Due Date: February 27

Your research proposal is a 750-word document that describes what digital platform or format you would like to study. Your proposal should address the following questions:

• What do you want to study and why?
• Who else has studied this platform or format? How have they done so? If you have been unable to find any existing research, why do you think that is?
• What kinds of materials do you plan to examine?
• How do you plan to approach these materials? We have read research (Racing the Beam and Flash) that gives you some clues about research methodology, and you should cite those texts when discussing the method you plan to use.
• You can make your argument using various media (words, sound, image, video, and so on). What medium are you planning to use for this project, and why?

While this document is not a contract and your project might shift as you do research, your proposal should demonstrate that you've done preliminary research and have carefully considered how you will approach this semester-long project.

When providing feedback on these proposals, I will be looking for the following:

• Have you provided adequate and detailed answers to the questions listed above?
• Have you cited our readings when discussing how you'll approach this research?
• Is your proposal effectively designed? Can I easily follow your arguments and answers to these questions? The design of the document is up to you (subheadings, diagrams, etc.), but that design should demonstrate that you've designed it with a purpose.
• Is your proposal generally well-written and free of grammatical errors?

Due Date: April 6

Throughout the semester, we've been reading the work of scholars who study platforms and formats, and we have been playing close attention to their research methods. Do they study certain kinds of documents? Do they study circuit boards or software? What methods do they use to approach these materials? Do they close read snippets of code, or do they conduct historical analysis of technologies?

In this 750-word research method paper, you will describe your own research method for your Platform/Format project. Your method might be nearly identical to one of the scholars we have read this semester, or it might be an amalgamation of these methods. In this paper, you should describe that method and why it will help you to study the object you've chosen.

When providing feedback on these proposals, I will be looking for the following:

• Does your paper demonstrate that you understand the methods of the scholars we've read?
• Have you carefully described your research method?
• Have you justified your research method, explaining why it is the best fit for the evidence that you've found during the research project?
• Have you described the materials you will analyze and how you plan to approach them?
  Is the document effectively designed? Can I easily follow your arguments? The design of the document is up to you (subheadings, diagrams, etc.), but that design should demonstrate that you've designed it with a purpose.
• Is your proposal generally well-written and free of grammatical errors?

Due Date: April 27

Your final project will show us the results of your platform or format research. The project can take any form and use any medium you choose, but you should choose that form or medium with a purpose. If you chose to make a short film, what is it about moving images that allows you to make your argument? If you choose to use sound, what does it afford you as you present the material? If you decide to write a paper, what is it about words on a page that make it the most useful medium for your project? These are just three examples, but the idea is to choose a medium and design your project with a purpose.

In addition to the project itself, you will compose a Statement of Goals and Choices (SOGC). This is an assignment that comes from Jody Shipka's book Toward a Composition Made Whole, and it asks you to reflect on why you built your project the way you did. There is no minimum or maximum number of words for the SOGC - it takes as many words as you think it takes to explain why you made certain choices and what you were trying to accomplish with the project.

The SOGC should answer the following questions:

• What, specifically, is this piece trying to accomplish - above and beyond satisfying the basic requirements outlined in the task description? In other words, what work does, or might, this piece do? For whom? In what contexts?
• What specific, rhetorical, material, methodological, and technological choices did you make in service of accomplishing the goal(s) articulated above? Catalog, as well, choices that you might not have consciously made, those that were made for you when you opted to work with certain genres, materials, and technologies.
• Why did you end up pursuing this plan as opposed to the others you came up with? How did the various choices listed above allow you to accomplish things that other sets or combinations of choices would not have?

When providing feedback on your project and SOGC, I will be looking for the following:

• Does your project demonstrate detailed and in-depth research of your platform or format?
• Have you carefully considered your research method and made that method clear to the audience?
  Is your project effectively designed? Is there evidence that you've carefully chosen your medium and that the medium is appropriate for what you're trying to communicate?
• Does your SOGC address all of the questions listed above?
• Is your SOGC (or your project, if it uses written language) generally well-written and free of grammatical errors?

Due Date: Presentations will happend during class on April 28 and 30

Your final presentation will be your opportunity to show off the work you've done during the semester-long research project. The format of these presentations will be the same as the Follow-a-Footnote presentations. They will be Pecha Kucha presentations (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide), and they will walk the class through your project, your research method, your findings, and the reflections you offered in your SOGC. Each presentation will be followed by a brief Q&A.

When providing feedback on these presentations, I will be looking for the following:

• Does your presentation adequately describe your project, its findings, and its research method?
• Does your presentation provide the highlights of your SOGC?
• Have you paid close attention to the design of your slides? Remember that you should probably use very little text (20 seconds isn't a long time for your audience to read through long lists of bullet points) and make effective use of images.
• Is there evidence that you've practiced the presentation? This presentation doesn't require memorization, but the strict format requires that you rehearse and choreograph your performance.
• Have you followed the Pecha Kucha rules (20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each)