PERF 156 Dress in World Cultures (Spring 2024)

Sometimes a topic for a paper or speech is assigned to you, but other times, you’ll have to find a topic on your own or narrow one you’ve been given. Choosing and refining your topic is crucial to the success of your project.

Academic writing requires you to build your research upon the work of others—which means referring to scholarly sources. But failing to select the right sources can result in shoddy research and can hurt your credibility. To help you evaluate sources, we suggest using the C.R.A.P. test—that’s Currency, Reliability, Authority, and Purpose. Applying the C.R.A.P. test to your sources will show you which ones are appropriate to use in academic research. None of these filters are foolproof, but they’re a good starting point.

Usually, term or research papers are assigned to give you an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned in lecture, reading, and class discussion to a problem or issue in the subject you’re studying. Your work should demonstrate that you’ve become familiar with scholarship on your topic, that you’ve understood that scholarship, and that you can contribute something to it—your own opinion, perspective, or point of view.

Group writing projects, also called collaborative writing projects, can go terribly wrong if group members don’t establish and follow procedures to ensure that work is distributed evenly, completed on time, and done correctly.