Senior Research Paper

My Life

Students are to research several areas of the past and future lives, and from this, create a mission statement.

What you want to research-
1. Your family history and childhood
2. You potential future career
3. Something you are passionate about


Your research paper will be a total of 9 pages, with a total of 4 chapters.
The parts of your research paper will include-

1. Cover page (1 page)
2. Table of Contents (1 page)
3. Family history/childhood (2 pages)
4. A "passion you will take to the grave" (1 page)
5. Your potential future career (2 pages)
6. Your Mission Statement (1 page)
7. Works Cited Page (1 page)


Sections explained

Family history/childhood-
This is where you will write about your life already lived. You will receive a sheet of paper with questions about yourself. Some you may already know; some you may need to check your birth certificate or ask your family. This is also the section where you will include high interest anecdotes that characterize you.

A "passion you will take to the grave"-
In this section, you will select something you are passionate about that will probably stay with you for the rest of your life. Some appropriate examples are-
Your religion
Your political views
A philosophy on life (For example, you may believe the point in life is to help others, or to have fun)
Music (This is more than "I like to play guitar". This is more along the lines of "music connects people around the world".
Anything else you can think of along these lines.

Some of these are easier to research than others. If you are writing about something like religion, it would be perfectly appropriate to write about the important tenets of the religion, the history and origin of it, et cetera. If you pick something more abstract, however, like how you want to help others in life, then you have a lot of room for how you want to approach this topic. You may write about famous people who have lived lives like this (Like Mother Theresa and Gandhi), or write about systems of belief that follow this philosophy, or whatever else you can think of.

Your potential future career-
Here you will research the field you are most likely to enter after your schooling. Research how you get the career, the difference between how the career is portrayed in the media and what it is really like, what it pays, and anything else that is important to include.

Your mission statement-
This is your final thought: the culmination of all your research and what you have learned from it. What is the cohesive theme that ties all the previous sections together? What have you learned from this? How will this impact how you live life in the future?

Other pages-

Cover page-
Your cover page should be-
Centered, use size 12 times new roman font, with the title in "Title Caps"

and should have the following-

Lodi High School (At the top)
The title of your essay (in the center)
Your name
My name
course title
and due date (all at bottom)
Note that my name comes after yours, not after the course title!

A sample cover page can be found here

Works Cited Page-
This page will have "Works Cited" centered at the top.
You will then list your works in alphabetical order. Instead of indenting the first line like a normal paragraph in your research paper, you will indent all the following lines of the citation.

A sample works cited page can be found here



Source Requirements-
You must have a minimum of 5 sources with a total minimum of 8 source sheets.

At least one source must be a hard source. (A book, newspaper, magazine, or something like this that you can hold in your hand)

At least one source must be a hands on source. This is information you gather yourself. A good example of this would be an interview or shadowing someone for a day. Use this link to help you cite this kind of source.

At least one source other than the previous source must be a family member. Use this link to help you cite an unpublished document (like your birth certificate).