The Researched Essay

The Researched Essay

For our final project before doing revisions for the portfolio, you will be writing a short researched paper. It will be written on a topic of your choosing, as long as the topic is somehow related to gender issues. This provides a wide range of topics with a common theme, allowing each student freedom and providing one shared thread.

Your research paper will demonstrate your ability to choose a workable topic, to define a view on the topic, to locate and gather pertinent and authoritative information, to make effective use of that information, and to show your understanding of proper formatting. The paper will be from 5-7 pages (1250-1750 words) and will use at least ten reliable sources from print periodicals, books, and online resources. It will follow the guidelines for preparing a research paper established by the MLA.

The successful paper will be built on a clear understanding of Parts 8 and 9 of the Holt Handbook. Chapters 32-35 are especially important for learning how to conduct research and integrate the material into your text, and chapter 36 gives the complete information about MLA documentation.

The topic: For the research paper, you will be writing about an issue on gender. The topic you choose should be something that you’re interested in, but it must be tied, however loosely, to gender issues. So, choosing the topic is to be done carefully, but there are many things that will work. Remember that in any course, there will rarely be an assignment given that allows you complete freedom to choose topics. You’ll need to choose within a subject area. Our subject area is gender.

There are many obvious topics here, but the trick will be to write about something that you’re interested in. I don't care to read many papers on the same topic or on nearly the same topic. I don't want to read that many papers on obvious topics in health, and nobody else would either. I would like to read papers that delve into something that you're interested in. If it’s sports, then perhaps men and women's college athletics, gender differences in training, women in sports, or the new women's pro sports might make good topics. If you’re interested in history, then some kind of combination of history and gender will work. There’s always a way to make the connection. You may need to do some research to discover what topics might work, though. As you begin, then, work to try to narrow your topic at first, rather than to find immediately things that will support your paper.

The approach: The best way I've found to begin and to focus a paper like this is by trying to formulate a research question. It usually takes some research to get this question focused. For example, you might find yourself thinking about how boys and girls were treated in schools years ago. That may get focused from there to a certain time period, say the 1950's or on some legal decision--Title IX, for example. By doing some research, you might discover that some people think that it's important to look into how boys are being treated in schools. You look further and discover that a lot of programs and incentives exist for girls, but some experts have seen that boys are behind in grades, graduation, and going on to college. So you formulate this tentative question: "What can be done to encourage boys to do well in school?" (It took me a while to formulate that question!). Even this specific topic could yield other areas of interest: What are some programs that are working and keeping troubled boys in school? What reasons are given for why boys have problems? Not all of these topics would necessarily work, but they may begin the process of defining the topic. Note: The research question you try to formulate should not be one which can be answered with a yes or no. "Did school rules about treatment of boys and girls used to be different?" or "Is Title IX working in schools?" is not the way to ask the question. It's often simple to rewrite the question to avoid this.

Your paper will be expected to describe what the issue is, to provide the different viewpoints and explain what their views are, using examples and illustrations from the materials you find. If there are more than two sides to the issue (as there often are) then your paper should try to describe those. The paper will also need to provide background on the issue, providing context for it. For example, suppose you are writing about a dispute about whether Title IX is accomplishing what it set out to do. That paper might describe the way in which groups identified the big gap between what was spent on men's sports and what was spent on women's. Then they got the law passed prohibiting that gap. You would want, in other words, to provide a brief history of the Title IX law.

In other words, the paper needs to provide context for the issue.

Finally, your paper should define your own stand on the issue, having identified the various views of others. Having looked at a range of materials, you’ll have earned the right to make a judgment. That judgment should be based on the materials that you found. In other words, the answer to your research question should be found in the sources, not arrived at by some other means.