What to do
Describe your area of interest (i.e., the topic). At this stage, choosing one idea is preferable, but it need not be narrow.  Also, if you simply can't choose a single idea at the moment, you may describe up to three.  Please note that having more than one idea will cause more work, however. 

For the sake of efficiency, please use bulleted phrases rather than lengthy narrative prose.  Include enough phrases to give context to your problem idea. The description of your area of interest should provide enough information so another reader will be able to understand the context of the topic you are exploring. 

We hope that in the process of describing your interest area(s), you will be able to begin to focus.  If you have more than one idea, this process may help you eliminate one or more.  If not, it is important that you have settled on one idea before you complete any subsequent assignments.

Components
Include the following for each idea:

• A working title for the overall research project
• The following statement (a complete sentence):  My study is about...
• Why you perceive this to be a problem worthy of research (use bullets)
  
• Brief description of your knowledge and/or experience in the area around which the problem revolves (use bullets). It is acceptable for you to know almost nothing at this stage - state this, if so.
• Self-assess on the rubric provided below.
  

Hints  (tags: topics; communication; AP
Any topic within the realm of education is acceptable, even if it seems to have little to do with SLM practice.  The justification for this is that you are to serve all the students and staff of the school; in this role, almost any educational problem may occur.  For example, autism is increasingly common.  It is likely that you will encounter autistic students.  You may need to help a teacher or administrator research best practices related to inclusion of autistic students. Therefore, this seemingly out-of-bounds topic may become very important to you professionally.

Whatever you write, you may change, broaden, or narrow any of it at a future date.  I will help you judge if your topic is big enough or manageable or over-researched at this stage.

Two key ways of identifying good research topics are: 1). noticing problems that appear in your professional life; and 2). noticing topics about which you are naturally curious in the professional realm. Motivation is much easier to maintain if professional relevance or interest is involved.  However, you don't have to marry this whale.  Sometimes it's best to just choose something, instead of waiting for the One and Only Right Whale to come along.

Farmer provides some hints about identifying topics in her book. 

Throughout the AP, we will use a draft-revise cycle.  An assignment requires you to produce a piece, which I will review and provide formative feedback about.  Credit is given for complete submissions.  Then, I expect to see my  feedback incorporated into the next piece.  If you are in danger of traveling too far down a futile path, I will stop you.

Also throughout the AP, I will emphasize efficient communication techniques.  This is not a writing course, and we don't have time to review and refine beautiful academic prose.  Besides, no practitioner has time to produce or read long communication forms anyway.  Instead, think in logically connected bullets.  Text should be clean, but paragraphs are usually not necessary.  One model to consider is: if you are briefing an administrator on a topic, you would not provide a 25-page APA manuscript.  Instead, you would take him or her through a five-minute presentation and answer questions.  The amount of prep work, up until the point of producing the language, is the same.  The communication mode, however, is much more efficient.

Submission Format
Please submit each of these:

• Submit as a document in the appropriate WebCt dropbox, using my filenaming rules.
  
• Post within your Researcher's Virtual Notebook.