WRIT 1133
Research Article in Your Major Assignment
Rebekah Shultz Colby

In this assignment, you will conduct research in your major and then write about this research as if you are writing an academic article in your major, using the writing conventions that are considered acceptable in your major. In other words, after working hard to conduct your investigation on writing and research in your major for your mini-ethnography, you are going to put it all together and actually perform research acceptable to your major and then write about it using the writing conventions of most academic articles in your major.

Article Components:
1) Abstract:
-- Summarizes your study

2) Introduction:
-- Briefly establishes the purpose of the study; it includes your research question and describes what you are studying

3) Literature Review for the literature review, you will need to find 3 academic articles related to your research topic:
A brief argument for how your research question is answering something new that has not been studied before in quite this way. In other words, the review of the literature should say why your research is important. You need to show that there is a gap in the previous literature and show how your research will fill this gap. You will need to find at least 3 academic primary research sources to establish your gap.

4) Methods (unless you are writing a text-based research article):
-- Who was included in the study? What was your selection criteria? Why did you choose these participants? How did you conduct your study? Why did you conduct your study in the way that you did?

5) Results (*optional):
-- What was the data? Include as many details from your qualitative or quantitative data as possible without interpreting them.

6) Discussion (you might not title it this, but all articles should do some sort of analysis, whether it is of a primary text or of qualitative or quantitative data):
in light of the light of the research you have done both the textual research for your literature review and the research you conducted on your own -- how would you interpret your results? How does all this information together answer your research question? In what ways, does it not answer your research question? How would you revise your study in the future to better answer your research question?

7) References:
-- A citation page of your 3 academic sources

8) Appendix (*optional):
-- Any raw data or pertinent research instruments that would help researchers better evaluate the validity of your study.

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