Purpose: A Research Paper Proposal and an Annotated Bibliography are a typical practice for a research project whether at the level of student or at the level of professional. Within the field of academia, a research proposal and annotated bibliography may be used for the writer’s own benefit to organize their project, or the proposal and bibliography may be submitted to a company, university, program, etc. requesting grant/travel money to fund the development of their project. Outside academia, research proposals and annotated bibliographies may be used in a variety of fields, such as the medical field for those developing new treatment methods or in marketing to get approval for developing a new marketing campaign for a product. Skills Utilized: • Claim/Support/Explanation • Summary • MLA citation/format • Critical reading and thinking • Research methods • Synthesis Assignment: For this assignment you should choose a research topic and a specific issue within this research topic that you would like to pursue in a future larger, research paper to develop a 400-word research paper proposal for that future research paper and an 1000-word annotated bibliography of sources you would like to use for that paper. Once you have determined the specific issue that you would like to pursue, you should use library resources to research and locate 5 sources addressing your issue
. At least 2 sources must be scholarly, peer-reviewed texts (journal article, chapter from a book, article from a book, or book). Otherwise, you may choose from a variety of sources: newspaper articles, documentaries, interviews, movies, podcasts, photos, artwork, etc. These sources may be popular or scholarly but should be relevant and reliable. Sources should be read/viewed in their entirety. If you decide to continue to pursue the research topic chosen for the Exploratory Paper, you may reuse the resources found for that paper. You should then create your proposal. A good research paper proposal should be organized into 2 paragraphs. The first paragraph should address the more general concerns: 1) introduce your research topic; 2) point to a specific issue/concern within your research topic that needs to be addressed; 3) establish why this issue/concern is relevant. The second paragraph should address the more specific concerns of your proposed argument for your future paper: 4) establish what people are currently saying about your specific issue/concern by pointing to a source that has addressed this issue/concern already; 5) suggest how your research paper will differ, agree, or add to this current conversation on your specific issue/concern; 6) conclude by posing a tentative thesis statement for this research paper. You should then create your annotated bibliography, using the 5 sources that you found and would like to use within the later, larger research paper. For each resource you should create an MLA bibliographic (work cited) entry followed by an annotation that contains the following: 1. A summary of the text in your own words 2. An evaluation of the authority or background of the author and bias (if present within the work) 3. The source’s relevance to your paper’s topic 4. An assessment of the intended audience of the source 5. A description of how the source relates to another source within the bibliography 6. A reflection on how this source may be used in your future Research Paper Each annotation should be roughly 200 words. Be sure that each element of the annotation is addressed sufficiently. Research Topics: You can and should continue with the research topic from your Exploratory Paper if you would like to do so. If you would like to switch to a new topic, however, you may. The only research topics not available for this assignment are marijuana use, marijuana legalization, healthy college student lifestyle, paying college student athletes, and politics. All other topics are available as a research topic to pursue. As this assignment is the next step towards ultimately developing a well written and informed research paper, it is recommended that you choose a research topic that you are willing to pursue, develop, and refine. Assignment Basics: This paper should be typed in Times New Roman 12-pt font, double spaced, have 1” margins, and conform to MLA format. The tone and voice of the Research Paper Proposal should be objective but argumentative. The tone and voice of the Annotated Bibliography should be objective and neutral. The presumed audience for both is academic.
