This project requires you to put the research and writing skills you practiced in your group projects earlier in the semester to use in an independent manner in order to find out more about credible sources used in the academic or career field you intend to pursue.
Unlike other papers you may have written for classes at DACC, this is a literature review paper. In it, you will review the literature and information available in the filed you have chosen to pursue academically or in your career. Each section should answer the questions in that section, but you can’t simply write a list of answers in paragraph form. Additionally, your paper should not read simply as a series of paragraphs which happen to follow each other on the page. It needs to read as a coherent and unified piece in the same manner as other papers/essays you would write for an academic audience would.
Any information which is not your own must be cited in correct MLA style. Students should avoid paraphrasing and patchwriting source material. Instead, they should focus on summarizing material from sources. Any quotations used should be less than five lines in length.
Your paper should consist of the following sections:
1. Introduction This section should establish why you chose the topic area that you did for this project. It should give any necessary background information about you or the particular field you are studying/working in that a reader would need to know in order to understand the rest of the information in the paper.

2. Problems This section of the paper will discuss the major areas of discussion or problems current research is looking at in this field/career choice. You cannot write this section until you have done a good deal of research and reading about your topic. You should not just discuss one or two items that are covered in a source or two. You should demonstrate that you’ve read a good variety of sources and understand several current issues/trends/topics of discussion/questions trying to be answered by current research projects. It should also discuss what criteria you are using to determine that these are “major” areas rather than the interest of a few researchers/writers.

3. Influencers In this section you should identify three different people who are “influencers” in your field. Who are major researchers or scholars? Who are the people that other people who work or research in this field cite often in their work? What makes them credible? What are their professional affiliations? Do they hold any offices in them or serve on any committees? What are their degrees and where did they obtain them? Where do they work? Have they been published? By whom and what are their most recent publications? Have they received any prestigious awards, honors, or grants for their work?

4. Professional Organizations In this section, you should discuss the three top professional organizations for your field. These could be national, international, or regional organizations. What do they offer for their members? What are the benefits? (For these two questions, focus on what you can learn from them that you’d use either as a student or professional in the field.) What are the requirements for joining? What makes them distinct from each other? Do they have any publications which they edit? What kind of information/research can you do on their websites without being a member? Do they offer any conferences or workshops for people studying or working in their field? Do they have any student-affiliation groups for either undergrad or graduate students? If so, what are the requirements and benefits for joining those groups? Are there any sub-groups related to regions, demographics, or particular interests in your field which are organized by or a part of these larger groups? If so, discuss them.

5. Academic/Peer Reviewed Journals or Trade Publications Identify and discuss five sources of this type which are used and cited widely by people who work and study in this field. Why are these sources considered credible and used in the research or work of other people? Who publishes them? What are the credentials of people who edit/write for these publications? What types of topics do they cover? Who would find them most useful? What makes them distinct from each other?

6. Web Sources Identify and discuss three sources available on the open web (not in a database or behind a paywall) which are not maintained or published by the professional organizations you included in section four which could be used by someone working or researching in your field to access credible, scholarly information or reliable, accurate statistics or data on a topic which you did discuss in section two. Who maintains/publishes this information? Why is it a credible source? How do you know the information is accurate or reliable? Who receives money as a result of you accessing information on this site? (Who are the advertisers?) What does that tell you about the credibility of the site? How accessible/understandable is the information? How hard is it to find the contact information? How many ways to they give you to contact someone? Is it a specific person you can contact or just a general account?

7. Conclusions This section should discuss what you have learned about source credibility/evaluating sources through this project as well as how knowing about the availability of these resources will help you in the future as a student and/or professional in this field.

Particulars about your paper:
1. Your paper should be at least seven pages (not including the works cited page).
2. It should be formatted in standard MLA style (DS, 12 pt. font TNR, 1” margins, header, heading, etc.)
3. It should be written in third person with the exception of sections one and seven where it would be appropriate to use first person POV/pronouns.
4. Students should work toward maintaining active voice rather than passive voice in their writing.
5. The paper should show the student’s capabilities in research, writing, critical thinking, and source use which are appropriate for a college-level paper written in a formal, academic tone and style. (More detailed info. about this is in the Course Outline.)
6. All information from sources must be cited correctly and consistently in MLA style using lead-in phrases, parenthetical citations, and a works cited page. Any material, regardless of the length of the passage, which is not cited at all and should be will be regarded as a violation of the ethics policies of this class and the student will fail the class. Material which is cited incorrectly will result in the grade for the final draft being lowered, but it will not be considered an ethical violation.