Week 1

Changing China, Winter 2009

Guidelines for 1st Research Project:

Research Paper Title, Abstract, Outline, and Bibliography

This quarter, your research project will be a series of exercises leading to the final completion of your research paper to be submitted by the end of week 9.  Your research paper should be 10-12 pages long, with formal citation, documentation and bibliography (using APA or MLA style).  Your research topic should preferably be the same as the one for last quarter.  In other words, ideally, you should have already completed the library and electronic research portion of the project and are ready to actually write the paper.  For new students, you will have a library research workshop during the first week to launch you into the process.  Following the guidelines in the handouts step by step, you should be able to catch up with rest of the program.  For old students, you may change your topic and restart the whole process if you really want to, but we would like to strongly discourage you from doing so.

The three research writing exercises of this quarter are:

1. Research Paper Title, Abstract, Outline, and Bibliography-due Thursday, Week 3
2. Research Paper 1st draft with bibliography (4-7 pages)-due Thursday, Week 5
3. Research Paper final draft with bibliography (10-12 pages)-due Thursday, Week 9

All of the above should be submitted to your seminar faculty via Moodle webpage.

Your first submission should contain the following sections: 1. Your Paper Title, 2. The Abstract of your paper, 3. An Outline of the paper, and 4. Bibliography of 5-10 references

Title

            Your title should reflect both your topic and your take on it.  Because of this dual function, research titles frequently are hyphenated.  The part before the hyphen is your general topic.  The part after the hyphen is your "angle:" your mode of organization or your central contribution.  The examples we offered last quarter are "Chinese Opera in Seattle in the 1990s: the influence of the microphone on traditional vocal styles," "Images of Nature in Early Chinese Poetry: Seeing the Moon through Tao Qian's Eyes," and "Women in Modern Dance in China during 1960s: Working Women and Heroic Maidens."

Abstract

            An abstract, no more than 250 words, is the summary of the paper's main ideas and research methods.  It is similar to the topic paragraph we asked you to write last quarter, but it needs to be more comprehensive and hence more condensed in form.  An abstract serves many functions for a scholar.  It is required for any publication/grant/conference paper proposal and it is usually the first indication of the paper's theme and content in a journal or electronic database.  It poses the theme, thesis, or the main question clearly, with a succinct definition and explanation.  Following the thesis is a clear mapping of the author/researcher's research methods and approaches to the proposed theme and thesis, supported by selective evidence and ended with a statement which is either a conclusion or a discovery from the research.  

Paper Outline

            Before you write your paper, break your ideas down into a few general sections and place them in a coherent order of progression.  Starting your paper with this step, your paper will more likely have a progressive structure marked by stages of beginning, middle and end.  Give each section a clear heading to indicate the content of individual section as well as the logic of sequence and transition between them.  Then break each general section further down into smaller segments to indicate and clarify the components embedded within the sections.  An outline will have many big headings (I, II, III...); under each big heading there are many smaller headings (a, b, c...), and there could be even smaller headings (i, ii, iii...).  The more complicated and thorough the research, the more headings and subheadings the outline may present.  Each heading, big or small, needs to be clearly worded and defined, and to show connections between all of them.

            Once you have created a clear and progressive outline like this, you may easily translate the individual ideas or segments into a series of paragraphs naturally flowing from one to the next.  You will have a better sense of structure in place for the composition of the paper.  You may even want to keep and incorporate the general headings into the body of your paper to help the reader follow your narrative.  Even if you decide to go with your creative flow later in the actual writing of the paper, this outline will help you take the initial step in systematically organizing your ideas and research material/data. 

You may decide to include Diagrams, Chronologies, Maps, Tables, Graphs, and Charts in your paper.  Mark out in your outline where you will place these graphic illustrations.  It is strongly encouraged that you will use them to visually explicate your information and discovery; it also supports a great quantitative skill regularly exercised by good researchers.  To learn about why and how to use them in a paper, please go to fall quarter week 6 handout page on our main program website. 

Bibliography

            We would like you to present a bibliography of at least 5 entries which will include reference books, specialized books, periodical articles (newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals), or websites you have located for your research and for your paper.  We would like to see that you continue to expand your information base and cited works.  So, even if you have created a rather extensive bibliography at the end of the last quarter, we would like you to further edit the existing list of references and continue to revise, expand and polish it, to make these sources really applicable and useful for you as a serious researcher.  The bibliography should be a good mix of different resources; various websites by themselves cannot be the sole or even major sources for your paper.  Preferably the websites you include are those of the government and educational institution only.  Even if Wikipedia is a good starting point for you, please do not list its sites as entries for bibliography.  Please observe and exercise APA or MLA documentation style.

There is a link to the Changing China library workshop on the side bar of our moodle site, prepared specifically by librarian Sarah Pedersen for our program, which can give you many good leads and tips on library resources available online and in our library.  Please take a serious look at it again.  It will help your find many excellent resources for your expanding bibliography.