AS190 Fall 2017

RESEARCH PLAN and METHODOLOGY GUIDELINES

Due on Lucky Friday October 13 at 5 pm uploaded to sakai
Please post to the “student research plans” folder in Resources on Sakai

1000 words is an outside limit for the piece.  It is not a formal essay as much as a proposal.

The methodology and plan sections can be mixed together or kept separate as you think appropriate. 

The methodology should explain in brief what sort of methods you will use both in your research and in the way that you interpret what you find.  It will help to give a short justification of why you think these methods of both research and interpretation are appropriate to your topic.

• For instance, if you are conducting or using interviews in your research then you should explain both how you will conduct the interviews (from location to topics) and why an interview is an appropriate tool.
• Similarly if you are using or planning on using archival sources, explain what you hope to find in the collections and how the information there may help your thesis.
• If you are planning on interpreted published material, media, or other sources of available sources, explain how you will judge or evaluate it and what sort of illumination for your thesis you hope to find in it.

The research plan should outline the various steps you have already taken on your projects and what you plan on doing for the rest of the semester.  It should also include a sketch of what you will do on your research for the winter and spring.

• Include a schedule of when you will accomplish these tasks
• Also include a short explanation for of what you hope to gain from each step (if you have a separate, detailed discussion of methodology, this can refer to parts of that discussion).  That is, how will it help you get at the information you need?
• Include information on
• where you will conduct the research: library, archive, online, a specific location in the community, etc
• the type of research:  text research, secondary reading, oral history, visual research etc. 

Try to be as detailed as possible—the more thought you put into how you will conduct your research and why, the better off you will be.

Realize that this is a provisional plan.  As you conduct your research you will have to adjust it. 

The form of the plan is up to you.  It is fine for the plan to be a bulleted list, a calendar, or a narrative.