Thesis and Preliminary Proposal Assignment

General Instructions:

Completing this assignment is the first step in the research process for your first paper.

Please note that in order to be allowed to write the essay or do the presentation at all, you must submit your THESIS and PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL ASSIGNMENT and your ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT.

In other words, I will not mark any essay for which I have not first seen a proposal and annotated bibliography, so these 2 assignments are very important assignments.

This assignment should include:

1. A topic2. A research question, and a working thesis3. A short list of at least 3 preliminary resources documented in MLA Work Cited style. At

least 1 of these resources must be a book. This is NOT your annotated bibliography, it is simply a list of a few initial resources to build from.

You will be marked on your ability to formulate an appropriate topic and how well you can draw a thoughtful research question and well-planned thesis out of your topic and the quality of your initial exploratory research.

This assignment is worth 10% of your final grade.

Format: Typed, 12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch marginsMLA style formatting: no cover page; your name, course code, my name, and the date in the top left on page 1, running header with your last name and page number in top right.

Due: Thursday, November 5, 2015 by 4:00 pm. Use the Dropbox outside of room T3120 if needed (Earlier submissions are welcome!)

Late policy: Late assignments will be penalized at a rate of 5% each day, to a maximum of 5 days late late. Assignments will only be accepted in hard copy; no emailed submissions will be accepted.

A note on plagiarism:

Taking someone else’s words or ideas and presenting them as your own is a serious academic offence and will not be tolerated. Any instance of plagiarism will result in a grade of zero on this assignment, and may also lead to a notation being made on your transcript. Don’t jeopardize your entire academic future!

DO NOT PLAGIARIZE!!! I will be extremely punitive if I suspect that your work is not your

own.

Part I: Research Proposal

Topic:

You can choose whatever topic area that you like for your major research paper. Your topic can be drawn from one of the broad subject areas derived from the course readings (these are listed in the table on the next page).

You should choose a topic that you actually care about – something you want to think, read and write about. Keep in mind that your topic must be specific enough to focus a paper around.

First Nations, for example, is not yet an appropriate topic; it is a broad subject that many specific topics fall under. Appropriate topics within this general subject could be as diverse as the formation of Nunavut, the potlatch ban, and First Nations residential schools in Canada – among literally hundreds of others.

Research question and Working Thesis:

Before you can formulate a thesis, you need to do significant preliminary research to find out whether there will be a wide enough range of academic sources to support the research you’ll have to do for this paper. Academic databases such as EBSCO and JSTOR (accessible through the Seneca library system) will be very helpful at this stage.

Once you have a sufficiently narrow topic and have done some preliminary research, you need to narrow your topic into a research question, which is essentially a formulation of the main question you have about your topic – the question that will guide your research from here on. You answer this question in a thesis that you can express clearly in one to three sentences. This is your own position on the issue you’re examining.

You will not be married forever to the thesis exactly as you formulate it here – it can change a bit as your ideas about your paper and topic develop – so don’t be afraid to take a tentative stance at this early point.

Your thesis must be an arguable claim, with evidence proposed to support it. (It should have the structure “X because Y.”)

Course Readings Possible Subject AreasSteven Johnson, “Watching TV Makes you Smarter”Stevens, Dana "Thinking Outside the Idiot Box"Goldwasser, Amy "What's the Matter with Kids Today?"

The impact of violence on television and Canadian youthDepictions of Women in television and filmPrivacy and Social MediaThe Internet and LiteracyThe Government and the InternetTechnology and EducationDepictions of race and/or religion in the mediaDepictions of gender roles in the media

Sklar, Holly "The Growing Gulf Between the Rich and the Rest of Us."Olsson, Karen "Up Against Wal-Mart"Mallaby, Sebastian "Progressive Wal-Mart. Really."

Social MobilityThe Government’s Role in Fighting PovertySocial justice and injusticeThe impact of globalizationPolitics, resource division and economic inequalityRace and wealthGlobal recessions/financial crisis

Obama, Barack "A More Perfect Union"Herbert, Bob "A Fire in the Basement"Dowd, Alan W. "The Decline and Fall of Declinism."Zakaria, Fareed. "The Last Superpower."

The role of Americanization in the modern worldRace and National IdentityReligion and National IdentityHistory (imperialism, colonization, exploration)The role of the United NationsFirst World Nations and Third World NationsHealthcarePolitical Ideology