Blog Post 4: Midterm proposal

Prompt:

This proposal will require you to formally lay out your plan and rationale for approaching your midterm project on a discourse community of your choice. Your proposal should take on a fairly formal tone, being as "plain and persuasive" as possible. Your proposal should contain the following elements, probably with separate headings for each:

1. Introduction

• Here you should introduce the topic of the proposal (what is a discourse community?)
• You should also give some sense of what your proposal will cover

2. Description of the current situation

• Here you should give a brief overview of what you've read about discourse communities so far.
• Why do people choose to study discourse communities in the first place? What is the point? What do they reveal?
• Whose approaches to studying discourse communities have been useful for your thinking?

3. Description of the project plan

• Identify how you will conduct your own research study of a discourse community
• Account for both the major and minor steps you expect to take in this process

4. Review of qualifications

• Here you should discuss what makes you think you will be able to pull this project off
• What experience or skills will you use in carrying out this project?
• What resources (either people you know or material resources) do you have at your disposal to carry out this project?

5. Discussion of costs/challenges

• What are the major difficulties you will encounter in this project?

6. Benefits and conclusion

• Here you should conclude by explaining what you think the value of this study will be, either personally or for the class
• What do you think you'll discover in your research?

Specs and requirements

• Proposals should be at least 500 words
• Rough draft is due in class for peer review (5 copies!) on Tue, March 19th
• Final drafts are due to the blog by 10pm 3/21