How to Propose

Chapter 4

The beginning of any great paper or story begins with a proposition and careful planning. Chapter four covers these two very important starters.

I have always been told that a good research topic is one that the author shows interest in and can find enough information to make a paper. Usually when I start a paper, research or otherwise, I tend to think of more practical topics to write about. After skimming the chapter, the book suggests the same idea.

The chapter also suggests that the paper have many questions that all tie into the main topic. In addition, the chapter says that narrowing down the paper's subject is very important and that questions play a big part in narrowing the topic.

Something kind of new to me that I hadn't thought about before was doing a quick free-write to start and find a heading for your paper. This makes sense and can show what you know off the top of your head. It also allows you to see problems you might encounter and where you need to improve the paper. In addition to the suggestion of a free write it also suggests finding useable sources early on in the paper instead of as you write it.

Chapter four did give me a few good ideas that hand't occurred to me before. I like the idea of a free write to figure out what you need and what you need to find out more about. Overall, Chapter Four was a much better and more useful chapter than Chapter Seven.