Inquiry Project Exploration

Part I: Exploration1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?6. How might composition theorists and researchers approach or study this topic? Does this approach differ from those of other related disciplines (such as communication studies)? 7. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?

Part II: FocusingWrite an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.


I want to write about something related to the field of work I’m going to be going into, which is communications. I was thinking something along the lines of professional writing, gender in professional writing and/or advertising and writing. They’re all really broad ideas right now and I’m not sure where to go with them, but that’s what I got!

I am a Interdisciplinary Communications major and I want to do something relevant to my major. More specifically I want to design movie posters for the independent film industry, so I think that any of the three topics I have listed above would make sense.

I experienced, first hand, professional writing in the communications field this summer when I was a marketing intern at a prominent theatre. But, because I’m not 100% sure where my topic is going, I don’t know what to express my opinions about.

Again, because my ideas are so general and I don’t have one topic narrowed down, I’m not sure what I want/need to know.

To research any of these three topics I would probably want to talk to some of the Communications professors here, as well as the people I worked with over the summer at my internship. I could also come up with some kind of survey – especially if I do something on advertising.