ENC 1102: Composition II

Welcome! This LibGuide is designed to connect ENC 1102 students to important library services and provide an introduction to locating and evaluating scholarly sources for their course projects. Use the left-hand toolbar to navigate to pages on library skills and workshops or to go directly to your research topic's discipline. 

In Project 1, students develop an approach for the research and writing they’ll do which involves taking a rhetorical approach to research both before they begin and during the entire process. They'll start by exploring the rhetorical situation and some other concepts of writing, and at the same time they'll brainstorm topic ideas, narrow those ideas, and develop a research question. This question will act as a guide for their research exploration throughout the course. They'll start to gather sources around their topic, practice annotating and analyzing those sources, and develop a research plan. Finally, they'll develop a presentation of their research plan that outlines their approach.

For this project students will write to an academic audience within their discipline. They will review research by looking for critical points of knowledge and understanding on a particular topic of their choice. It does not report on new findings but rather attempts to bring together a body of research into a cohesive piece that presents an understanding and awareness of the sources. Students will synthesize across the sources, showing how sources can have a "conversation". The literature review will present the research in an unbiased and comprehensive way that draws on connections between sources through in-depth analysis.

Building from Projects 1 and 2, students will continue researching their topics using sources they have already located as well as finding additional relevant sources, culminating in the composition of an exploratory research essay. Contrary to argumentative writing, this essay will focus on exploring the academic and popular conversation(s) around their chosen topic and identifying gaps and limitations in the research they have located in order to add their own voice to the conversation.