Peer Response Draft Due: by class Monday, November 9th in your individual folder
Final Draft Due: by class Monday, November 16th in your individual folder
In case it’s helpful, you can download a PDF version of this prompt here: Research Exploration Project Prompt PDF
Overview
In the genre analysis/”how to” essay, we spent some time getting to understand the importance of genre in terms of purpose, audience, content, and structure. You not only crafted a discussion that used concepts of genre to explain to someone else how to write in that genre, you also wrote in a genre that was new to you. In other words, you used one genre to explain to others how to write in a different genre. For this second project, you are now going to conduct research and write about it using two new genres: the annotated bibliography and literature review.
The Research Exploration Project
For the research exploration project, you will be picking a place and researching that place. You will craft an annotated bibliography of your sources (at least 3-5 entries) and write a “literature review”/synthesis paper (around 600-900 words). Ideally, your research exploration project will help you develop a thorough awareness about, familiarity with, and understanding of your chosen place.
You can choose to research any place that you have a connection with or interest in and that you can conduct research about, and your research and synthesis should focus on a specific aspect of that place. Keep in mind, as you pick your topic and research, ideally, your research exploration project will help you develop the background knowledge you will need in order to compose the final project for this course. In other words, you’re going to want to make sure it’s something you’re interested in and want to know more and write about.
Just to clarify, there are two parts to this assignment:
1) The Annotated Bibliography
An annotated bibliography uses MLA format (in this case) to list research sources for a specific subject; however, it also provides a discussion of the research material. Each annotations should consist of both the citation of the source and a discussion that includes:
- context and a brief summary of the source,
- how the source is relevant to your research–that is, how is it useful for your specific research focus,
- how you think the source might fit into your conversation overall.
You should have at least 3-5 annotations that should each be at least 150-250 words in length.
2) The Literature Review
For the “literature review,” which can be thought of as a synthesis of your research, in 600-900 words, you will be putting all of your sources in conversation with one another—ideally, with a specific focus in mind. For this, you should develop a discussion of what sources you’re using, but also what these sources say about your topic and how they say it. You will not be making an argument with your research literature review, but rather just giving your reader an understanding of what has been said about your topic, by whom, and how. This means you can (but don’t have to):
- summarize common elements or issues that you see in your sources
- write about interesting questions or themes in your sources that stand out to you
- analyze any notable approaches your sources take in discussing your place
- consider the genre of the sources and how that affects the information included in your sources
- examine what kind of evidence and/or assumptions your sources rely on to make their claims
- describe the tone that characterizes current conversations in your sources about your place
While the annotated bibliography and the literature review will be separate in your project (they can be in separate documents or they can be in the same document in whatever order you prefer), they should heavily inform one another. They will complement each other in productive ways—for both you and your reader.