Research Log Assignment #4: A Research Proposal with an Annotated Bibliography

Total points: 100

Graded on complete answers to each of the following.

A formal written proposal about your research paper for ENG 102 sets the direction you intend your
research paper to take in its 10 pages (with a Works Cited page, Cover page, and Outline and
Thesis page in addition to the ten pages.)

 The proposal is a tentative plan for your research paper that might shift a little as you continue
researching and begin to write the paper itself.

 The research proposal is a preliminary look at your project, a plan for the research paper itself. 

 The target audience for the proposal is your instructor and the proposal’s purpose is to give you
and your instructor a way of reviewing your plan for the paper and judging whether that plan is
viable and shows progress.
Format
1. State your main guiding or investigative question.  Indicate the focus of your study and explain how
the question is situated within the larger context of the theme for the class.

2. Why is the question significant?

3. How did you become interested in the question?

4. Write down your tentative thesis statement.

5. Summarize what you’ve learned through your research so far. Read how to summarize and
paraphrase and create a Works Cited page in your handbook or @ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/
6. Did you change your topic? If you did, record what it was before and what it is now. Explain why you
changed it.

7. Use the online databases to find your 8 scholarly sources based on the kind of data you need to
make your argument in your research essay. Look back at your research questions before blindly
plugging in search terms. Then use the MLA section in The Bedford Researcher or
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/ to properly format your sources. After each one, provide a short
paragraph (three or four complete sentences) briefly summarizing the article and explaining how
you think you will use this source in your paper - annotations. DO NOT copy/paste material from
the abstracts; I want you to write your own annotations. Copying language from the abstract will be
considered plagiarism for this assignment.

The sample bibliography below will give you a model of how to annotate. It is based on a research
project investigating a possible link between religious belief and belief in the paranormal. Notice
how the researcher looks for a diversity of perspective by choosing a variety of sources from
different kinds of journals.

Note: You can have more than 4 scholarly sources, but 4 is the minimum required.

Sample MLA Style Annotated Bibliography

Beichler, James E. “Trend or Trendy? The Development and Acceptance of the Paranormal by

the Scientific Community.” Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies . 30.1 (2007):

41-58. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

Beichler traces the history of science to show that study of the paranormal has always been part of
scientific inquiry, only recently displaced by a concentration on tangible, measurable, empirical
(experiential) knowledge. He predicts that a new scientific revolution is approaching to re-
acknowledge the existence of non-empirical reality. Since this article was published in a journal of
spirituality, it is probably written for an audience of people who already believe in something
beyond the physical, so I would use it knowing that the writer assumes there is a spiritual world.

Johnson, Steven. “Everything Bad is Good for You.” From Inquiry to Academic Writing. Eds.

Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 730-52. Print.

My research is going to look at the relationship between a concentration on experiential knowledge

(empiricism) in the scientific community and pop culture’s fascination with ghosts and hauntings.
Perhaps we are clinging to the idea of ghosts as a way of retaining some belief in an afterlife, even
if science can’t prove that we have anything that will continue after death. Johnson may give me a
way of looking a pop culture that makes it part of the progress of knowledge, not a rejection of it.
Moulton, Samuel T., and Stephen M. Kosslyn. “Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate.”

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 20.1 (2008): 182-92. Academic Search Premier. Web.

24 Oct. 2009.

Because some of my other sources assumed the reality of paranormal experiences, I wanted to
find a source contradicting that view. Moulton and Kosslyn’s study was published in a scientific
journal sponsored by MIT, and it shows that there was no difference between “paranormal” stimuli
on the brain and any other kind of stimuli. They conclude that there is no empirical evidence
pointing to the reality of paranormal events, experiences, or phenomena. I will use this article to
give a scientific perspective on psi experiences.

Rice, Tom W. “Believe It Or Not: Religious and Other Paranormal Beliefs in the United States.”

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion . 42.1 (2003): 95-106. Academic Search

Premier. Web. 24 Oct. 2009.

I assumed going into the research that there would be a strong correlation between people who
maintain religious beliefs and those who believe in the paranormal, but Dr. Rice questions whether
that is true by looking at various national surveys. He shows that the debate about whether to
accept paranormal phenomena and study them within the scientific community does not come
down to a battle between science and religion, and that there is little correlation between belief in
the non-material and belief in the paranormal. Reading this article may keep me from generalizing
about people who believe paranormal activity is real.