Research Project Assignment:

The English word research comes to us from the Old French cercher “to seek, which reminds us that the point of research is to find answers. Research is not about justifying the idea you already have; it is about testing that idea and potentially discovering better ones.

With that in mind, this assignment asks you to consider multiple arguments on a particular issue (you can pair research projects with class discussions, or propose your own topic) and answer a relatively plain question:

What does someone need to know in order to best understand an issue and what sort of conclusion(s) does that understanding suggest would be best to draw?

The question is plain, but not simple. In order to answer it you will need to do a fair bit of reading in order to see as many possible perspectives as possible. Then you’ll need to use reason and logic to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of those positions and finally, you’ll need to use your sense of all that to develop, explain, and support your position.

You can pair your research projects with the two non-textbook reading units that we’ll examine this semester, or you choose your own topics. Be careful, regardless of whichever approach you choose. Too broad or too narrow a claim will put you in trouble from the start, so think carefully about the argument you can make well in the space you have.

Research projects should be about 1500 words long.