Paper 1: Source Analysis

Purpose:

The Source Analysis serves two primary purposes:

1. To deeply, critically assess the information you have so far gathered in you final project research and to carefully define the issues your research addresses, the questions these issues raise for you, and the direction your sources suggest for your final project;
2. To help you clarify your desires for your final project and to refine your research/ project area if necessary.

Remember, the research you did for your annotated bibliography is preliminary, a starting point to give you something concrete to work with and a direction for your work. You will, as you continue to work on your project, continue to research! The most important thing you will be doing for the next two weeks is raising and re-raising questions, researching and thinking and researching some more.

Requirements:

This is a 4 - 6 page paper, typed, double-spaced (approximately 1000 -1500 words). You will analyze your three best sources for this project. Choose at least one scholarly article and one comprehensive web site to analyze in depth. Your third source may be a book or another web site or scholarly artice. Your analysis will include:

• a summary of the most important information, arguments, and resources your source provides;
• an analysis of why this source is important to you -- what can you do with it, what can it help you achieve?
• the questions that this source opens up for you -- after carefully reviewing it, what do you now realize that you need to find out? What additional research does this source direct you to?

Format:

Provide an introductory paragraph that explains the gist of your project idea, the search that led you to your sources, and the relation of the sources to each other. Provide subheadings for each source, with complete citation (as you did with your annotated bibliography). Provide a conclusion paragraph that summarizes the major findings from your sources, the discrepancies/contradictions between them (if any), and steps for further research and action.