The Focus Essay
Your essay should chronicle the ways in which your ideas about your topic developed as a result of exploring the relevant literature. You should discuss how this led you to a more focused topic as well as a working hypothesis or central research question that will guide your further research. This project focuses on process not content. Keeping a Research Log can be helpful in organizing your experiences. This is not a research paper. Instead, write about doing the pre-research.
Recommended Organizational Format for your Focus Essay:
1) Introduction: Describe your preliminary topic, the reasons why you selected it and your initial perspective on it.
2) Literature Review (answer the following sorts of questions in this section):
- Which search terms did you use?
- What were the results of your research?
- What did you find—and what didn’t you?
- How did you find it?
- What are scholars saying about your topic, i.e. can you identify a "scholarly conversation" or debate around your topic?
- What problems did you encounter while searching for sources?
- How will your findings contribute to your final research project?
- What were your most valuable sources?
- What resources i.e. online catalog, databases, were most useful to you and why?
- How did specific resources make you rethink your topic?
- Were there sources that you ended up not using? Why not?
3) Conclusion: Clear description of your newly defined research topic and/or question and the working hypothesis/thesis that will guide your research.
4) Working Bibliography: 15-20 key sources that may be useful for your final research project.