there's research, and then there's research
As I mentioned on the main Museum Project page, part of your research (first and second hand) involves you familiarizing yourself with museums--how they work, how they are organized, how the set up exhibits and provide invormation and even make money. For those who will be presenting the final project in a Web-based format, I also encouraged you to look at a couple of actual museum Web sites to see what sorts of things they include on them.
You will also need to do some research on "things" in your museum's general collection. For example, if you are going to create a museum on nail polish, you'll need to do some research on nail polish: who invented it? Where? Are there any unusual stories or rituals or taboos about nail polish? Are there any examples or pictures of ancient nail polishes? How did nail polish change over the years? What is different about today's nail polish? And so forth. At this point you will also be gathering pictures of "things" that will be in various exhibit rooms.
However, these are just to help you with the final project (coming up); it is not what you are doing specifically for your research paper.
so what's the research paper about?
The research paper will be due prior to the Final Project (due date is on the Class Schedule). It is absolutely required and is worth up to 100 points.
If you did not read the lecture on How (and Why) to do a Research Paper very carefully, please do so now.
Reminder: if you did not yet 1: Visit a Museum (and send me proof--a selfie e-mailed to me is the quickest way to dop that), or if you did not yet 2: Get your Museum Project Proposal APPROVED, then you need to do that now. I will not read or grade your Research Paper until both of those have been checked off. And late papers are penalized 10%.
The general research for how to orgainze your museum, what will be in the various collesctions is far too general, and writing about everything in your paper 1) would make the research paper unfocused/choppy (and probably pointless), and 2) would make the research paper a hundred page assignment. You do not want to have to write a book.
Instead, you are going to focus on just one special exhibit that will appear in one room of your museum. It needs to relate to the overall collection, but it should be specilized, very interesting or contraversial or surprising or profound (something you can write a thesis about). Let's go back to that nail polis museum. If, during your research, you find a specialized article on actress Tippi Hedron's role in flooding the nail salon industry with Vietnamese women, something like that might make a very interesting special exhibit in your museum. How did this actress take on a special cause to insure refugees had work, had a marketable skill? Why did she do it? You'll find lots of articles and even pictures once you start looking.
Fortunately, you actually selected a narrow focus for your research paper, based on a special exhibit, when you turned in your Proposal, and as long as it was APPROVED, it should work fine :)
The paper must be in current (8th edition) MLA format and will be about four-to-eight pages (with an additional page being he Works Cited page).
Papers that are less than four FULL pages will not be accepted
papers that are less than five FULL pages are trying for a "C"
five FULL pages or more are required for your paper to be considered for a higher grade
You should have at least four sources, but you will probably have more, and 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 if possible, 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.
you are not alone
Be sure (before you submit a proposal) that you look at the Sample Museum Project Resaerch Paper on Etudes (in the Resources > Essays > Station Eleven section.