M3.3 Course Project – Milestone 3

Evaluate

Thesis Statement Draft and Source Evaluation
In Modules 1 and 2 you chose a final project topic and narrowed your focus through the process of brainstorming and finding preliminary sources. Make sure you are reading your instructors feedback each week and making improvements before submitting the next Milestone. For example, if your instructor suggested replacing any of the sources you listed in Milestone 2, or refining your narrowed topic of focus, make sure to take that into account before working on Milestone 3.

Now, in Module 3, you will draft a thesis statement and evaluate your sources for relevance and credibility.

Step 1: Thesis Statement Draft
Make sure you have completed pages 3.9 through 3.11 in Chapter 3 on Drafting your Thesis Statement. There, you will learn more about how to create a concise, specific, effective, and relevant thesis statement and then draft it in the webtext, so it is essential that you complete the webtext work before submitting this assignment. Then, copy/paste the thesis statement you drafted in the webtext into the Milestone 3 Template for submission.

Note: Your thesis statement is a working draft; it is ok (and expected!) that as part of the research process your thesis statement will adapt and change over the next few weeks based on your source analysis and your instructors feedback.

Step 2: In-Depth Evaluation of 1 Source
Next, make sure you have completed pages 3.12 and 3.13 in Chapter 3 on Evaluating Sources. Pick 1 of your 5 sources and conduct an in-depth evaluation that considers five categories: relevance, authority, currency, objectivity, and verifiability. See the example of how to put this together in the Milestone 3 Template.

Step 3: Narrowing Your List of Sources
An important part of the source evaluation process is to narrow and reconsider your chosen sources. Over the next few weeks, as you refine your thesis statement and continue reading about your topic, you may want to replace some of your sources in order to have the most effective, relevant, and credible sources when it comes time to write your final paper in Module 7.

This week, conduct an informal evaluation of all 5 of your sources for the criteria above (you do not need to submit this) and choose 1 source to omit or replace at this stage. Explain in a few sentences why you are choosing to get rid of this source.

Step 4: Reflection
Next, make sure you have completed page 3.14 in Chapter 3 on reflecting on your writing process. Write a short (~100-150 word) reflection paragraph about this activity at the bottom of your assignment. What did you find difficult about drafting a concise thesis statement? Which of the elements of source evaluation did you find most useful in evaluating your sources? Do you think you will revisit your list of sources and continue to find new sources over the next few weeks? Why or why not? What questions or concerns do you have about the research process at this stage?

Resources:

Milestone 3 TemplatePreview the document
Library Homepage (Links to an external site.)
Instructions for Linking to Items in the Library (Links to an external site.)
Submission Instructions
Your final submission should include:

Your one-sentence thesis statement (copy/pasted from the webtext template on page 3.11)
Your in-depth evaluation of 1 source through five categories
The 1 source you will omit and an explanation of why you chose to omit it
A short (~100-150 word) reflection on this activity
Put all four components into the Milestone 3 Template and submit the finished document to the dropbox below by Sunday night of Module 3.

Evaluation
This assignment is due Sunday by 11:59 pm ET.
This assignment will be evaluated according to the IND101 Milestone 3 Rubric. Make sure to review the rubric before submitting so you know how you will be assessed.
This assignment is worth 5% of your overall course grade.