These are the files and issues you should be developing during the semester.  Many aspects of these documents should be customized to correspond to your style and needs.

  1. The Research Project Proposal--You will develop your one paragraph description into a longer statement
  2. Research Plan--A dated plan of the steps you will take to complete your project.  Update live as work changes, includes a list of research sites or locations.
  3. To-Do List--A growing list of tasks, frequently updated in an order that makes sense
  4. Keywords--a growing list of names, words and terms that are important in your searches
  5. An outlined strategy for materials that are explicitly about your themes
  6. An outlined strategy for Materials not explicitly about your themes
  7. Paper Outline –at some point you can start outlining what you think the final product will look like. Think out loud about drafting and updating this document will help you stay organized and on track
  8. A chronology in outline form, a work in progress of critical dates
  9. Research Log (not the same as plan, here you keep track of steps YOU HAVE TAKEN within any one category and what you have found
    1. One section for each kind of search
    2. Keep an organized list, perhaps as part of your PLAN/TO-DO document
  10. Keep good records of your results!!
    1. References, Endnote
    2. Scans
    3. Printed pages
    4. Photocopies
    5. Notes from interviews
    6. Web addresses
    7. Cut and paste to your USB drive (get one!!)
    8. Technical aspects:
  11. Research notes (your actual notes on individual items kept on the PC or 3x5 cards or 3-hole punch sheets or some other flexible system). 
    1. What do you write on your research notes?
    2. Make sure you devise a system that allows you to list many bibliographic items that you have not yet located and have not yet taken notes on
  12. Start thinking about how your project might use quantitative data with tables, spreadsheets, examples, hypothetical discussion, etc. In other words, besides the narrative part, how you will organize, reprocess and present the data you decide to use.
  13. Keep an organized, annotated Bibliography of useful items
  14. Discussion of how your project might use quantitative data with tables, spreadsheets, examples, hypothetical discussion, etc.
  15. A list of questions and answers that might be useful in each of your paper sections.