For this assignment, propose a topic for your extended research project.
In your proposal, you should address the following issues (please write in complete sentences/paragraphs):
- What is the subject that you wish to research?
- Why do you want to research this subject? What interests you about it?
- What questions do you have about the subject? What is your line of inquiry?
- What potential challenges do you anticipate in addressing this subject?
- What rhetorical stance do you anticipate taking in relation to your subject? (i.e. will you be arguing for or against it, will you be advocating further exploration of the topic, will you be working to better understand and to explain the topic, etc.)
Keep in mind that your inquiry topic needs to be scientific in a broad sense. That is, you need to be researching and writing about some aspect of scientific research. The approach you take, though, can involve looking at the impacts that the scientific work has had on society, the ways that scientific discoveries have (or have failed to) circulate or been accepted by society, the intersections between scientific research and paradigms. You should also be thinking about and reflecting on the interaction between the science itself and the ways it is presented (i.e. thinking about the rhetoric). Be sure to choose a topic, or a line of inquiry, that give you the opportunity to engage with the material, rather than merely reporting on it; often this depends greatly on the questions you are asking about a topic, and how you are positioning yourself in relationship to it.
Your proposal does not commit you to a topic at this point, however the longer you have to work with your given topic, the better your end result will be. If you do subsequently change topics, you will be required to submit a proposal for the new topic.
The final project will be roughly the equivalent of a 10 page research paper; though we'll be producing the work through multiple drafts. You need not produce merely a 10 page paper, however, and you are encouraged to incorporate multimodal aspects to your work.