The Goal:
In this lesson you should focus on completing your research and begin drafting your paper. Remember, the first draft shouldn’t stress you out! It can be a mess. You will revise the paper at least twice! However, you should decide on a very focused thesis statement. Without it, your paper will read like a well formatted collection of facts rather than a tightly focused essay.
A good thesis statement should outline the structure of your paper. For instance this thesis statement from A Writer’s Reference:
“Much maligned and the subject of unwarranted fears, most bats are harmless and highly beneficial.’
would look like this in the outline of the paper:
I. A few paragraphs worth of discussion and examples of how bats are portrayed in the media, movies, and fiction.
II. A section that discusses the research which debunks the media portrayal of bats.
III. A few pages of how bats are good for ecosystems, beneficial to humans, and other research that shows how valuable bats are.
What to Read:
“Storytelling, Narration, and the Who Am I Story” by Catherine Ramsdell in Writing Spaces Vol. 2.
Pages 1-8 in “Crafting Your Query by using Special Characters‘ Pages 1-8 are linked on the main page.
Research Paper:
Draft One:
- 3-5 pages of writing, 1 Works Cited page,
- 3-5 sources
- some grammar and punctuation errors are OK
- some unorganized paragraphs are OK
- some formatting problems are acceptable
Submission Checklist:
Research Draft 1 (50 point)