ENGL 106 Documenting Realities – Assignment #3: Research paper
Project Goals
The Goal of this essay is to familiarize yourself with the research process and the rhetorical
mode of presenting research through the genre of the research paper. As such, and
understandably, a research paper is evaluated by both the quality of your research and your
adherence to the norms of presentation (for our purposes, the MLA stylesheet).
An additional goal is for us to put together everything we have learned so far about textual,
visual, spatial, and self-analysis into one focused effort with the goal of understanding and
navigating the rhetorical situation of our academic reality.
Now for that in English: Much of what we do for this paper will be analyzing the written
documents that make up some of the wealth of resources available to you at Purdue. This is the
common practice of the academic. However, your topics will be developed using the sort of
compositional and spatial analysis discussed so far in class. Additionally, now having a handle
on your uniqueness within the academy from doing assignment #2, I expect your particular mode
of being in and seeing the world to shine through the oftentimes dry genre of research paper.
So basically, I want this research paper to show me that you have a handle on everything we
have been doing and that you are somewhat awake and alert as you are jumping through the
hoops of this class (and your college life in general).
Project Schematic
1. As I indicated previously in the prompt, (and will indicate in our initial research paper
discussion,) the first step is finding a topic and I will be sort of restrictive about this while
still offering you a significant amount of academic freedom.
2. After you have decided on your angle into this subject, we will proceed with our digital
library lesson where we will use library research to place your initial ideas generated from
this analysis into one or more academic disciplines. (remember to ask me sometime early in
the research process how this sort of method helps in providing you with material for your
paper introductions).
3. After figuring out how your initial inquiry fits into the structure of knowledge of the
academy you have to insinuate your own vision into the academy through a bit more initial
research and the development of a research question.
4. After you have your question it is time for serious research (refer to handout). By serious I
mean finding, annotating, and synthesizing approximately 10 sources that are relevant to
your topic (not all of them need be used in your paper).
5. Now it is time to begin writing. By this time we will have gone through some lessons dealing
with specific mechanical considerations of paper construction (transition creation, MLA
style, sentence variety, pronoun usage, integrating outside sources, getting started, etc.) so
you should have no problem beginning to write.
6. Your draft is due March 6 and will be handed back Friday before spring break.
Material Requirements of this Essay
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This project should be approximately 2000 words (first draft around 1200 words) of MLA,
research paper formatted text in Times New Roman 12 pt. font…and it needs a title!
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The first draft should be accompanied by your MLA format annotated bibliography; the final
draft needs a traditional “works cited” page
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Your first draft, even though shorter, should be considered a finished piece of work even
though it is a first attempt so I do not want to see careless errors and I would like your
outside sources to be already well integrated into the narrative of your research paper.
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Remember, the first draft of your project will be due on March 6th so get started.
Project Outcomes
After completing this project you should be well on your way towards mastering the core skills
this class is designed to teach, and you should have begun to realize how to apply those skills,
not just in ENGL106 but at the university in general. Of course, the main outcome is your actual
research paper, and I think that if you submit yourself to the real process of academic research
you will be extremely satisfied with this outcome. Finally, after you’re done, you will have
completed somewhere between 65 to 70% of your work for this class, which should be a huge
relief.
Project Suggestions
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Research is only difficult or annoying if it is done up against a deadline. Get started early and
save yourself some existential anguish
This is a collaborative, supportive class. Use your peers as resources. Ask questions, create
research groups, use each other’s expertise
Apropos this suggestion, if you would like, combine your efforts with up to two people and
submit a group project (length and source requirements obviously would increase
accordingly)
If you want to succeed, you should be consulting me throughout this research process;
besides your peers and the library, I am your best resource