Points: 30 ~ Due: April 8

The Assignment: Submit a typed proposal for the topic you will research for this course. Your proposal (about two pages) must have three elements:

• a description of your topic and focus
• two trial annotations
• a one-page keyword tree for the topic

Advice for text: Describe both the topic and the focus you will pursue. Explain why you're interested. Be sure your topic is professional and narrow enough. Read "Topic Advice" and "FAQ's" and the grading form carefully.

"Just curious" is an excellent reason for choosing a topic. Feel free to pick a topic for a project you are developing for another course, but tell me about it in the text and ask your other professor if it's okay too.

Advice for annotations. Be sure to follow the correct three-part format: citation, evaluative text, and strategy path. See "How To Do Annotations," "Sample Annotations," "Just Citations" and "The Twelve Categories."

Advice for word tree: This is the most important part of the assignment. Be sure to have a good mix of broad, narrow and similar terms. You must use several sources for finding the terms (one of which is your own mind, but there needs to be more than you as a source). See "Building Word Trees" for help with this part.