The ARP Approaches

Like the seconding coming, the Academic Research Paper (ARP) is upon me and I have had to buckle down to start putting together a substantial draft to bring in to class. The process of writing the ARP was oddly enough hard and easy at the same time.

Starting with the easy part, the problem statement, research questions and review of literature were based on previous work that I had done - the Research Proposal and the Annotated Bib. The hard part came in when I had to change the language of both documents to fit the context of the ARP. I accomplished this by putting the writing in past tense, removing the first person narrative and organizing/structuring the sections to flow into one another.

After that, the task definitely became harder, as I had to draft the Abstract and Methodology sections. The Abstract section was difficult because it can only be about 120 - 150 words. I've included the draft below:

This research project is intended to present the 30-year history of the Southeastern Writing Center Association (SWCA). Since its founding in 1981, there exists no substantial historical writing on the SWCA. Utilizing the tools of historicism, this project will attempt to contextualize the history of the SWCA throughout a specific time period through text-based research, observations, surveys and interviews. The intent is to then bring together an evolutionary history of the SWCA; discovering its past, establishing its present and looking towards its future. By connecting the three standpoints, this research project will attempt to provide the SWCA with a historical foundation capable of propelling the organization into a vivid future.

With the Abstract section (fairly) done, I began to tackle the Methodology section. I must admit I have had a hard time with this section, and I can't really place my finger on why that is so. The methodology should be a section in which I discuss my text-based research, interviews, survey and observations. One problem that I realize I have is how concisely I am writing. Sometimes I write one sentence that I think adequately describes one of the four categories and I want to leave it that way. I will have to work on expanding the text so that it is both descriptive and concise. 

So far, our assignment has been to get the first three sections done, as we are not yet to the point where we could complete the entire paper. We will be having a workshop in class this week on all the ARPs and that should be, pardon my scotch, a helluva session!