Relevant Needs in This Stage

At this point in your project, we're assuming the following have been completed or are in the process of being completed:

• Your pitch is approved.
  • If it isn't you need to address that first.
• You have gathered some amount of relevant scholarly, secondary sources and are reading them for information about your topic.
• You have selected one or more primary (novel, short story(ies), poem/poems, play(s), memoir, etc.) to read and work with.
• N.B. This assignment requires that you USE five total sources. They can be any combination of secondary and primary sources.

You are now turning your attention to the major portions of the paper you will write.  This can vary by topic quite a bit, but the following are examples of what academic writers generally write/think about in their essays.

• What have other writers on this topic said about my topic, and what will my contribution be?
  • These are usually part of an introduction and usually leads to the writer's claim.
• What context does my reader need to know about?
  • This might be some history, biography, terminology, etc. or some combination of these.
• What can I glean from my scholarly secondary sources--quotes, examples, ideas--that will be useful to me in shaping my own thoughts?
  • How will I document my use of this information?
• How will I use my primary source(s)?
  • As examples? Examples of what?
  • In conjunction with which of my ideas?
  • In conjunction with which of the ideas from my scholarly secondary sources? (i.e. How will I connect the scholarly content and my own thinking to the primary source(s)?)