[Amber Slater]

Hi all!

This is where you will post your proposal for the Call to Action Research Paper. Generally, research proposals explain what you’re researching and why. They share your research question and explain why you should be able to learn more and write a paper that addresses the research question.

Before you write a proposal, please read the assignment sheet for the Call to Action research paper (on our OpenLab–click Call to Action on the menu) and the chapter “Exploring Topics and Creating a Research Proposal” (on our OpenLab–click Course Calendar with Readings). You need the information from both to complete this assignment.

Please include lots of detail in your proposal–you can use the one on pages 306-308 from the chapter “Exploring Topics and Creating a Research Proposal” as a model. I will be reading your proposals in order to approve everyone’s topics before you start writing the paper.

Your proposal should answer the following questions:
1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?
2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?
3. What is your research question?
4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found?
5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?

[Ariel Montesino]

1. The discourse community i will be writing about is the video game community , aka the gaming community. The issue i will be addressing is issue of new outlets and many others accusing video games as being a source of violence. There aren’t ways to stop the issue but there are ways we can lessen it such as making parents more aware of the product they are buying by being informed on the various ESRB tags (E,E 10+,T,M 17+, A 18+ etc ),on the video games they plan to purchase. If they do buy said game, they should check to see how it affects their child; is it having a positive or negative impact on their life socially, academically, or mentally. Another thing we can do is enforce the policy of id’s having to be checked on age restricted video games.
2. My motivation for writing about this discourse community is that i’m a gamer and many gamer’s including me look at games as a hobby and a source of fun. We hate it when our games get looked at as a source of violence when many of those people who commit crimes and play video games have many psychological problems of their own as well.
3. Video Games and Violence. How Video Games and Violence may or may not be connected. Cases in which Video Games and Violence were linked.
4. So far I’ve found 2 scholarly links off the city tech library database and 1 article from the nytimes.
This one : Robinson, Nicholas. “Video Games and Violence: Legislating on the ‘Politics of Confusion’.” Political Quarterly 83.2 (2012): 414-23. Web.
This source actually blames video games as a source of violence and looks to prove to me why we should keep video games inaccessible to minors. I had to use it since its the opposite argument to what I’m writing about.
This other scholar article: Crump, Elle. “Turn That Game Back On: Video Games, Violence and the Myth of Injury to the Public Good.” Auckland University Law Review 20 (2014): 194. Web.
This scholarly article supports my arguement of video games not being a source of violence and shows many cases in which videogames are not at fault.
I’ve also found this nytimes article : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent-video-games-studies.html
This recently posted nytimes article shows how trump addressed video games after two mass shootings occured. It also says that politicians blaming video games with no evidence in the past and researchers looking into the situation proving how they’re wrong.
5. I really don’t think ill have any challenges running ill run into as i work on the project. I really like the topic I’ve chose and I look forward to writing about it.

[Thalia L. Frontani]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?

The discourse community I am writing about is being a graphic design student. The problem that my discourse community faces is low pay, art stealing and not getting enough credit when our illustrations is shared between all of the internet, from any given platform. Most of the time, people think just screenshotting and reposting helps, it does but not as much tagging the artist to get their platform bigger and get the recognition.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?

My motivation for writing about my discourse community was mainly based on seeing the art getting reposted by celebs and other higher platforms and not tagging the artist or not bothering to find the artist simply because they thought it was just cute to have. Or seeing people have art as their backgrounds without knowing the artist just bothers me. I want peoples art to be just as known as any known artists such as marvel, dc, ghibli studios, etc.

3. What is your research question?

My research question is how does graphic design work its way in marketing/sales? or
Why isn’t graphic design and the fine arts catergorized in the same section of the arts?

4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found?

I searched as to why graphic design and marketing is linked together. I just found a few links thats more educated based than just prior knowledge.
Marketing :
– https://www.brafton.com/blog/graphics/why-is-graphic-design-important-for-your-marketing-strategy/ (website)
– https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/design/blog/graphic-design-and-marketing/ (college website)
– https://www.marketingcareeredu.org/graphic-designer/ (educational website)
Fine arts vs Graphic design :
– https://buchtelite.com/7040/arts_entertainment/art-vs-graphic-design/
– https://speckyboy.com/the-difference-between-visual-art-and-graphic-design/
– https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/design/blog/art-versus-design/

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?

the compare and contrast that is going to mainly pop up or going way too far back into the past like the 16th century where art began or somewhere along those lines.

[Pegdwende]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?

The discourse community i am writing about is the athletics people. Right now city tech doesn’t have a gymnasium, or a sports club/teams, some students may need to workout during their free time, or join an athletic team.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?
My motivation for wanting to about this discourse community is that i see other colleges with a gymnasium and sports clubs/teams, and i ask myself why isn’t there one at city tech, also last semester one my friend that goes to city tech asked why isn’t there a baseball team, where he can join to play baseball, i also from the beginning of my first semester asked myself why is there a soccer team/club or a rugby team/ club.

3. What is your research question?
In what way can a sports teams or clubs improve students performance and academic skills, and does being in an athletic team change a student academic skills.

4. What basic research have you done so far?
What information have you found?
I found some articles that may give me the answer to my question
https://go-gale-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A203243657&v=2.1&u=cuny_nytc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w
https://go-gale-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T003&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA16832035&docType=Article&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZGPP-MOD1&prodId=ITOF&contentSet=GALE%7CA16832035&searchId=R1&userGroupName=cuny_nytc&inPS=true

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?
Some challenges I might run into is finding articles that will give an answer to my question

[Graan]

1- What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse group that you will address?

The discourse community that I will be writing about is the basketball community in city tech. NYCCT(city tech) doesn’t have not a single athletic team due to the lack of a gymnasium, mainly for basketball is the concern but that’s what seems to be the whole issue in the school for us athletes. I will go over how not having the gymnasium for the basketball athletes is unhealthy because most students who want to play basketball want to stay in shape and be active, but city tech is making it harder by forcing us student athletes to play basketball somewhere else. Also opportunities are being lost, what about those who want to play basketball at the next level through city techs team? They aren’t able to show off their skill because of this huge problem which is the college no having a home gym to play at.

2- What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?

My main motivation for writing about this discourse community is strictly because we don’t have our own gymnasium for basketball. I play basketball everyday and for my college not to have a gym for basketball is very annoying, I pay for college and I’m not getting the full benefits that I’m supposed to be getting. I have friends who play basketball and go to different colleges which they are freely able to go in and out of the basketball gymnasium at any time of the day. Right after class, before class or even when they don’t have any class for the day, they just show Student ID and they are good to go. City tech does not have that In fact this has been going on for the past 6 to 8 years, I could imagine how a student in city tech 4 years ago would have felt not having a basketball gymnasium or team to play in.

3- what is your research question?

How significant is adding basketball and a gymnasium to a college campus and What benefits does it have on students academics and athleticism?

4- What basic research have you done so far ?
What information have you found?

1:https://nirsa.net/nirsa/wpcontent/uploads/Benefits_Of_Campus_Recreation-Forrester_2014-Report.pdf
2:https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/Q2/college-students-working-out-at-campus-gyms-get-better-grades.html

3: https://www.rochester.edu/team/benefits-of-sports-to-students/

All three of these links are my research links or temporarily my research links but they all are credible because they all are universities and all professional.

5- what kind of challenges do you think you will run into as you work on this project?

Some challenges I might face When doing this project might be, finding more specific sources, getting the reader to believe what I am saying and to actually understand how I feel about this matter. These are some challenges I think I might have but I will do my best to find a solution to these.

[veronica benitez]

1. What discourse community are you writing about?

What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?
The discourse community I am writing about is financial aid and the struggles students face receiving financial aid in CUNY schools.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?

My motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community is the reality that every student that attend college can relate to the process it takes whether some students receive full aid, partial aid, or no aid at all. My goal is to look into the system used to calculate how much aid a person is receiving and to compare the system to the past years. From there i would like to compare and contrast the findings

3. What is your research question?
My research question is What is in place to make sure CUNY schools stay affordable?

4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found?

https://www.psc-cuny.org/clarion/september-2016/making-cuny-free-again-council-explore-possibilities

This Article focus on the increase in tuition and the reason why CUNY school should be free again. It points out living expenses as being one of the obstacles that will prevent students from affording the tuition. It also state how students with only two years of school struggle in the long run.

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?

Some of the challenges i think i might run into in this project is comparing CUNY to the cost of other colleges. I believe this will be a problem because although CUNY tuition is increasing it is still “affordable” compare to other school in SUNY or universities.

[Jamir Campbell]

1. The discourse community I am apart is the sneaker reselling community. One problem is that many resellers buy multiple pairs by not only using “backdoors” ( people that they know in the stores that sell them pairs) ,but also using online bots. That’s a problem because not only do a lot of people that actually go to the stores and wait in line not get anything , The prices of the shoes sometimes triple and even quadruple because of resellers. People use to go and wait in line and it was first come first serve, but now they have reservations and other stuff that makes it hard to purchase sneakers from a general release.
2. My motivation for writing this is because I feel the whole sneaker culture has been changed completely . As someone who likes to buying sneakers and doesn’t resell sneakers that much I don’t feel it should be this hard to buy sneakers, some resellers purchase a lot of the same sneakers just to sell it at a much higher price than the store would , to me that seems unfair because they have connections that a lot of us don’t have.
3. Why is it that the sneaker reselling business changed so much ?
4.1https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.www.complex.com/sneakers/2018/04/the-gentrification-of-sneakers-is-killing-the-culture https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/sneaker-reselling-future/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.www.complex.com/sneakers/2017/05/has-sneaker-reselling-died-or-is-it-just-evolving
5. Some challenges I might face is finding sources that actually talk about the problems , a lot of resellers don’t think it’s a problem and there aren’t a lot of articles about the problem. I might also have a problem finding ways to solve the issue in the sneaker reselling business.

[Janice Chen]

Title: Minimum wage in NYC can’t even afford basic

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?
The discourse community that I am in is dental assistants. The major challenge faced by me and my discourse community is parttime staff are receiving poor wages which are the problem I would like to address.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?
The primary motivation for wanting to write about parttime employees and minimum wage problems is because after paying bills, for example, rent and other expenses, there is no much left to maintain a standard lifestyle. With this research, I would like to call upon all employers to increase the overall wages by providing evidence on how hard life is by receiving a minimum wage raise

3. What is your research question?
The research is aimed at answering the question below:
What can it be proved to raise the wages in NYC?
Why do people live in NYC need the minimum wage to be rise?
Does $15 minimum wage in NYC not enough?
How much money is left after paying all the bills and rent?

4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found?
I also want my readers to have a common understanding of the minimum wages for parttime to maintain a standard lifestyle. I have collected some secondary data on wages from the city tech library website and also googled previous researches done to prove my research question. I have found that we are receiving meager wages when compared to the numbers displayed on google considering that I have worked in many dental offices and my pay has never been anywhere near what google presents. Records also show that minimum wages are being offered to part-time staff; therefore, I have asked those who work full time, and it has proved that full-time workers receive just a little higher wages.

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?
Some challenges I think I might face is when carrying out my research include lack of sources that wage that dental wages offices are offering low wages in all medical office fields. However, I was glad to come across a website that talks about how minimum wages affect New Yorker’s life.

[Tyler Pierre]

1. The discourse community that I am going to be writing about is delivery companies such as FedEx UPS and Amazon. The problem that I will be discussing in my paper is the Labor and Safety problem that goes on throughout the job. As a Part-Time Employee, I have first hand seen the problems that workers have had such as dealing with old equipment from two decades ago or coming as close to losing their life battling harsh weather conditions on the road on unsafe trucks.

2. My motivation for this discourse community is my experiences in the job. Most of the workers at my job FedEx are mostly 25 or older which leaves me as one of the youngest people on the routes. Meaning the majority of my coworkers have responsibilities such as paying for bills and providing for others in their families, which is why they overlook these issues that go on in the company. From my experiences, it’s not as easy for me to overlook these issues because I am still supported my family members financially. These problems are not being talked about

3. How do we keep our workers safe while still being efficient at our job

4. Most of the basic research that I have done is serving through the internet for articles of workers all over the United States telling their stories have some of the similar experiences and decided to share it with the world.

5. One challenge that I’m sure I will run into which has been more of a personal issue for me is how to keep going with my idea, Finding new issues with my topic and supporting sources to complement them

[Douglas]

1. The discourse community that I am writing about is the artist community. Art communities like deviant art and Tumblr are communities that an artist can join to express their artwork. The issue with these communities is that artist do not draw to show a clear message; I feel like artist should focus on both their art style, which is something they are working on, and the message of their art at the same time in order for people to receive a clear message. I will be addressing painting and/or drawing tips that I don’t agree with completely while explaining what could be fixed within artist community.

2. I am motivated to talk about the artist community because I like paintings and drawings from other people. Secondly, I am motivated to talk about the artist community because I like to draw/paint, and analyze artwork. Thirdly, I like to fix mistakes in my own artwork, and I try to avoid drawing ideas that I see to be redundant because I feel like drawing something stereotypical is boring unless the idea is interestingly drawn.

3. My research question is: Are artwork tips effective? Do artwork tips actually help beginning to pro artist progress?

4. Research that I have done is:
https://www.strathmoreartist.com/blog-reader/the-best-pieces-of-art-advice.html

10 Easy Sketchbook Tips So You Can Make Art Now

Are You a Beginning Artist? Here is What You Need to Know

5.A challenge I might run in to by doing this project is: I might not have enough artist tips that I can think of by looking at my own artwork, and I will have to rely on my research more than my own tips.

[Christopher Castillo]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address? The discourse community I’m writing about is the group of friends I use to play soccer with every Friday and the weekends with. There are several problems within our discourse community. One problem is how we didn’t have enough people to play full soccer games like 5 on 5, there was only 4 or 5 of us in total. Another problem we all encountered was lack of encouragement to win a game. Due to not being encouraged, we’d lose a lot.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community? My motivation for wanting to write about the group of friends I use to play soccer with is because I just missed the actual sport and giving it our all in whatever games we’d play regardless of how lazy we were in the beginning.

3. What is your research question? How should you get motivated to play a sport?

4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found? The thing I googled was “lack of motivation playing soccer”. This was the first link: https://www.soccerpsychologytips.com/2014/maintain-your-motivation-like-top-soccer-players/. The information I found was that after playing an alright game of soccer, the majority of players play poorly in their next game due to their previous game. Also, believing in your skills and abilities before help motivate you in the games ahead.

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project? The challenges I may come across working on this project could be putting all of my information together after gathering it. Another challenge may be the thesis and how I can call to action to resolve the issues within my discourse community. The final obstacle in this project would be applying the MLA style with the sources and work cited, that has always been a challenge for me.

[Iris Olmos]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?
A discourse community I’m writing about is the feminine products and the problem we face on paying a lot of money for our products such as tampons, pads, birth control, etc.
2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community? My motivation for writing about this discourse community is that I know personally and many other young females who don’t have the money or resources to pay $50 for a plan b or for female condoms and to the people who can’t pay for birth control due to not having health insurance is also hard. Also adding on it’s hard getting your period unexpectedly and not having a pad or tampon and having to pay 25c for a pad or tampon that A. it’s too big B. it’s not even comfortable to wear.
3. What is your research question? My research questions are: “When are they going to make feminine products free” or “When are we going to stop being taxed so much for simple products”
4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found? Some information I have found so far two articles one from the New York Times and another one that talks about the payment issues.
5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project? Some challenges I think I might face while doing this project is that maybe there is no solution. Us women have to deal with being taxed and pay a lot of money for feminine products.
Free The Tampons- NYT
Tampon Taxes

[Kevin Martinez]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?

The discourse community I will be writing about is being an architectural student at City Tech and the problem us the students in the department face. The problem we face in our department is the lack of workshop hours as well as not being provided with a locker to put our materials or models in.

2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?

My motivation to write about this discourse community is because me as an architectural student in city tech face these problems on a daily basis every semester which is not having enough time to work in the workshops because the close the building by a certain and time as well as opening it on the weekend for a limited amount of time as well as not having a locker to store my models or material in so I won’t have to carry them with me every day.

3. What is your research question?

How significant will it be to expand workshop hours for the students as well as providing them with lockers and what benefits will it give to the students?

4. What basic research have you done so far?

https://www.action-storage.com/blog/education/5-ways-students-benefit-from-school-lockers/

5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?

Some challenges I will face while working on this project will be finding resources and good articles to help and back my research up, those are some of the challenges I feel I will face overall I feel I can relate to the topic I will be writing about.

[Yan Tao]

1. What discourse community are you writing about? What is the issue or problem in that discourse community that you will address?
The discourse community I’m going to write about is CUNY students. The issue or problem for CUNY students that I will be address is affordability for CUNY tuition. As a college student in CUNY from a lower-income household, I know that it can be difficult to afford college tuition if you don’t receive any financial aid.
2. What is your motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community?
My motivation for wanting to write about this discourse community is that there are people who need higher education to improve their own or families’ life, but they were able to pay for the tuition that is needed for the college. Or that they need to apply for a student loan for attending college, but you need to pay up the loan with interest or it could hurt you if you do not pay back in time.
3. What is your research question?
What are the ways we can do to make CUNY free again?
4. What basic research have you done so far? What information have you found?
The basic research I have done is that I look up some articles about people who try to make CUNY to be free again and how they can achieve that goal.

The Case for a Free CUNY

https://www.gothamgazette.com/topics-newestopinions/6444-could-cuny-be-tuition-free-again
5. What kinds of challenges do you think you might run into as you work on this project?
Some of the challenges I think I might run into in this project is that even though CUNY tuition can be not affordable for some people, it’s still lower than other college’s tuition.

[Samuel ugweje]

The discourse community I want to write about is being a CST major in city tech. The problems we face are having to be self taught in mostly all we do because some the professors expect us to already know about to course.

My motivation for writing about this discourse community is based on the fact that ever student has the right to learn from a professor, and an individual should not call themselves a professor unless they are willing to educate someone with no knowledge about their area of expertise.

My research question is “how much of an impact does a teacher have on a students?”.

My basic research was on this article, where they talk about and give advice on how to be a better teacher. They also talk about how a teachers well being can also affect the learning of a student.

Some challenges I think I’ll run into while working on this project are not getting sources with enough credibility to back up my topic.