Library of Congress Classification
The UCSB Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system (LC) to arrange books and other library materials by subjects and disciplines
Subject Guide
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9010
colmenar@ucsb.edu
Project Assignment
Project 2: Fact-based Narrative
For this assignment you will combine narrative (story) elements with research to write a piece that depends for its effectiveness not only on your style and voice, but also on information you gather from sources outside your own experience in order to speak convincingly and with authority on the subject you have chosen to write about. The goal of the piece is to both entertain and inform your audience—the narrative elements and the research should work together to accomplish this goal.
Finding a subject is your first challenge. You might consider writing about a place, a public event, or a work of art (like a film or a piece of music). Or you could use this assignment as an opportunity to explore a topics that you’ve wondered about lately and want to know more about. What particular passions or interests do you have that you could make interesting to a reader? Where have you been, what have you done that might provide you a basis for gathering more information? You need to be sure that your subject is one that you can inform yourself about adequately in the time you have, and you must give yourself plenty of time to do the reading, observing, checking out, thinking, interviewing, or whatever is necessary to support the claim you will make about your subject.
While this piece will rely on research, it is not a "research paper" in the sense you may be used to thinking of that genre. It must include your voice and your perspective. Your relationship to the subject, your life experience, and even the story of your inquiry process can be included in the piece, as appropriate or desirable. We will look at some examples, and we will discuss the various strategies the different essayists have used in order to make their case, whatever it may be.
Sources that are appropriate will depend entirely on your subject. The kind of research you may already be familiar with—library or online research of books, newspapers, magazines, articles, visual information—is likely to be necessary but will almost certainly not be sufficient. Other forms of research (interviews, searching archival records, visits to appropriate places, careful observation, seeing films, listening to music) may supplement or in some cases even replace the usual kinds of research that may be familiar from your typical academic experience.