- Your final essay will require research on a topic related to your major (or potential major). Begin by deciding what general topic you're going to research.
- Spend some time reading/browsing information on your topic. Don't worry too much about the credibility of your sources (for now). Your goal here isn't to discover information you can use in an essay; your goal is to discover what interests you most about your topic.
- Between now and Monday, work to narrow your focus and identify a minimum of five specific, original questions that would require research to answer. To put this a slightly different way, what do you most want to know about your topic?
- Remember that you are writing an academic essay, not a career report. Your focus should be on your topic itself, rather than the lives of people involved in a specific profession.
- An academic essay is also different from an informative report. Your essay should do more than summarize existing knowledge on your topic. It should, instead, DRAW AN ORIGINAL CONCLUSION. You should have this purpose in mind as you write your research questions.
- How has the popularity of text messaging affected literacy among today's youth?
- What impact does the availability of bike lanes have on obesity rates?
- How accurately does the film Black Swan depict the lives of actual dancers?
The above questions are suitable because each one A) requires research to answer, B) would likely lead to a conclusion (an arguable claim) that could serve as an essay's thesis, and C) seeks to discover something new about its topic.
Please bring your questions to class on Monday. We will discuss them. See you then.
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