Week 7

My research process is going fairly well.  My proposal ended up being about four pages long.  This meant that it took a lot of work, but I now have a solid idea about the content of my paper.  After looking further into my sources to write my research paper, I determined that both of my books are written by people who are employed at religiously affiliated schools.  While both attempt to give a balanced view of religion in the Bush presidency, I think that I will mostly likely need to find more sources that are not written by those with strong Christian affiliations.  Finding new sources will be especially necessary if I would like to quote an expert who shares my opinion that the separation of church and state has been violated during the Bush presidency.  I think that such a quote would improve the ethos of my paper.  Statistics that speak in my favor would also most likely be found in a source that is more of an academic critique of Bush's behavior than a proponent of it.

I had difficulty finding visual texts.  I have liked to find more political cartoons, but was only able to find one.  It deals with vouchers, which I plan to discuss in my paper, so this should work out.  I have not yet search for a video clip, but I clip of Bush spouting a religious message of the variety that I plan on quoting textually would most likely increase the potency of my argument.  

In doing such an intense proposal, I began to get a sense of what my formal outline will contain, but have yet to put these ideas to paper.  Although the outline is not due until Thursday, I plan to at least get a bare-bones outline by Tuesday.  Some of the filling out and exact sources can be completed on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I would like to get as much of my outline completed by class on Tuesday morning.  

I think that this step-by-step approach to the research paper will set me up for success.  I have a paper due for another class of mine on Monday, and I only started it on Saturday.  I am glad that I am not allowed to get away with that in this class because it will create a much more in-depth and well written paper.