NOTE: if you did not get your Formal Proposal APPROVED yet, then you know I will not accept either your Research Paper or your Final Project, so please get that done now, and then come back here.
the research paper
Since you have done the first 3 steps of the Museum Project and now have your Formal Proposal APPROVED, you really know what the assignment is all about.
You are writing a paper using research from your sources that looks at some particularly interesting or surprising or controversial or trend-changing bakcground of just one thing in your museum (it could actually be a small display or exhibit showting more than one thing, but it is just one Special Exhibit that is part of your larger museum. One room is the max. Here are a couple more examples, though by now you probably don't need them:
For a museum of McDonalds's Happy Meals, a student had a special room devoted to how Disney's participation in Happy Meals; the research paper focused on how and why this successful arrangement lasted awhile but fairly abruptly stopped for some contraversial reasons. (So this paper looked at an issue related to the subject).
Another student creating a museum of the Game of Life (yes, the board game), did a research paper on a just how a handful of much-earlier games influenced the design of The Game of Life. (So this paper looked at the historical background and relation to other examples of the subject, and those games were exhibited, with this information, in one room of the museum).
And still another student who created a museum of skulls did her research paper on her special exhibit - Sugar Skulls and their role in dia de los muertos.
requirements
The paper must be in current (8th edition) MLA format and will be about four-to-eight pages (with an additional page being the Works Cited page).
Papers that are less than three FULL pages will not be accepted
papers that are less than four FULL pages are trying for a "C"
four FULL pages or more are required for your paper to be considered for a higher grade
You must have at least three sources, but you will probably have more, and, as noted before at least one source must be a book.
You are required to have direct quotations from all of those sources, and those direct quotations must be followed by parenthetical citations. Overall, about 1/3 of your paper should be documented quotations from the sources.
All of these Museum Project Research Papers should have pictures; after all, museums are filled with "things"; they are usually visual. Do include pictures, but remember that pictures do not count as pages of text.
You will e-mail the Research Paper as an attached Word (.doc, .docx, .pdf or .rtf) file.
and, yes, there are samples
NOTE: there are two samples here for you to look at so that you are sure you are doing this correctly (the samples are also in the Files section of Canvas):
Research Paper on Earliest Mobile Phones Research Paper on Saucy Seaside Postcards
a couple of notes about the sample research papers (above)
The point of these quick notes is to put the two sample papers in context (so that you can see how they related to the larger museum the students created). Remember, the research paper is giving a very -detailed look at the history or some interesting background associated with just one exhibit in your larger museum. In both cases, these two students focused on one special room only.
Earliest Mobile Phones
Erick Duenas’s museum was a look at earlier forms of telephony PRIOR to the cell phone becoming the main means of communication that is so widely used in the 21st century. There were rooms in the museum that looked at pre-telephone technologies, the race to create the first telephone (including an exhibit on Alexander Graham Bell’s word (with a re-creation of his laboratory).
The main exhibit room showed developments in landlines and showcased some notable designs (the candlestick, the Princess phone, and so on). He decided to have one last room that would be transitional, showing the leap into the mobile phone world.
His research paper gives the background/history for this one room and looks at some of the earliest “mobile” phones (such as the famous Brick).
Saucy Seaside Postcards
Aletta Deranteriassian’s museum is a look at the history of the post card. If you think that this is too limiting a topic, then you might want to look at what this Smithstonian site has on JUST the history of the post card in America:
Smithstonian Archives: Postcards in America
This research paper provides the background for one room of Aletta Deranteriassian’s museum. The often slightly naughty (or suggestive) and always silly British Seaside Postcards are still a part of Britain’s tourist offerings, and these are highly collectible cards. This paper is a look at some of its history.
an (important) afterthought:
Once you turn this in and get it graded, you will not be done with it. The Final Project will be the presentation of the overall museum. This research paper will be included IN that project; it will be a special exhibit in the overall museum. So, if you are doing that final project as a website (most do), then one of the Nav Tabs on the site will be "Special Exhibit," and the entire contents of the Research Paper (text, quotations, citations, pictures, Works Cited) will show up on a separate section of the website.
If, instead, you choose to do a museum catalog (which is not the same as a short brochure), this special exhibit (research paper) will be a section (like a small chapter) in the catalog (copied word-for-word, with text, quotations, citations, pictures, with Works Cited page). The good news is that that means you will already have a lot pages of the final project done.