This first formal project of the semester centers around a foundational aspect of college-level writing: namely, designing and planning a project that involves academic research. From sociology to nursing, English to science, disciplines across the spectrum utilize academic research to construct, prove, and illustrate claims. As a result, it is imperative that you gain experience conducting research so you become familiar with this practice and can use it effectively in future classes and professional settings.

This project thus asks you to engage in the process of academic research; you will not, however, write a formal paper at the end of this process (as you would usually do). Rather, you will spend time working through the steps needed to get you ready to write a paper. This structure allows you to focus on the academic practices that support a research paper, without the stress of actually writing that paper. 

Topic:
The topic for this paper is media literacy. While you are required to conduct research within this general topic, you will need to hone this topic through academic inquiry and academic research.

Organization:
Ultimately, the Research Report will include four parts, produced over the course of a number of weeks. The first draft of most of these sections will first be submitted as Discussion comments or Low-Stakes Assignments. You will receive feedback on these sections and then revise them, combine them, and submit them as the formal version of Project 1: The Research Process. 

The individual sections are outlined below in the handout. 

This project is due at the end of Week 5.