to resonate with the course theme). You may, if you would like—and, indeed, if you plan to do so—organize a conference for a club you belong to, or a discipline you are part of (approval from the club, or department faculty member should be obtained). Again, the theme of the conference should, in some recognizable way, grow out of our course theme. Projects outside the scope of a traditional research paper may be organized as group projects. Please note that, for group endeavors, each group member will receive the same grade. Also, in your research proposal and in your thesis paragraph draft, you need to not only clarify the main argument or claim of your project, you also need to specify the role of each group member. In order for the grade earned to be fair, each group member must be an equal sharer in the work, from start to finish. Please keep me abreast of your group’s progress, and whether anyone in the group might not be contributing as much as she or he should be.

Part 1: Research Proposal (one paragraph, or a partial paragraph + a list of ideas):
a.) Choose a topic or an issue that is of interest to you (obviously, a topic or issue that is directly related to the course theme) and formulate a question on that issue. The answer to this question – which you will grapple with in your research paper – must enlighten your audience on that particular topic or issue. For instance, at this point in the semester, you may be interested in matters surrounding the women’s liberation movement. The women’s liberation movement is, of course, is a huge topic, so you will want to hone in on a particular aspect of the movement. Thus, your question might focus on the desire for inclusion by women of color, in the context of their exclusion from the more mainstream women’s right’s movement and the civil rights movement, which sought broad inclusion across race and class.
b.) Describe how you believe that this particular question is important for enlightening your audience on a focused claim. Thus, you might take the question above and connect it to Betty Friedan’s landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, along with written documents by women of color and lesbians, who felt that they were excluded from the mainstream women’s rights movement. How, then, does the term “women’s liberation” differ from “women’s rights?” Your proposal does not need to be polished, but it should have the early-stage contours of an idea that can be developed into a rich project.

Part 2: Thesis Paragraph + List of 3 Preliminary Texts (one primary source and two secondary source):
a.) Once you have identified a question, you will identify three sources with which to begin your research. Only one of these sources may be an internet source, and even then, it needs to be from a credible site. You should turn to our syllabus, as well as to JSTOR, Project Muse, Academic Search Complete, and Google Scholar, among other databases and websites. Likewise, please turn to the library and to the reference librarians (librarians love to be part of students’ research endeavors!). You will list your work according to MLA Style guidelines (the MLA guide is on the Newman Library database, as well as on OWL Purdue and the MLA website). Please be aware that the New York Public Library has three excellent research libraries, open to the public, which may well provide you with fantastic resources. Each library has its own website: The Humanities and Social Science Research Library (the Stephen A. Schwartzman Building) at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center next to the Metropolitan Opera House; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, between 135th and 136th Streets.
b.) In an in-class workshop, or in discussion with me, please be prepared to discuss how these works seem helpful towards answering your question and likewise how you might draw them into a discussion of the specific topic you are fine-tuning.

Part 3: Rough Draft:
Your rough draft does not need to be the full length of the final project, which is 7-10 pages. However, you should have at least 3 pages, if you are writing a traditional research paper. If you are creating a conference proposal, or making a short film accompanied by a brief written summary, you need to have enough material by the Rough Draft Due Date to illustrate to me that the project is taking shape in a meaningful, productive way—a way, in other words, which indicates to me and to you that this project can be satisfactorily completed by the final due date.

Part 4: Final Version:
The “final version” will be the final iteration of your project, which you submit to me for a grade. If you are writing a traditional research paper, then you will submit a 7-10 page research paper that includes a Works Cited page and all the other particulars noted for this project. If this is a project outside the parameters of a traditional research paper, then you will submit to me the project (and all its components), which we agreed on in your proposal. Please note that, unlike Paper #1 and Paper #2, the Research Project cannot be rewritten or revised for a different grade.