The Focus Essay

Your essay should chronicle the ways in which your ideas about your topic developed as a result of exploring the relevant literature.  You should discuss how this led you to a more focused topic as well as a working hypothesis or central research question that will guide your further research.  This project focuses on process not content.  Keeping a Research Log can be helpful in organizing your experiences.  This is not a research paper.  Instead, write about doing the pre-research. 

Recommended Organizational Format for your Focus Essay:
1) Introduction: Describe your preliminary topic, the reasons why you selected it and your initial perspective on it.

2) Literature Review (answer the following sorts of questions in this section):

• Which search terms did you use?
• What were the results of your research?
• What did you find—and what didn’t you?  
• How did you find it? 
• What are scholars saying about your topic, i.e. can you identify a "scholarly conversation" or debate around your topic?
• What problems did you encounter while searching for sources?
• How will your findings contribute to your final research project? 
• What were your most valuable sources? 
• What resources i.e. online catalog, databases, were most useful to you and why? 
• How did specific resources make you rethink your topic? 
• Were there sources that you ended up not using?  Why not?

3) Conclusion: Clear description of your newly defined research topic and/or question and the working hypothesis/thesis that will guide your research.

4) Working Bibliography:  15-20 key sources that may be useful for your final research project.