1) Decide on your Research Question--the overall topic you intend to do your Research Paper on. If you are struggling for ideas, check Research Project Topic Suggestions. Submit this by Sunday, March 12 here: Research Topic Proposal. Read the instructions on the Discussion Board carefully. You'll need to post your Research Proposal and Question, but you'll also need to respond to two of your classmates' proposals. You have to do both to get full credit!

2) Pick the works you intend to use for your Research Paper. There should be at least five works from the assigned readings. The instructions say you should pick three from the first half of the course and two from the last half, but if you need to vary that a bit (pick three from the second half), that is fine. The overall goal is that you get a good spread of works from different time periods, so you can trace an idea, a pattern, a social issue, etc. and how that changes or evolves over time.

3) Once you've picked the works you want to use for you Research Paper, then go back and revise the Literature Review. The scholarly sources (which you can find on the library databases or on Google Scholar) should be directly related to the works you are using in the paper. For example, if you want to look at women's voices in American Literature and how those voices have evolved over time, you might pick primary sources from Anne Bradstreet, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. The scholarly (secondary) sources you choose for the Lit Review should look at those authors specifically. Basically, the Lit Review is where you analyze what other people have said about your topic and show how their analysis is relevant to your analysis. Then, your Research Paper is your actual analysis of the primary works (the literature in our textbook that you have chosen to work with).

4) These DO NOT COUNT as scholarly sources:

Shmoop, LitNotes, SparkNotes, BookRags, etc

Encyclopedia entries or Wikipedia entries

The biographical notes in the textbook

The information in the textbook about specific time periods, movements, etc

You can use information from these places (except for the Shmoop, SparkNotes, etc places) to add background to your essay, but they will not work as scholarly commentary.

I realize this process is probably different from work you've done in other English classes. This is an advanced level class, so we're asking you to do new, more complicated assignments. I have virtual office hours on Thursday and Sunday nights from 6:00-8:00 pm (https://columbiastate.zoom.us/j/86848208646) and I will be more than happy to talk with you about the project. In addition, I'm in my office in Columbia on Mondays from 9:00 am-3:00 pm and I can meet in person, Zoom, or talk by phone with you then, as well.

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