Welcome to the Research Guide for Professor Douglas Dawson's English Comp 1 class!
This guide will help you locate information for your Virtual Road Trip paper. Use the tabs across the top of the page to navigate through the different sections of this guide.
Research Paper – A Virtual Road Trip
Once you’ve drawn/been assigned your state, “visit” there via cyberspace, gathering information – textual, cultural, visual, sonic, meteorological, etc. – from various sources. Then, using past tense, write a Travel narrative describing your activities during your stay. Whatever you enjoy in real world, real time, three D Austin, Texas (or wherever you live), check out the equivalent scene there. Or, do something completely different. You can combine business and pleasure, make a trip to scout out various college and/or career opportunities, etc., etc.
By using effective description and a well-paced 1st person narration, you will want to create the strongest possible illusion that you’ve in fact ridden the New York subways, been salmon fishing in Alaska, toured the racetrack in Indianapolis, etc., etc. DO NOT simply duplicate/paraphrase the text of a website or other source. It’s boring and it’s also Plagiarism that will earn you a Withdrawal from, or an F in, the course. This is a hybrid Expressive & Informative assignment, in which the “facts” about a place are smoothly integrated into an “I was there and experienced this” narrative.
These are the Assignment Components:
*A four (4) page, 1,000 word minimum travel narrative
*A separate WORKS CONSULTED page listing, with correct spacing and in alphabetical order the sources used, including a minimum of four (4) websites