Literature Review Project Proposal – 5%
Due: February 28, 2018, 11:55 p.m.
For this assignment, I want to know what topic you have chosen for your research paper/formal report.
Background Information about the Research Paper:
Your research report will be a literature review. A literature review is a summary and analysis of the articles written about a specific issue or topic. For this particular assignment the topic should be one that has recently been in the news as a significant and controversial issue. Preferably it will also be related to Canada, Alberta, or even to Edmonton. We want the topic to be as relevant to our own concerns as possible.
For your report, you will read a large number of articles (more than 15) on the topic of your choice. Your topic must, however, as noted above, be relatively current and controversial.
Your research paper will categorize and summarize the important themes and perspectives that appear in these articles. It will also discuss the techniques that the different authors use to present their arguments and convince their audience.
We will break the project down into two phases:
1) Literature review project proposal and timeline (Due: February 28, 2018, 11:55 p.m.)
2) Final research report (Due: April 5, 2018, 11:55 p.m.)
Here are some helpful resources for the annotated bibliography and the full literature review report:
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/annotated-bibliography http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review
(If these links don’t work, copy and paste the link into your browser, or shorten the hyperlink to http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/, then select “Specific Types of Writing,” and from there, “Annotated Bibliography” or Literature Review”)
You’ll have to choose a topic that is narrow enough that you can compare articles written about the topic, but substantial enough to have attracted a lot of attention, opinion, and analysis in magazines, newspapers, and hopefully some academic journals. You will also need to get my approval of the topic, which is the purpose of the research project proposal exercise. I will not approve broad topics with nondescriptive titles like “abortion,” “race (or gender) discrimination,” “suicide,” “governance,” etc. Please contact our reference librarian if you have problems with narrowing the scope of your topic, since the library search engines are great tools to help you select search terms that will return about 1530 potential resources for your topic area. This is an ideal number of resources to work with.
Content Requirements for this Assignment:
Write a proposal asking your instructor for approval on the formal report topic you have chosen.
Information you might want to include in your proposal:
• Why do you have an interest in this topic?
• What are you hoping to achieve (in terms of improving your writing skills and learning new information) when you write the paper?
• How will you approach the topic, and what is your plan/timeline for completing your formal report? Be realistic about how much time you will spend on each phase (planning, research, first draft, revisions, and final version).
• What resources are you planning to use? Be specific about the details, e.g. the library databases that you will be searching, relevant web resources and search terms. It might be useful to talk to the NAIT librarians when you are developing this section of your plan.
• What assistance or guidance will you need from me or from your classmates as you are going through the essay-writing process?
When you are writing, remember that you are trying to persuade me to approve your topic. Keep your audience in mind. Maintain a friendly, polite, enthusiastic tone; present your information in a professional manner.
Feel free to use personal pronouns (I, you), as this is an informal, memo proposal, equivalent to a piece of correspondence or a business email.
Formatting Requirements for this Assignment:
Pay attention to the memo format of your proposal. It must include:
Your name, recipient name & title, date line, subject line, etc.: all in appropriate memo format. Subject – should be a clear statement of the topic for your proposal as well as a preliminary title (more specific than the topic).
Purpose statement – clearly states the topic for the research project.
Body paragraphs – each paragraph is short (no more than 4 sentences). Bullet points or numbered lists are used as necessary.
Request for approval – Make this a friendly closing sentence; wind up your memo in the nicest possible way.
Your name & contact details – it’s always good to provide these as part of your request for approval at the end of your proposal, in case the supervisor/instructor wishes to contact you for additional information.
You will be marked on format and organization (including paragraph structure), content development, readability and grammar and spelling.
Submit the completed memo proposal to the assignment dropbox by February 28, 2018, 11:55 p.m.