COMM 190: Knives and the Gendered Body: The Social and Cultural Meanings of Cosmetic and Other Surgeries

Part One

Identify a topic related to the course that you want to explore in your research project. It may be based on an event or issue related to the course, for example, debates about the rights to gender reassignment surgery in the military. Or it may be about course-related issues or events as manifested in the case of one person. For example, a couple of former students did their project on the issues raised by the death of Dr. Donda West in 2007, allegedly following complications from cosmetic surgery (Dr. West’s case came to national attention because she was Kanye West’s mother).

If you want to work with other students on the same topic, you may pool your resources and collect information together, however, you must submit individual written work. Depending on how you each approach the topic, you may find that your research questions and thesis statements (below) are different.

Find out the following basic information about the topic you wish to explore: What are the facts about the event or issue? What happened and when? To whom did it happen and when?

Determine the specific course-related issues in your topic.

Pose research questions about those course-related issues in the topic you wish to explore. Your project will be a process of answering those questions using theories and concepts from the course to guide you, as well as theories and concepts from additional resources that you identify on your own. A research question on gender reassignment surgery in the military might be:

What do responses to requests for gender reassignment surgery in the military in the last decade tell us about the success of transgender activism in the military?

Limit your research questions to three at most, and make sure they are questions you can answer in the time available to you.

Develop a thesis to help you answer the question. For example, a thesis based on the above question could be:

The U.S. military’s responses to requests for gender reassignment surgery suggest that activism promoting transgender rights for military personnel is having a positive impact.

This thesis is based on some specific knowledge of requests for gender reassignment surgery in the military and the responses to those requests. It demonstrates that your thesis is based on information rather than random guesses. This is why it is important for you to find the information listed in (2), above, to help you come up with good research questions and thesis statements.

Identify two scholarly journal articles that help you to develop an argument in support of your thesis. The library provides an online research guide for communication that has many helpful tips for finding scholarly and other texts (e.g. newspaper reports). You may also contact Lia Friedman, the Reference Librarian for Communication for help in searching for texts. You can find both the research guide and Ms. Friedman’s contact information at: https://ucsd.libguides.com/communication

You may also contact whose contact information can be found at the same website:

Write an introduction to your project in which you document the previous six steps. That is, identify your topic and explain why you chose it, provide basic information about the topic, as listed in point (2), pose a research question about the topic, and develop a thesis statement about it. Explain the concepts that you wish to explore in your project and why you consider them important to the project. Briefly describe the scholarly articles you identified and how they are related to your topic and research question. Your introduction must include a list of all references including course and non-course material.

Your introduction should be 4-6 pages long (excluding list of references), typed in a font no larger than 12 point, with 1-inch margins, and double-spaced. Your pages must be numbered. You will lose a point for un-numbered pages. It is due to the instructor by midnight on October 27. Please send only as a Microsoft Word file or as a pdf.

You may seek feedback from the instructor on any aspect of Part I up to October 20th.

Part Two

Identify factual evidence that supports your thesis. This can include census data, reliable accounts of historical figures and events, government documents, and statements by key figures. All such evidence must be from reliable sources and must be critically evaluated. For example, official government accounts may be reliable but leave out or gloss over a nation’s racist or homophobic past. You must therefore look for evidence from multiple sources that enable you to discuss the different perspectives around your topic.

Identify at least four scholarly journal articles (in addition to the two from Part One) that help you to develop an argument in support of your thesis. Don’t forget to consult the library research guide and the Reference Librarian for Communication as necessary.

Write a paper in which you use the factual evidence, course and additional scholarly texts to make an argument (or arguments) in support of your thesis. If the evidence and scholarship you find do not support your original thesis, you may do one of the following:

Revise your original thesis based on the evidence and scholarship you find, describing the process that led you to revise your thesis, showing why/how it is better than your original thesis, and then proceeding with Step 3. This is a normal and valuable part of the research process and is the recommended option.
OR
Come up with a completely different thesis and start over (not recommended).

Your paper must incorporate your introduction from Part One. Make sure you revise the introduction to include any changes to your thesis and new information from Part Two. It must also include a list of all references including course and non-course material.

Make a presentation to the class on your project on the dates specified in the course syllabus. Separate guidelines will be provided for that presentation. If you are working with others on the same project, you can present the project together. However, you must each work individually on your final written project paper.