Ex. 1.5 (Pg 45-46): Research Proposal

It is important to have a research question in mind before beginning your research paper, that way you have an idea or source that you could rely on to stay on the topic of choice. In Bruce Ballenger's book, The Curious Researcher, he explains that we usually form a research question to explore because when you post a question you are unsure of the answer and one can build a strong essay off of what they explore. You also form a research question to argue and this allows you to test your hypothesis and influence what the reader might assume or know.

For this assignment, I created my research proposal that outlines or is going to further outline my research plan.

Inquiry Question: What can be done to change this the negative affects we have on the ocean or underwater life?

Primary Purpose: To discover the negative effects we have on the ocean and what we are doing to change this.

Explore: How do we have an affect on underwater life? What is being done to protect underwater life? Is there any new technology that is being made to help this? How did it get to where it was? Why is it the way it is? What could we do to change this?

Argue: I am testing whether or not we today are doing anything to fix this problem. My main claim or thesis is that evidence shows that there are many different negative effects on the ocean such as pollution and noise related effects.



I chose this project because this is the major I am heading towards and I have a huge heart for underwater life because as much as people seem to not pay much attention to it, it is ultimately, God's beautiful creation. I already have an idea of how much pollution fills diverse bodies of water. I come with the prejudice that that we are ultimately the cause for the negative effects of the underwater life. A personal experience that really shapes the way I feel is the one time I went swimming with the dolphins in Mexico and they had the dolphins within a certain area of the ocean because they were trying to keep out all the polluted water. Also, I went swimming with the sea lions and in the area that I was in they had them in a pool instead because the water was too polluted for them to be in.

Before beginning this topic of research I was thinking that this was going to be a very simple assignment and also fun because I have such a heart for it. It is still fun and I cannot wait to do more research it, but I realize now that is not as simple as it seems and there are many different areas of research and many different types of technologies for different places and different bodies of water. There are a lot of sources and much research to be done!