Proposal
Description
You now have all of the pieces in place to start writing! You have researched each of your building blocks, you’ve seen suggestions from your classmates and instructor on how to integrate them. Now you should write up a formal, one-page proposal on what kind of conclusions you think you’re going to draw on your topic. As with the literary review, a proposal is its own genre. The purpose is not to support a conclusion, but simply to carefully explain your question, defend its value, and put forth a tentative conclusion. Your conclusion should, ideally, be one that you have not “found” anywhere in the literature, but that you have created yourself. This does not mean your view can’t have any resemblance to other–we want to build on the work that already exists! What you should do is add something new to the discussion. It should be your suggestion about how to work towards solving the problem or solving a part of the problem, your suggestion about what a broader context tells us about an issue or problem, or your suggestion about something we’ve never known before about the problem. Your proposal should also include a brief outline of your paper — about half of a page — including your introduction, a discussion of each of your building blocks from a critical standpoint, and a conclusion involving your attempt to integrate your building blocks. For each building block, be sure to include: The disciplinary insight you’re looking into. The discipline that the insight comes from. What you hope to get out of the building block. How do you think it will help you form a more comprehensive understanding of your topic? A citation for each insight using APA , MLA, or Chicago style. See here for a refresher on citation styles: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html (Links to an external site.) . My Topic is Can helping others negatively impact the one being helped?
