FEMINIST THOUGHT- RESEARCH PROJECT ASSIGNMENT Research Project Requirements Topic:
Choose a famous woman in history (the list of names you can choose from is uploaded as a separate document), introduce the major stages of her life, explain her significance and highlight the reasons why you consider her a major figure in history. It is important that you go beyond simply listing facts from your sources; you must make the material your own by commenting on, evaluating, and explaining the facts.
In other words, please DO NOT:
attempt to give a complete overview of the person’s life from cradle to grave; simply copy facts and data from your research sources. If your paper does not
include your own evaluations, comments, and explanations, it will receive a very low score!!!
Please DO:
present YOUR OWN portrait of the person. Make clear what achievements of the person YOU value most;
do this by selecting specific details then explain and evaluate their significance in general as well as for yourself.
If your essay presents a portrait of the person that only you could have written because it reflects your own interests and insights, that paper will receive a high score! Choosing the topic: You must choose your topic from the list of topics provided with the assignment. Only topics on the list are acceptable. Submit your choice for your topic to the Research Topic discussion board. There can be NO MORE THAN TWO research papers on the same person so it is first come, first served. Your topic will be confirmed in the discussion board. THE DEADLINE TO HAVE YOUR TOPIC CONFIRMED IS THE END OF WEEK 7!!! NOT HAVING CHOSEN YOUR TOPIC BY THAT DEADLINE WILL RESULT IN POINT DEDUCTION. Requirements:
A minimum of 3 reliable research sources. At least one of your main sources must come from a Berkeley College Library database! The library workshop in week 8 will help you with this.
If you are using sources that are not from a database, you are fully responsible for evaluating these sources for credibility. Sources that reveal no author should NEVER be used. Please do NOT use Wikipedia (for this very reason). If you are using google when searching for sources, stick to the educational and serious professional websites. The quality of your sources will be a part of your grade. Obviously sources that are less than 1000 words are not worthy of college-level research unless they are provided in addition to the 3 minimum sources.
Make sure to avoid plagiarism (that results in immediate failure of the course) by following the MLA guidelines on documenting sources.
In my experience, there are 2 reasons why students may fail this assignment: 1. lack of research (this is called a research paper so, by definition, it has to have a substantial research component); 2. unacceptable documentation of sources that results in the appearance of plagiarism. Please be aware that the definition of plagiarism has nothing to do with intentions; it relies on appearances. That is, if you do not document sources correctly (according to MLA guidelines), most importantly, if you have either the Works Cited or the in-text citations missing, you commit plagiarism. Both of these pitfalls are easy to avoid if you are paying attention
Required length: 4-5 double-spaced pages; approximately 1200-1400 words (including Works Cited).
Schedule for Research Project:
Week 7 – Confirmed topic Week 8- Library Workshop and exercises Week 11- List of sources in MLA format Week 12 – Final draft of Research Project due! If an emergency requires special consideration, the request must be made BEFORE the paper is due. Week 13- Power Point presentation of research
As you can see on the syllabus, the research paper is a MANDATORY assignment. Those who do not submit the research paper on time or submit an unacceptable one, will fail not only the assignment but the whole course.
