Research Argument Proposal

Research Argument Proposal
English 112 / The Proposal

This assignment is in preparation for a longer, research report that you will write very soon. Now, however, you are typing a proposal that will tell your instructor about the topic that you wish to write about for that longer document.

Type your responses to the questions below. Please include an MLA heading on your document.

1. What is the field of study that you will be studying in college and hope to specialize in for your career? Be specific! If you are going into the medical field, what type of work do you hope to do?
2. What is the controversial/argumentative topic in your field of study that you are interested in researching and writing about? Be sure to phrase the topic as a question like the following example:

Should high school writing teachers use peer-editing exercises in their classrooms, that require students to read their fellow students’ written work and provide feedback for revision?

Please note that you may not write about “overdone” topics like the rightness or wrongness of abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, legalizing marijuana, etc. These are topics that, for the most part, anyone could write about, and you want to focus on a topic that professionals in your field of study are more in tune with. In order to find such topics, you will want to search scholarly and non-scholarly trade sources that those professionals read.

If you already have topics in mind, simply go to the WCC Library databases and find articles.

If you are uncertain about a topic that you would like to write about, do an internet search for “professional journals and websites for _________” (fill in the blank with the profession). Once you find these sites, look over the topics that are presented there. When you find ones of interest, you may use those articles to help you with your research, but you should also go back to the WCC Library databases.

Note: You could also ask someone in the field what he or she believes are important topics in that line of work.

3. What is your opinion on the argumentative topic? Phrase your answer as a single-sentence thesis statement that presents the topic, your point-of-view, followed by three reasons in support of that view. For example,

High school writing teachers should not use peer-editing exercises because the editing effort 1) may be suspect, 2) may be incorrect, and 3) is too difficult to fairly assess.

In the thesis above, the topic is highlighted in blue, the opinion or point-of-view is highlighted in red, and the reasons are numbered.

4. What is the opinion of your opposition on this topic? What are at least two reasons why others have an opposite opinion from yours on the topic? For example:

1. Some teachers believe that peer-editing exercises help less-advanced student writers see how more-advanced student writers develop topics, organize ideas, and structure sentences. In this way, those less-developed writers can learn from their peers.

2. Other teachers believe that having students assess other students’ writing will help them to better apply the assignment guidelines to their own work. It does happen that a writer may not follow guidelines when writing his or her essay, but when required to assess another student’s work using those guidelines, that original student may realize what needs to be fixed in his or her own work.

5.Brief Annotated Bibliography – List two sources that you will use in your upcoming research report. The sources must be from scholarly and non-scholarly trade sources only!

As you did with your annotated bibliography assignment, begin each bibliographic summary with a work cited entry in 8th edition MLA format. Then, summarize the content of the article, typing at least six sentences. End with at least two sentences that explicitly state how you will use the article as evidence in your report. Below is an example of one bibliographic entry for the topic of peer-editing to use as a guide:

May, Bob. “How Peer-editing Challenged My High School Student Writers.” American Educator vol. 5 no. 1, 2011, pp. 43-50. (FYI – There is no URL or accessed date because I have this source in print form and did not find it via the internet/electronicall.)
In this article, Bob May, a high school English teacher in Des Moines, Iowa, explains how his
students responded to peer-editing exercises that he scheduled for them. Over the course
of one fall semester, students were required to spend every Friday in peer-editing sessions. The editors wrote editorial comments on their fellow student essays, and the also had to complete a peer-editing follow-up sheet that May used to assess the quality of the editors’ work. May found that some of his students – mostly those who were advanced writers – found the job of editor to be very rewarding, while other students – often less-advanced writers – put very little effort into the editing process, and they were not confident in their abilities to provide correct editorial feedback.
I would use this article in the final body paragraph of my report when I discuss how difficult it is for an instructor to fairly assess and assign a grade to an editor’s work. For example, May at the end of his article, states, “It became so difficult for me to accept the fact that not all student writers have equal writing or editing abilities, and that the quality of educational content for the less-advanced students during peer-editing sessions was not where it needed to be. The responsibility for instruction should be mostly mine” (50). May now uses peer-editing sessions very infrequently, and the work produced by editors is not graded.