Project 1 will be the large research project that you work on this semester. There will be supporting assignments and work that will help you along the way so that you will eventually be ready to write the paper.
The paper will be a composition class version of an ethnography, which is a research paper that studies a community, or group of people. This type of research paper will allow you to do primary research along with secondary research to explore your community and topic more deeply than traditional research papers typically allow.
Due dates can be found on the class calendar or on the schedule on your syllabus.
Length: 2600 – 3300 words (~8-10 pages)
Genre: Ethnography/Ethnographic Research Paper
The ethnography paper will be the culmination of all the research you are doing throughout Project 1. This will be a composition class version of an ethnography, so it is likely different from an ethnography that you might be assigned in an anthropology class. However, this genre will allow for you to participate in primary observational research, conduct an interview, and also learn how to conduct and evaluate secondary research. Then, you will write a paper that incorporates all of these forms of research.
The purpose of your paper will be to inform your reader about your community and an issue that impacts them. It may help to keep an audience/reader in mind as you write your paper, such as a friend or classmate who is not familiar with your community.
See Writing an Ethnography for more information about writing this paper and some tips for how to break this paper up into smaller pieces to help it be more manageable.
An example ethnography draft and a final copy from a former student are available in the Project 1 Example Google Drive folder. This example shows the APA formatting that will be expected for this paper.
We will also read several other example ethnographies written by former students. "Friday Night at the Iowa 80" can be found on Canvas. The additional student ethnographies can be found in our online textbook.
The final product will be a 2600-3000 words typed and double-spaced paper in 12pt Times New Roman font and formatted in APA style.
A description of your community and a discussion of your observations.
Do not copy/paste your Weekly Essays into the ethnography, but instead use them as a starting point to organize some of your thoughts about your community and what you have learned about them. If you use some of the ideas in your Weekly Essays in your paper make sure they are reworked into a narrative that makes sense for an ethnography.
At least one interview.
This should be a narrative of your interview, written as a dialog between you and the interviewee (look at “Friday Night at the Iowa 80” for how to include an interview).
If you choose a formal research paper organization for the whole paper, then instead of using dialogue format, the interview should be incorporated similarly to other sources with the paragraphs.
For either of these options, the interview transcript should NOT be pasted into the paper. That was for research records purposes. For your paper, you will want to choose which parts of the interview you are including and then write the interview into your paper accordingly.
Your scholarly research (cited in APA format)
This should have a thesis (an argument or point that you are making about your research).
It should clearly develop this point using quotes, summaries, and paraphrases of your research.
It should tie the research back to your community – why this research is important to your community and/or how it connects to your community and observations. (This can be done along the way or towards the end of this section)
Reference List page with at least 5 scholarly sources; any additional sources like websites used to reference information or statistics about this community should also be cited, but will not count towards the 5 source minimum.
The paper should be formatted in APA style, including a title page, running head (at the top of the page), and standard APA formatting throughout.
Here are a few possibilities:
A detailed description of the community – attempting to define its borders, describing the environment in which this community exists, explanation of what it means to be a member, how one becomes a member, how the community is maintained, how it is viewed from the outside, how accurate descriptions outside descriptions of it are, etc.
Additional interviews, if you decided to conduct more than one.
Photos of your community throughout your paper.
A reflection about your positioning in the community (as a researcher trying to gain entry)
Additional information that you gained about the community through surveys or other research.
Posing of questions you have about the community that you pursued with library research.
As we are using “Friday Night at the Iowa 80” as one of our genre examples for an ethnography, anything Rick Zollo includes in his ethnography can be included in your ethnography. So, if you would like to include photos of your community or pictures (or scans) of artifacts you picked up, that is perfectly acceptable.
See "Paper Organization" and "Tips for Writing Your Ethnography" for more information on how to write this paper.
There are a few options for how you might choose to organize your paper.
Ethnographic Research Paper Approach
One option is to use the style of "Friday Night at the Iowa 80" and several of the example ethnographies from former students that you have been provided. This is the most common method for organizing this paper in this class because the scholarly topic and the observations do not have to be closely connected at all times. This style is organized as follows:
Observation section with interviews
These examples are written in a creative non-fiction style for the observation section so it feels more like reading a story than reading an essay or traditional academic paper.
Scholarly section
The paper then transitions into the scholarly section of the paper and is written more traditionally at this point. "Friday Night at the Iowa 80" has a very short scholarly section, so you will likely want to look at the other examples for the transition and how the scholarly section is written.
A common organization for this approach is as follows:
Introduction to your community (what it is/who goes there/some background into)
A description of the space.
Note: You can flip these first two and start with a description of the space from your perspective as you walk in and then explain who/what this community is.
Sub-topic for your community (an interesting or important thing about your community), using specific observations to support your points.
Another sub-topic.
Another sub-topic (and so on).
Transition into the interview.
A transition from the interview into the scholarly section, including a thesis for the scholarly section.
Background info on the scholarly topic if needed.
Sub-topic for the scholarly section, using scholarly research to support the points. (Each paragraph should have a topic sentence, scholarly research, and a discussion of the research where you connect the research to the point you are making or explain the point further)
Another sub-topic for the scholarly topic.
Another sub-topic (and so on)
A conclusion that wraps up the scholarly topic and then connects it back to the community.
Standard Research Paper Approach
Another option is to write the paper in a more traditional research paper format/style. This method will only work if your community, observations, and your scholarly topic are very tightly connected.
For this method, the observations will be interwoven into the paper along with the scholarly research. So, if your community was nursing staff in the ER you worked in and your research topic was about morale amongst nursing staff in emergency rooms, then you might have a paragraph that looked at the impact of long hours on ER nurses. You would then include both scholarly research and specific observations in that paragraph to fully develop your point.
Note: the paper still needs to be focused on your specific community and include specific observations. I strongly recommend only taking this approach if your observations are closely connected to your research topic.
Introduction to the community and scholarly topic (including the thesis)
Background information (this may include a paragraph or two of observations that led to the scholarly topic or it may just be background information needed to understand the scholarly topic/community)
Sub-topic 1
Sub-topic 2
and so on... (You will likely need around 8-10 sub-topics for a paper of this size)
Complications to the research (did any of the research not support these points that should be addressed? Are there any potential complications to the research? You can think of this sort of like a counterargument, but instead of directly addressing a counterargument, it may just be looking at areas where the research isn't so clear with the findings)
Conclusion
This is a BIG paper, so it's normal to feel overwhelmed when you get started. For any large project, it's helpful to break it up into smaller steps. If the smaller steps still feel overwhelming, break it up even further.
Here are a few possible ways to break up this work into manageable chunks:
Treat the observation section of the paper and the scholarly section of the paper as two separate papers.
Write a 4-5 page paper that is about your community using your observations and interview(s). Then write a 4-5 page research paper on your scholarly topic.
Once you have both of these papers written, then you can focus on creating a transition paragraph between the two.
And then finally, revise the conclusion of the scholarly part of your paper to also connect back to your community if you haven't already done so.
By breaking up the paper into two smaller papers, you may find it much more manageable.
Use outlines to help organize your thoughts and the points you want to make. For either part of the paper (the observation section or scholarly section), you want to have some clear points that you are making.
For the Observation Section
Jot down a list of 4-5 things about your community that you think are the most important things for someone to know about this community.
And then make sure that most of those things are about the people of the community. While it can be very useful to describe the space the community is in or how something else in the community works (for example, if your community was the Zoo, it might be helpful to explain the events that take place), but at the core, an ethnography is about the people.
For the Interview
For the ethnographic resaerch paper organizational approach to this paper (the most common approach, as seen in several of the sample papers you read), the interview should be written as dialogue.
Instructions for writing dialogue can be found on the Writing Dialogue page in the online textbook.
Do NOT copy/paste your interview transcript into the paper.
If you are taking a standard resaerch paper approach to the paper, your interview will typically be spread out in the paper to support specific points, similarly to how the scholarly research should be incorporated.
For the Scholarly Section
After you have done your initial research and have read the articles you will likely be using in your paper, jot down a list of at least 4-5 subtopics for your main topic. Then, make sure that you have enough research to support each of those sub-points individually (generally, you'll want at least two sources per sub-point).
For example, if your research topic was that textbook costs have become a barrier to higher education, your subpoints might be:
Issues with financial aid and textbooks,
Showing how textbook costs have increased over the years even when accounting for inflation,
e-books and textbook cost,
Issues with resale values of textbooks,
Explaining the current average textbook costs,
Alook at OER and how that may be helpful as more classes use this
Once you have your sub-topics, figure out what the best order might be for introducing the information, and then rearrange them as needed. For example, in the above list, "#5: explaining the current average textbook cost" would work better as #1 so that the overall cost problem is established before going into other sub-points.
Then, under each sub-topic, write down which sources/articles cover that topic.
If you need to do more research at this point, you may be able to search for specific sub-topics now, instead of a broader search. This will likely help you find additional research.
You have several avenues of help at your disposal. Use them!
Make an appointment with the Reading and Writing Studios.
You can work with a tutor at any stage in the writing process, even if you haven't started writing yet and just need help getting going!
Work with a librarian online through chat or email or at either of Macomb's libraries.
They can help you with search terms, how to use library databases, and finding sources.
Come to my office hours. Dates and times are listed on the syllabus (or you can ask before or after class).
See the APA resources for more information on how to cite and format APA papers.
Font: Times New Roman or Calibre (or similar), 11 or 12-point font, and double-spaced.
The paper should include the following...
A title page (APA style)
Do not include an abstract for this paper.
Headers at the top of all pages except for the first page
Text should be double-spaced with no extra lines between paragraphs.
Indent the first line of each new paragraph.
A reference page that is the last page (or two) of the paper. See below for reference page formatting information.
In-text citations throughout paper whenever secondary sources are used.
The citation should have a hanging indent. The summary paragraph and evaluation paragraph can just be regular paragraphs beneath or can be indented to match up with the hanging indent. (If you don't know how to do this, there are tons of YouTube videos that will show you how to format a hanging indent and annotated bibliography for whatever software you are using).
If you need additional help, see the APA Style Guide or the APA Guide at PennState.
The OWL at Purdue also has full lists and explanations for citing various publication types. (See the navigation menu on the left for the categories of publication types).
The list of sources should be in alphabetical order by the first author's last name. If there is no author, then you use either the organization or the title (whichever comes first in the citation).
For the annotated bibliography, you will also include additional information below the citation.
In-Text Citations
A full guide for writing in-text citations can be found on the In-Text Citations page.
If you need to cite an article that was cited in another article, that is called an "indirect source".
You will want to cite the article that you have in your reference list/annotated bibliography. For example, if you read an article written by Smith that mentions a study by Jones, you'll cite the article written by Smith in your annotated bibliography.
Then, when you write your paper, you'll include the original source as a part of your in-text citation, like this:
Jones argues that... (as cited in Smith, 2018, p. 14).
OR
(Jones, 2007, as cited in Smith, 2018, p. 14).
IMPORTANT Note on Google Scholar citations: Google Scholar occasionally leaves out important information, such as the DOI or link to the article. Make sure that you double-check any citations from there to make sure there isn't missing information. If there is, I recommend that you search for the title of the article (in regular Google) to find the database or original online journal location. If you find the original database/journal location, it will often also include the citation (or a link for the APA citation) on that page to help make it a bit easier. Otherwise, you'll need to use the OWL at Purdue or one of the other APA resources to help you figure out where and what information needs to be included.
If you plan to include your interview in a more narrative style of writing (like the example ethnographies), you should format your interview as dialogue. See the Writing Dialogue page in our online textbook for more information and examples.
If you plan to include excerpts of your interview within your paragraphs like a traditionally organized research paper, you should format these quotes like you would for any quotes coming from secondary sources.
Once you have completed peer review or received feedback from a writing tutor, you will revise your draft. For this revision, focus on high and/or middle-order concerns (not just fixing typos/grammar issues).
In order to revise your draft, I recommend the following:
Read through the feedback from peer review.
Make a list of areas that you would like to improve, starting with high-order concerns and moving your way down.
Read more about high- and middle-order concerns and revision in our textbook.
If you need additional ideas on what to revise after peer review (for example, if you didn't find your peer review feedback particularly helpful), I recommend picking one or two topics from the Improving Your Writing page in our textbook. Read through the topic and then apply that concept to your entire paper.
Do not try to tackle too many topics of improvement at once.
It's better to focus on one or two topics, learn how to do those from the linked readings, and then apply those concepts to the entire paper. If you try to tackle too much, it's likely you won't be able to take the time to fully understand the concepts and/or fully apply them thoughtfully to your paper.
The final submission for Project 1 includes the following assignments:
☐ Draft of ethnography + Peer Review Notes
Your peer review notes will be on your ethnography draft from peer review day in class. If you go to the Academic Success Center instead of participating in in-class peer review, you will need to upload a PDF or screenshot of the email you are sent following your consultation.
☐ Revised ethnography, which should meet the following criteria:
Be 2600-3000 words in length (not including the reference page or title page), and include the following:
Specific observations about your community,
At least one interview,
Note: The interview should be written as dialogue for the ethnography. (Do not copy/paste the interview transcript into your paper).
At least five scholarly sources
In-text citations for any secondary research used throughout the paper, and
A reference page of the scholarly sources formatted in APA style.
Note: The reference page is just a list of citations (do not include the additional summary information from your annotated bibliography).
Your ethnography must be thoughtfully revised for high and/or middle-order concerns. See "Revising Your Draft" above this section for further information.
☐ All of your primary research must be submitted by the time you submit your revised ethnography.
For example: your observation notes, interview transcript(s), and any surveys you conducted (optional).
☐ Optional: Feedback Letter
You may also include a letter/note to me if there are any specific concerns you have, questions you have, or if you want to let me know any area of your paper that you were struggling with to take into consideration while giving you feedback.
Please upload this to the assignment titled "Project 1: Feedback Letter (Optional)" in Canvas.
Check Plus (✓ +) Full credit
Meets the above criteria, including length, style, formatting, revision, and research requirements. Complete, well organized, generally well written and thoughtful.
Check (✓ ) Partial Credit
Missing one requirement, such as being under page requirements, ideas are not fully developed or detailed, or the paper has not been thoughtfully revised since the peer review draft.
Check minus (✓ -) Partial Credit
Missing two items from the requirements; ideas not fully developed, under page requirements, not revised, and/or haven’t addressed all prompts in a writing assignment.
No Credit (No Credit)
Missing three or more items from the requirements, did not complete the assignment (writing about something other than the topic, missing quite a bit of the assignment), and/or under the page length requirements.
Important Note: if your paper is substantially under the length requirement or not meeting the criteria so substantially that it cannot be considered a completed paper, your grade may be dropped accordingly.