3 Research Proposal

·       A working title for your project

Current plan for my title: Wasted: Hopes of a Healthier Environment and Economy in the Ruins of Consumer Waste

·       Your research question

The question I plan to answer with the results of my research is: how do excessive amounts of solid wastes/landfills affect Americans and how can we treat it more effectively?

·       A summary of your project. Identify your topic and give an overview. 

Include some key terms and additional questions that will guide your research.

This project will begin with a overview of how solid waste is disposed of and stored in America, and what happens after that. To guide this, I am going to answer the questions, “What are landfills?” and “What happens when they reach the maximum amount of waste they can hold?” as well as I can. I will then go from that into ways for reducing landfill space, such as recycling, and methods to make consumer goods longer lasting. Efficiency in treating waste is a topic I want to explore as well, by researching energy from waste.

·       A description of your purpose for working on this project. Why did you choose this topic? What do you hope to learn from this project?

Just seeing garbage around on the streets, and knowing that most of it will end up in a big hole in the ground has always boggled my mind. How can “just bury it” be a solution to anything? I know it is more complicated and difficult than that (as well as expensive, as I have learned from my research thus far), but it upsets me that this is the most popular solution for discarding waste. I want to learn how else we can store mass amounts of waste to reduce the damage we already doing to our planet.

·       What is your current position on the question or issue? Do you have a tentative thesis?

As of now, I stand behind and strongly support recycling as many consumer goods as possible, and giving potential consumer waste (that is still in good condition) to the needy.

·       Who do you imagine your audience to be. Who might be interested in this topic and why? What will a reader get from reading your work?

I imagine my audience will be anyone of any age who has the same amount of knowledge on the topic that I have right now, so when I complete the project, we will both have come from the same place to have a greater understanding of a situation that is larger in our country than we think.

·       A discussion of the key challenges you will face or you imagine you will face. What concerns do you have regarding the research/project?
The biggest challenge I can see between now and the completion of this project is making sure all of the information is valid, since there is so much to go through and it is a tedious task to begin with. I am also afraid of realizing that some of my current ideas will not make sense to me anymore in the middle of writing my paper, or having to change my mind for whatever reason later on, as it will ruin the validity of my arguments.

·       Proposed schedule and timeline. How and when will you research this issue?  Don’t tell me the due date. Tell me when you personally will work on this project.
Today (March 1), I have completed the research proposal. By the start of spring break (March 12), I want to have completed the outline of my essay, and have some writing done by the time we come back to class the following week. Hopefully, the paper will be finalized and ready to submit by mid-late March.