Blog #5

Reading this chapter on topics and research proposals was really helpful for me because I had no idea where to start on picking a topic for Project 2. When choosing a topic, picking something that is of value to you or something that you’re really interested in is important. Along with that, it gives you a rationale for your research proposal. If you pick a topic just to pick something, you’re really not writing your proposal for anything other than to get the assignment done. In class, we’ve put an emphasis on exigence and picking something of unimportance to you would be throwing that all out the window. Another downside of picking a topic with no purpose is it will more than likely make your research extremely boring and in turn, your project will likely end up really boring and suffering because of it. Everyone knows it’s easier to write about things you have interest in.

Something I found to be really important in this chapter was the organizing your sources portion. I knew about bibliographies but I never really knew there was a thing as working bibliographies – or I didn’t know there was a name for it at least. From past experience of doing research, I can really relate to the struggle of keeping information organized and remembering where it came from. If I’m being totally honest, I never really cared to keep track of it. I’d pretty much get my information and without thinking about it, close out the sites. Then when I was done, I’d realize I had no clue where my information was from so I’d go back and redo my search and pick a few different sites that looked familiar and slap those down as my sources (hello plagiarism). Now being in college, the sources game is quite a bit more serious. For this proposal, I’m definitely going to keep an annotated working bibliography as I go. It will definitely help me remember my sources and eliminate the scrambling at the end to find what I used as a source. Having it annotated will just be an additional bonus so I don’t forget exactly what I used each source for.