For your research paper, you are expected to critically examine a topic of your choice within a major Canadian city. Your topic should address a problem in your chosen city that you think needs addressing.
You will be signed up for a region and a city:
1. British Columbia // Major city: Vancouver
2. Western Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) // Major cities: Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg
3. Ontario // Major city: Toronto
4. Quebec // Major city: Montreal
5. Atlantic Canada (Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick) // Major cities: St. John’s, Halifax, Charlottetown
6. Territorial North (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut) // Major cities: Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Iqaluit
Themes to consider: congestion; housing affordability; homelessness; food security; architecture and heritage; climate change; resilience and risk reduction; population growth (immigration), etc.
In your analysis, you are expected to interact with a minimum of four academic sources. These sources can serve a number of purposes. They can provide context to your topic, narrow the scope or focus of your analysis, bring in new ideas, or give you ideas to respond to. Scholarship is a conversation and you are a scholar, so keep that in mind as you go through your research process.
This guide will point you in the right direction to find academic resources.
When we use the terms scholarly resource, academic resource, or peer-reviewed resource, we are often talking about the same thing. Scholarly resources include books, ebooks, or scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles. Popular media resources include newspapers, magazines, films and movies, television shows, podcasts, and many of the free resources you find online. For all the sources you find, think critically about the information presented and how that information will help your analysis.
A well researched paper draws from a number of different sources, so read widely and deeply. While Wikipedia can be a good place to get general background, help wrap your head around a topic, or discover keywords to put into library databases, you are discouraged from directly referencing Wikipedia in any of your assignments. This is because it is difficult to determine exactly who has written or updated a Wikipedia article; to conduct proper research at the post-secondary level, it is important to know who is writing a resource, why they are writing it, and how they intend the resource to be used. For more information, see our guide here: Scholarly Journals vs. Popular Magazines.
