This is a three-part assignment that pulls together the work you have done so far and asks you to develop it further. The instructions for each section are as follows:
1) The Annotated Bibliography — Provide a list of 8 to 10 sources; please arrange them alphabetically by title and number them. Identify the type of source: article from scholarly journal, article from a professional trade journal, book, essay from a collected volume, government publication, online source, or whatever. Under each entry, write two paragraphs: the first should summarize the source’s focus and argument; the second should explain why it is relevant and what it adds to your project and how you might make use of it. You may also draw connections between sources in this paragraph. (See sample document attached.) You should not quote, paraphrase, or cite specific passages in the summary paragraph. You may quote or paraphrase in the relevance paragraph, though you are not required to. If you do, cite simply by putting the page number in parentheses. Note that any quotation or paraphrase does not count toward the length.
2) Audience Analysis — For this section, I want you to decide on a specific audience to whom you would submit your research project when it is completed. This can be an academic or professional journal, an academic conference, a meeting of a professional organization, a state, federal, or international government agency, or a specific private organization. However, it cannot be an academic class. In other words, you cannot conceive of this project as a paper for a course you are taking. It also cannot be a generic group of people like teachers, scientists, or business-owners. Once you have decided on your audience, explain how this decision will affect the project. What documentation style will be appropriate? How will the audience shape your approach to this project? For example, what kind of background knowledge can you expect your readers to already have so that you will not have to explain it? What stylistic conventions will you be expected to follow?
3) Proposal — This section should lay out where you plan to go from here. Begin with an introduction stating your topic, the current version of your research question, and why you think it is worth writing about. This should again be a how or why question, but I expect that it will be more fully conceived and almost certainly more narrowly focused than your initial attempt at one. Over the course of the next several paragraphs, go into more detail about various aspects of the question. You may discuss where some of your sources will be particularly helpful, but you do not need to (and should not) discuss them all. You should not be quoting, paraphrasing, or citing specific passages at this time.
Consider also where your research to this point has been deficient: what information haven’t you found or what issues have your sources not discussed that would be helpful or are even crucial to your project? How do you plan to rectify this problem? Note: just saying that you plan to do more research is not sufficient. Of course you are going to do more research, but how do you plan to get a different result? What will you do if what you expected to find simply doesn’t exist? How will you need to adjust your project?