Specific Steps

The Process

Explore topics: Find out what the issues are. Talk to people. Read the newspaper or a magazine. What issues are people talking about? What are the problems in your communities? Some examples of communities that you might want to look into would be your hometown, your neighborhood, the town you live in currently, you college, an organization or club you are a part of, your church, your job, an online community, etc.

Brainstorm: After settling on a community issue, you should do three things to help you brainstorm:
Describe what you know about that issue. What do people say about it? What “sides” are there on this issue (as a side note, often there are more than two “sides” to an issue, and your job will be to describe the complexity of this issue)?
Freewrite about how you relate to this issue. Why is this issue important to you or your community? What experiences have you had that affects your position on the issue?
Research the issue. Start with questions: what do you want to know? What information do you need to find out? Try to draw on the four sources of information that are usually included in a researched essay to develop your articulation of the issue: memory or experience, observation, interviews, and reading. In doing your research, rely on library’s resources and source evaluation techniques that we have been covering in the course.

Complete an Annotated Bibliography: The specifics of this aspect are explained in the Annotated Bibliography Assignment, but briefly, you will use this assignment to begin to process your research and create a plan for the essay.
Complete a Rough Draft: A rough draft of the project is due 1 week before the final draft is due, which will give you an opportunity to get feedback from the instructor and your classmates.