Since the beginning of the course, you have been researching, annotating, and writing short essays on the ideas and materials that are to become part of your final research paper. This assignment asks you to put together that work in a “rough draft” of 3,000-5,000 words.
Be sure to use the Chicago style of citations for your draft and final paper.
Here are some guidelines for preparing that draft:
Review your Research Project Worksheet, if you have been using it. It’s likely that much of your first draft has already been written right there. Use that material as a starting point for preparing your draft:
– Write an introduction that includes an interesting opening paragraph, along with a description of the topic and your interest in it.
– State your thesis and argument.
– Develop the body of your paper.
The paper requires use of at least one scholarly book. You have been asked to select a book and create an annotation about it in M4 Assignment 1: Annotating a Book. Think now about how that book fits with other sources you have located for prior assignments as well as the Collaborative Bibliography project.
The book and its author’s arguments should play a key role in supporting your argument and should work with the other sources you have consulted to prove your argument in the paper. You will use material from the book and other sources to develop your cause/effect argument and provide proof for your thesis.
Go back to your written assignments from modules 2 and 3. Decide where the writing you did on those assignments fits into the overall project, and incorporate that writing into your draft, adding detail and editing as needed.
Be careful not to simply copy and paste but to use sections of your past assignments to highlight and construct your argument.
Review the annotations in the Collaborative Annotated Bibliography Project. Are there sources your classmates have shared that you would like to consider incorporating into your project? Locate the sources and read them over quickly. Add your notes to your draft, editing as needed.
At this point, you might not have come up with a conclusion or thoughts on further research. Now is the time to begin considering those aspects of the paper. Re-read your notes as well as your draft. Jot down some preliminary ideas and draft a preliminary statement on further research you or others might do as well as a conclusion.
If you have not been using the Research Paper Worksheet, you can still draw on your previous assignments for guidance.
Your draft should include the following:
– An appropriate title for your project.
– A clear/cause effect historical argument as your thesis – underlined – as the last sentence of your introduction
– A bibliography at the end of the paper that lists in alphabetical order by author, the sources you used in your paper. You can use a sample paper from the ESC Library that has been formatted in Chicago style as a guide for preparing your bibliography.
– Citations in the paper that indicate precisely the source of the ideas, arguments, and other thoughts you drew on to develop your paper.
– Keep your writing tight and succinct and follow standard rules of academic writing
Keep in mind that the final research paper you submit is to be approximately 4,000 words. This assignment offers a range of 3,000 to 5,000 words as one means of helping you determine how far along in the research and writing process you are.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|