By: Demarcus Hamilton
REACH is a program designed for students to create and administer research projects sponsored by the school along with a paid assistantship.
Students were given tips on Tuesday on how to submit their application.
Some tips included student samples.
Statement of project objectives: Clearly and concisely state the research concept you will be addressing.
Not good: My goal is to write a book.
Best:The goal of this project is to write a book about the corruption of political power in an ideal community, using animals working collectively on a farm as an analog for human behavior.
Background and Context: Explain the present state of knowledge in the field with proper citations of pertinent literature.
Not good: The movie on the Discovery Channel said that no one knows what society occupied the area after the Maya civilization collapsed.
Best: Although it has long been believed that the Maya “heartland” of northern Guatemala was depopulated after the Classic Maya collapse (Culbert 1977; Thompson 1960), recent archaeological research (Chase 1985; Smith and Smith 1990) has revealed substantial settlement in the Peten lakes area dating from the eleventh through seventeenth centuries.
Methods/Procedures/Materials: Describe your general plan of work.
Not good: I will work in my sponsor’s laboratory
Best: Because I am looking for the gene (s) in poison ivy that determine (s) the plant’s toxicity to humans, I will be using my sponsor’s gene-sequencer in my project. I will spend the first two weeks of my project collecting samples from Jackson County, then the next two weeks preparing samples for analysis using the XYZ method…
Statement of Significance and Impact: Explain how your project contributes to learning.
Not good: Nobody has done it yet
Best: Although color symbolism in The Great Gatsby has been investigated by many scholars (e.g., Smith 1950, Jones 1955, Snerdwell 1960), no one has previously used a computer-based textual analysis of such imagery to explore the socioeconomic contexts of…
Role of the Faculty Sponsor: Explain how you will interact with the faculty sponsor.
Not good: My sponsor will help me throughout this creative project.
Best: My sponsor guided my initial literature and source search by providing a list of books and technical articles to read. My sponsors own expertise with this medium and subject area will then guide my initial conceptual explorations. This will result in my experimenting with materials and technique in order to develop a range of preliminary outcomes that my sponsor will critique and provide feedback for further exploration and refinement. The final 3D development will require the integration of elements of my preliminary studies, but will use advanced studio techniques. My sponsor will provide both technical and aesthetic guidance during development of the final piece, but I will create and execute all content.
