Assignment Basics
Due Date: In the beginning of class on June 16, 2015
Length: about 8 pages (9 pages maximum including visuals and tables) of double-spaced typed text, 12
point font and one inch margin from all sides. The reference list can be separate (not included in 9 pages).
You are required to submit me a hardcopy of your paper.
Value: 25% of the final grade
Description/Purpose of the Assignment
For this assignment, you are required to critically examine a geographical issue/topic focusing on Canada.
The geographical extent of your research can be focused on Canada as a whole, one or more geographical
region(s), or one or more provinces/territories. You may select a topic from any aspect of physical
geography ((e.g. landforms, geology, vegetation, hydrology, climate, etc.) or human geography (e.g.
population, settlement, agriculture, economy, urbanization, culture, resources, tourism, environment, etc.),
or the interaction of physical and human geography (e.g. natural hazards, resource management, etc.).
Since the geographic extent and themes are open, this should provide you considerable room to select a
topic of your interest. A simple description is not good enough; you need to critically analyze the
topic/issue of your interest.
Recommendations/Guidelines
1) Finding a suitable topic
The first step in working on this assignment is finding a suitable topic to write your research paper. In some
respect, this is the most challenging and important stage of the process because everything else stems from
finding an appropriate topic. Scan the television and newspapers—both paper and online sources—and
keep your eyes open for news or issues that are interesting to you. If you don’t know where to start, look at
the table of contents from your textbook which should provide you a number of possible topics/themes
which you might want to consider. I am also available at this stage to help you in selecting an appropriate
topic for this assignment.
2) Doing your research
Once you have determined what topic you will work on, your next step is to examine various sources of
information on the topic. The key with your research effort is to access a variety of information sources
such as magazines, newspapers, news broadcasts, movies, and academic information sources including
academic journal articles and books. As you do your research, be sure to take notes as necessary and to
write down the full, bibliographic reference for your information sources. You will need the latter when
you type up your Reference List that shows all of the sources of the ideas and facts that you have used in
your research paper. By the end of the research process, you should be able to draft up a clear outline for
your paper.
3) Writing your research paper
In general, your paper should be structured according to the following schema:
2 | P a g e
1) Introduction (about 1 page)
This section introduces the specific topic or issue you have selected for the paper, and outlines the main objectives of your research paper. The key in this section is to introduce the topic, outline the main objectives, and mention why this topic or issue is important, without going into excessive detail—leave the latter for the body of the paper which will follow.
2) Body (5-6 pgs.)
In this section, you will present the information you have collected from different sources. At this point, you will keep your analysis descriptive — will have the opportunity to present your evaluation and opinion in the conclusion/critical discussion section of the paper. The purpose of this section is simply to present the background information on the issue which will help the reader better understand what is going on. As you organize and write this section, you may like to make use of headings/subheadings and paragraphs to organize the information topically.
3) Conclusion/Recommendations (1-2 pgs.)
In this section of the paper, you will briefly summarize the main findings of your analysis, and provide your evaluation of what is going on. Avoid introducing any new topic in this section, but you could provide your own recommendations to improve the situation. If you feel that some part of the topic/issue which may require further investigation or research, you are welcome to discuss that in this section.
4) References/Works Cited (1-2 pgs.)
At the end of your writing, you should list in detail all the materials and sources that you have used in your research paper. As a requirement of this assignment, you should use at least five academic/refereed sources (excluding the textbook and my lecture notes) which I will explain in the class. For your information, Wikipedia is not considered as an academic source. In case of online sources, make sure to write the source name, web address and date of access.
As you write the paper, keep all your outlines, rough notes, and drafts on hand as evidence in your favour in the unlikely event that you are accused of plagiarism. This is a good policy not only in this class, but all of your university courses in which there is a research assignment. During the research and writing process, I am available (with enough advance notice before the due date) to guide you in selecting an appropriate topic and main points for the body part of your paper. However, I will provide only general feedback on the content and will not perform a detailed proof reading of your work.
Distribution of Marks
Introduction – 2 marks
Main body – 10 marks
Conclusions – 2 marks
References – 5 marks
Visuals/Maps/Tables – 2 marks
Grammar/Spelling/Format – 4 marks
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Total marks – 25 marks
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