CONNECTING THE DOTS

Upon reading the term/research paper prompt, I was a bit surprised. I found it extremely unusual that we were only allotted one weekend to complete such a lengthy, rigid, and difficult assignment. I was not discouraged, however. I had the whole paper mapped out in my head by the time I left class on Friday, and I was ready to embrace the challenge.Unfortunately, I had failed to acknowledge the research component of the assignment. This proved to be my downfall, as, after many hours of research, I failed to secure the citable information that I needed to construct my paper. I emailed back and forth with my instructor, collaborated with some of my fellow students (mostly Jon), and tried every research strategy I could think of--all with no avail. Considering that I could write for days on the topic out of my own knowledge, it was extremely frustrating for me to fail due to coming up shorthanded on my research. Research is the central element of a "research paper", though, and I will take my defeat in stride and use it to better myself. In fact, today I sought help and Dr. Preston was willing to sit down with me and provide some additional guidance/strategies, as well as some sources that he found to use as a starting point. With this new insight, I will attack the prompt with the same angle that I tried the first time (the social psychological causes of racism and how this information can be utilized to deduce possible solutions to racism), and hopefully have better luck the second time around. This is the angle that really peaks my interest, so I have been trying to avoid abandoning it if at all possible. Luckily, for once, everything is seeming to fall into place.