requirements | news | syllabus | assignments | papers | forum

Research Essay - Draft One

4 Pages Minimum, not including References page
3 Sources Minimum

This draft is your first significant effort at synthesizing sources in your own research project. While this is the first of four total drafts, do not make the mistake of assuming you need not put in much effort on this first draft. The stronger the first draft is, the stronger the second draft will be. And so on.

Guidelines for Sources and Technique

Sources. You may use one “internet-generated” source in this draft. You must use at least one journal article in this draft. You should try to include your conceptual source(s) and/or your seminal source if you can.

Technique. Remember to synthesize as you develop the individual ideas or points in your essay. Students often want to take on the “first part” of the essay in a first draft. This is particularly true of students who think they’ve already “outlined” the essay. I have tried to counsel you against “outlining” the project in your proposals because that approach is a mistake.

A more productive approach is to get the bulk of the “issues”, “themes”, or key points into this first draft. At this stage, think of your three sources as helping you lay out the issues and key points. (This isn’t that hard; it’s sort of like the multi-source paper.) Your treatment of each issue will be underdeveloped at this point (by necessity).

The major advantage of this approach is that you lay out what you see as the core points. A reader can then ask probing questions to direct revision. You can easily expand solid (but underdeveloped) “issues” by including more sources, detail, and nuance in the second, third, and final drafts. Don’t forget to quote, paraphrase, and/or cite.

On November 11, 2003, hand in the following:
>A 4 page paper that engages 3 sources (minimum), and that includes a References page using correct APA citation
>An Annotated Bibliography with all the sources you’ve looked at in your research. (You should have at least 6-8 sources for the annotated bibliography by this point – because of research assignments. If you’re keeping up with the research and on track for the course, you’ll probably have closer to 10-15 sources by then.)

<MS Word Version Here>