For my research project I chose to make my topic theatrical and social dance in the nineteenth century, before Canada’s Confederation in 1867. I chose this topic because I danced for so many years, and I was curious about the origin of dance and who brought the most popular styles into Canada. I found there weren’t many sources (mostly books) that were created specifically to talk about dance, but music and anything related to music in that era. I was lucky enough to find a dance archives museum in Toronto and had them mail some documents to me to use for my paper, because that is where a majority of my information came from. When it was time to narrow down my topic to more specific areas within the topic of dance, I couldn’t decide. So, I chose my “sub-topics” based on what I had the most information for. I decided to focus my paper on performers that made a major impact on the growth of dance in Canada and popular forms of dance (both social and theatrical). I also chose to touch on the importance of dance in communities in Eastern Canada and what people’s interests in dance said about them as a society.
Primary Document Analysis:
Creating a primary document analysis was not easy. It required a lot of deeper thinking, and trying to get into the brain of the person who created that document to answer the questions that arose while reading the document. I enjoyed the challenge, though. It made me really think about what I was reading, and helped me to better understand how to read other historic articles as well – which I benefited from when doing reading logs and other class assignments. I thought this was a really good assignment because it was the perfect segue into the research paper, and made it easier for me to piece together my paper as well as how I interpreted the information I am using!
Research Paper Outline:
The paper outline forced me to narrow things down to form a proper thesis and decide what specific topics I was going to cover in my paper regarding dance in the Pre-Confederation era. That was something I was avoiding, because I was so interested in everything I’d found out so far that I wanted to include it all in my paper – something I couldn’t do unless I wanted Tracy to be reading a mini novel. Because I had to narrow town my topic a lot more, I had to cut back on my sources. It cut the pile of books I had taken out of the library in half. That alone saved me an extreme amount of time going through all those books to find valid and important pieces to use in my research.
This was the first paper outline I’ve ever had to do. It gave me a good idea of what a paper outline consists of, which will be useful for the next 7.5 years of schooling I have to go through. Those years of school (which feel like 3 million right now) will probably consist of a lot of research papers – especially when I get into my Master’s degree – so I’m glad I got a head start and know what an outline looks like. Tracy looking at drafts and giving feedback was pretty much the only way I knew I was on the right track, and I am forever grateful for her for doing that!
Read Research Paper Outline Here
Research Paper:
In putting my paper together, I wrote it in a way I’d never heard of before this semester in my English class. I found all the quotes and information I wanted to use from my sources and typed them out onto a word document, organizing them by category/thesis topic. Once I compiled all my source information together, I built paragraphs around them. This way, instead of using my sources to help build on my argument, they were my argument. I believe this gave my arguments more strength and validity than they would if there were only a few quotes or paraphrases here and there. This method of writing also alleviated stress since it made it a lot easier to construct the paper.
I think that doing the research paper as a project throughout the semester allowed me to actually become attached to my project. I dedicated a small amount of time each day to finding or looking through sources, and deciding which information would be best suited to my arguments. Using this method allowed me to take time and actually think about what I was putting into my paper. Having all that time to think about the content of the paper, it became something I actually cared about. This made it so easy to get into writing the paper and wanting to make it as good as I could.