Week Four

Goals:
My goals for this week consisted of trying to finish up my research process. So everyday in class I would try to read and gather information from at least one or two sources. I was able to sort of accomplish this goal, but I did not get a chance to annotate all my sources. As for my works cited, I did not get to finish that in class, but I was able to get at least 5 sources that are properly cited, but I wanted to have 10 citations.
Next week on Monday I plan on having my works cited page completed and done as well as my working cited page done. But on Thursday I plan to have my note system done and my basic outline of my outline done. But for my works cited page, I plan on using Noodle Tools to upload and create my individual citations for my works cited, as it is easier and helpful to use. For my note taking, I will also use Noodle Tools notecards to keep track of my annotations. As the notecards allow for a lot more room to write on compared to the traditional paper note cards. Also, the notecards on Noodle Tools help you keep track of which websites the annotations came from and allow for me to jot down some little notes I wanted to remember about the quote.
My schedule for next week:
Monday:
1. Turn in rough draft works cited page.
2. Read and annotate one to two sources (In class or at home).
Tuesday:
1. Turn in working work cited page.
2. Read and annotate one to two sources (In class or at home).
Wednesday:
1. Read and annotate two to three sources (In class or at home).
Thursday:
1. Turn in my notes system.
2. Read and annotate one to two sources (In class or at home).
Friday:
1. Turn in preliminary outline
2. Finish note taking/annotations
3. Start detailed outline
Weekend:
1. Start or Finish detailed outline
2. Start writing a bit of my rough draft of my Research Paper

Activities:
This week I was able to accomplish my research and find at least three sources. But I was only able to find my sources, read them, and gather notes all on Monday and Tuesday. The other days this week I was not able to because we did not have class or we had quizzes to take. Also after school I did not have a lot of time to read all my sources and take notes, as my sources are quite lengthy and packed full of information.

Problems:
This week I was not able to gather as many sources and notes as I wanted to because of timing and also because my sources were quite lengthy, packed full of information. But I hope this weekend to finish up my whole research paper process as well as finishing up my citations. Fortunately, I was able to at least find three sources instead of just one or zero.

Reflection:
My research process this week was not worse or better than I predicted or expected. I planned out last week to have all my sources read and my citations done, but time did not allow this to happen. As I usually can not concentrate on reading and taking notes in class, I tried to leave the majority of my research process to do at home. But sometimes when I would try to research on JSTOR, it would not work at home or I would have trouble finding information on my author and the two books I read. Also I noticed that my author, Walter Mosley, is not a famous author well known around the world like many of the classical American Authors other students are doing. So my research will take a little longer because I will have to spend more time looking for sources on his works. But so far in my research process, I have found JSTOR and GVRL to be quite helpful in finding sources that relate to my authors work. Also these sources have a lot of lengthy information on my author and his works, which makes it especially helpful in the research process, but hard to find time to read all of the documents. Though I am having some successes and setbacks with my research process, I am starting to notice that my topics and my main theme might change from my themes I had chosen when I did my question sets. As I am noticing with all my other sources, there shows a common theme of violence and racial discrimination but I was instead more focused on racial discrimination and also I did not even consider violence as an important theme within Mosley's novels. So I am quite glad to have researched thoroughly on his books to see what the main themes are to others people and see how I can try to incorporate those ideas as well as my ideas in my research paper.

Have a rainy weekend!

Until next time,
Zain