I've decided to do my topic on prisons in the United States, specifically incarceration rate. My research question is: Why Does the United States Lead the World In Highest Incarceration Rate?
I plan to tie in research from various sources and use academic inquiry to further my understanding of this topic and try to answer my own question about why our country leads the world in highest incarceration rate. I feel this is an interesting topic and relevant to all of our lives because we all live in a country that is becoming a prison nation and has more of its citizens locked up than any other country in the world.
My question is on how to decide what my controlling purpose should be. In many of the examples we have read in class the authors are responding to other peoples works in order to "do" something with their writing and further their own understanding of a certain topic. For example, Rickert primarily responds to the ideas and works of Deleuze and Zizek to formulate his ideas and thoughts and accomplish his controlling purpose of his writing. Rickert also uses a few other sources to further examine the writing classroom in a post-oedipal world. Goleman responds primarily to Rickerts work, however she uses other sources to further elaborate on her thoughts and research. My question is, how do we go about determining what our controlling purpose should be? As I stated my research question is, why does the U.S lead the world in highest incarceration rate. Would it be best to pick one source or idea or concept and then use that to research and examine the research question in order to forumlate my controlling purpose? Is it better to use a variety of sources to come to one central idea or theme?
I am having a hard time understanding how to go about formulating my controlling purpose and tying it to my research question, I don't really know where to start. Any ideas or help would be appreciated.
Thanks, have a good night
-Gray Steinhaus
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Gray,
ReplyDeleteYour controlling purpose will look something like this: In this essay I will be examining ________ in order to uncover the social and cultural factors that have led America to have the single highest incarceration rate in the world.
It might also include an indication of which *theories* or analytical framework you are using to produce that analysis, although that might not be in the same sentence.
A controlling purpose states *what* you are doing in the essay, *why* you are doing it, and often *how* you will go about doing it.
Your research question is really the "why" part of a controlling purpose-it says what you hope your analysis will uncover or "answer". The "what" is often what will be analyzed or critiqued or whatever, and "how" is the description of what analytical framework you'll use to do that.
Hope that helps. . .
-A