General Education

Assignment Details

Research Project

Identify a specific social injustice happening in the world that interests you. Please choose your issue carefully, as you will be expected to become actively involved and write on this topic.

In this essay you are being judged on your ability to research and express the results of your research in a concise and clear manner. It is expected that you will address all the questions below.

• Title: (not “Research”, the title should reflect what the essay is about)
• Name (Your name), Faculty (your faculty), University, Course, Instructor, Date, Word count, Land Acknowledgement

• Introduction
• What is/are the specific social injustice issue/s that you are focused on? (Use citations)
• What is the context of the issue that you are focusing on? (Context is a geographical region and/or people group) (Use citations)
• Why did you choose this issue and context? Why are you interested in it? What connection do you have to it? (Use citations)
• What did you learn about the issue through your research? (Use citations)
• What is the relevant history of this issue regarding the social injustice and the context? (Use citations)
• What are the causes and effects of the social injustice? (Use citations)
• What did you learn about the ways that community builders address this issue? (Use citations)
• Describe the work of at least two relevant organizations that work on this social injustice (Use citations)
• What is your plan for engaging with this issue personally, politically, and spreading awareness? (Describe your plan for the action requirement of this course)
• How can you connect your plan with what you have learned about how community builders approach this issue? (Rationale for your plan)
• Concluding remarks - Why should we/society care about this issue?
• References – Must include at least three peer reviewed articles and one publication from an organization that works to change the social injustice. It is expected that you will have a minimum of at least 6 references. Reference list must be in APA format and on a separate page (not a separate document)

Note: almost all statements in this essay will need a citation.

Formatting:

• 1300 words minimum – 1600 words maximum include word count in your title page.
• Length excludes title page, figures, tables. reference list, appendices, and footnotes (though appendices or foot notes are not required)
• 12 pt font, (times new roman or Arial) standard margins, DOUBLE SPACING, use one level of headings after the title
• Come up with your own title.
• Pages must be numbered starting after the title page. You must properly reference in APA any quotations or citations.  All formatting for the paper must be in APA
• Submit your Research Essay by December 9th.

Representation of the specific issue

With the knowledge that you gain from your research you will create a representation of your understanding of your specific social injustice issue. The goal of this assignment is to entice your audience to want to learn more about the issue and/or get involved, (it is not intended that you will inform your audience on all aspects of the issue). The way you choose to represent your understanding is wide open, however, you must have both a visual and audio component to it (for example, if you paint a picture, you must also talk about it, for example describing the significance or connections of your image to the issue you have chosen). Some ideas to consider are:

• Create an informative short video on the issue (not just a talking head)
• Create some kind of visual art representation and discuss the significance
• Write and read a short story or children’s book
• Write and perform a poem or a spoken word or song
• Create a game to learn about the issue, demonstrate the game in class
• Draw a political cartoon and discuss
• Design and create a poster/placard that grabs people attention
• This is not intended to be a mini lecture but a creative representation

You are encouraged to draw on your personal strengths and abilities when choosing a way to represent your issue. Please note that this assignment is not limited to the above ideas, you are encouraged to be creative and ‘think outside the box’. If you have an idea that is outside these suggestions it is recommended that you discuss it with the instructor.

Please keep in mind ethical considerations when considering including others in creating your representation or actions, many potential issues could be personal and traumatic for the individuals impacted by this. For this reason and the university ethical rules you are not permitted to interview, or survey individuals impacted by the social justice issue.

Remember that if you include material (including images, text, video etc.) in your representation that is not original to you, you must properly reference this material in a Reference list, using APA formatting. You can create a separate word document for your reference list.

The length of your representation needs to be 5 minutes.

Find the due date under the “Course Schedule”

Action component

You will need to get actively involved with your specific issue the following ways:

Personal - How can you make changes in your life that relate to this social injustice?

 Ideas:

• Start or stop a behavior or practice that you have
• Engage with a community that is impacted by this issue
• *Volunteer with an organization

Awareness – How can you find ways to share the knowledge you have gained on this issue with other people in your immediate sphere of influence?

Ideas:

• Discuss with the people in your life what you have learned and take note of their responses.
• Share relevant articles, videos, petitions etc. on social media platforms.

Political – How can you attempt to influence change beyond your immediate sphere of influence?
Ideas:

• Find an online/in person meeting that you can attend
• Find and sign a petition and get others to sign
• Start a petition (Do this early so that you might get signatures),
• Write letters to members of the city council/legislature/parliament/organizations/other political figures (Do this early so that you might get a reply),
• Join an activist organization,
• Participate in a rally, protest, or march

You will be asked to reflect on your actions from the perspective of Community Building.

Please note your engagement is not limited to these ideas. It is strongly suggested that you discuss your ideas with the instructor.

*If you choose to volunteer with an organization for 10 hours or more, you do not need to complete the awareness and political actions. To confirm your volunteer services, you must obtain an official letter from the organization and submit it to the designated location on D2L.

Your engagement with your issue will be assessed through the final presentation

Note: Actions must be done during the current term.

Do not mix up the kinds of actions, for example do not do a second political action and claim it is a personal action.

Final Presentation - Actions and insights

In this Presentation you will describe the actions that you have undertaken during the term. You will be judged on your level of engagement with your issue through your actions and on your ability to metacognitively express your growth and learning. It is expected that you will address all the points and questions listed below.

1. Describe the Personal action(s) that you engaged in, the date you did it and why you chose to engage personally this way, (Include URLs (in text), photos/screenshots of you doing all your actions as in-text APA figures, where applicable, if you cannot provide URLs, photos/screenshots of your actions, which may be perfectly reasonable please explain)
2. Describe the Political action(s) that you engaged in, the date you did it and why you chose to engage politically this way, (Include URLs (in text), photos/screenshots of you doing all your actions as in-text APA figures, where applicable, if you cannot provide URLs, photos/screenshots of your actions, which may be perfectly reasonable please explain)
3. Describe the Spreading awareness action(s) that you engaged in, the date you did it and why you chose to spread awareness this way, (Include URLs (in text), photos/screenshots of you doing all your actions as in-text APA figures, where applicable, if you cannot provide URLs, photos/screenshots of your actions, which may be perfectly reasonable please explain)
4. Reflect on all your actions from the perspective of a community builder, where do you see the most potential for impact, why?
5. Describe How has your experience in engaging in this course and in your actions impacted your perspective and understanding?
6. Concluding remarks
7. References – Must be in APA format and on a separate slide.

Conducting Academic Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have millions of e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "climate change"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • "domestic violence" AND resilience

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • homelessness OR houselessness

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • develop* (in this example, the search develop* will search for records that contain strings such as developing and development)

Conducting Academic Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save).  If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "food insecurity"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • ageism OR "age discrimination"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • ethic* (in this example, the search ethic* will search for records that contain strings such as ethics, ethical, and ethically)

Searching for Reports from NGOs and Intergovernmental Organizations

Policy Commons is a one-stop community platform for objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, IGOs and NGOs.

You can also do a targeted Google search of a particular website - for example:

strategy global health site:who.int

Then, you can use the Google Tools to limit to a particular date range e.g. past year

Searching for Leadership-Related Resources

ABI/INFORM Collection is a key business database that might be helpful for finding information on leadership.

Searching for Environmental-Related Resources

Try Environment Complete! It provides full text coverage for journals and books in the fields of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts and urban planning.

Resources for Country Research

• A Guide to Countries of the World (4th ed., 2016)

  • Quick reference resource on the history, politics and society of 240 countries

• Business Source Complete (Ebsco) 

  • This database contains scholarly articles as well as country reports. To find a country report, search for the country, and then limit to Source Types - Country Reports

• United Nations Population Fund Data Dashboard

  • Helpful source of population statistics and other data

• United Nations - Sustainable Development Goals Country Profiles

• GlobalEdge

  • Resource supported by Michigan State University. To access country specific information, select Global Insights and then by country.

• Government of Canada - Information by Country

• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Country Profiles

• CIA World Factbook

• World Bank - Where We Work

  • Information on economic forecast and initiatives in country

• Amnesty International Country Profile

  • ​​​​​​​Information on how country is dealing with issues relating to gender equality, freedom of expression, refugees and migrants, discrimination, and use of force by those in power.

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

(Adapted from Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551513478889)

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts.

Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed," academic, or "refereed." They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

Some Helpful Questions for Identifying a Scholarly/Academic Article

1. What are the author’s credentials? Was it written by an expert?

2. Was it published in a journal (is there a DOI?)? (If you are not sure if a source is a journal article, you can enter the title of the publication into Ulrichs Web to check.)

3. Does it use academic or more technical language?

4. Does it includes a reference list of sources that it is citing?

5. How long is it? (Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular or news articles.)

6. Does it have a "Received" and "Accepted" date on it?

7. Is it an actual article? (Sometimes other types of content are included in scholarly publications, such as editorials/opinion pieces and book reviews. Make sure you are looking at an article.)

 Add / Reorder 

Activity: Is It Scholarly?

To make sure we are all on the same page, let's put our knowledge to the test.

Skim the following resources available through the links keeping in mind the characteristics we have discussed in class (for example: what is this information and where did it come from? Was it written by an expert? Where is this source published?).

Vote whether you think this source is Scholarly or Not Scholarly.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

Source 6

Source 7

Source 8

Image Sources

Photos:

Image Collection

Contains images from Archive Photos, Canadian Press, Motion Picture & Television Archive, and MapQuest as well as a variety of images from the public domain.

ARTstor

ARTstor is a digital library of nearly 1,000,000 images with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.

Oxford Art Online

Provides access to more than 23,000 subject entries, 21,000 biographies, 40,000 image links and 5,000 images.

Bridgeman Art Library Archive

Founded in 1972, the Bridgeman Art Library works with museums art galleries and artists to make the best art available for reproduction. It represents a large part of the complete collection chosen for its suitability for web use. Over 17000 individual works of art are featured here cross-referenced and linked using Bridgeman's own categories.

LIFE Photo Archive

Search photographs from the LIFE Photo Archive.

Images on the Web:

Flickr Creative Commons

Creative Commons licensing offers an alternative to full copyright. Search the collection of Flickr images that have been offered for use with CC licenses.

Wikimedia Commons

Search freely usable media files.

Pexels

Stock photos

Tineye

Searches for images that match an uploaded file or another image on the web - great for tracing original creators of images, rights holders, or just finding more information.

Google Images Search

Great for finding high-profile images.

Archival Collections:

Glenbow Western Research Centre

Search the photographs collection in the Archives.

Alberta on Record

Search for digital material in the Archives Society of Alberta’s online portal.

Library & Archives Canada Image Search

Search for photographs, drawings, maps and art.

For more information on finding images you can use in your work, consult the Copyright Guide's Copyright friendly image resources section.

Citing Images in your Assignment

Consult MRU's advisory of image citation in APA here.

Images that you refer to in your assignments must always be cited both parenthetically in text and in your reference list.

Images that you reproduce in your assignment must also be cited in-text with a figure number, title, and a figure note.

Example 1

Note: Some instructors allow you to use a typical APA parenthetical in-text reference (as in Figure 1 above) under your image instead of a more formal figure note.

Reference list entry:

In addition to the in-text citation, this image would also be cited in your reference list like this:

Raphael. (1505-1506). Portrait of a woman [Drawing]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raffaello_Sanzio_-              _Portrait_of_a_Woman_-_WGA18948.jpg

Example 2

Reference list entry:

Denali National Park and Preserve. (2013). Lava [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/

If the image has no title, provide a description of the image in your own words, e.g.:

Denali National Park and Preserve. (2013). [Photograph of blue-eyed dog in the snow]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/

Example 3

Reference list entry:

Philadelphia Museum of Art [@philamuseum]. (2019, December 3). “It’s always wonderful to walk in and see my work in a collection where it’s loved, and where people are [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oDnnNhOt4/

• In this case there is no title, so we use the first 20 words of the post’s text as its title (according to the direction of APA style).

Example 4: Stock image citations

Reference list entry:

Kanenori. (2022, September 8). [Photograph of the Ōnaruto Bridge in the evening]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/landscape-evening-onaruto-bridge-7438429/

Example 5: Integrating your own images

Reference list entry:

My own supplied image does not need a reference list entry in APA style.

Activities

1. How would we properly integrate this image into our research paper?

2. How would we properly integrate this image into our research paper?

(Answers here!)

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation).

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Referencing (2025-2026)

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Formatting a Paper (2025-2026)

  • Citing Images Using Figure Notes in APA Style

  • MRU Guide to Visual and Verbal Citation

  • Citation for Presentations and Videos (short video)

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.