When I was brainstorming ideas to do for my research paper, I asked myself, "What am I passionate about?" I immediately thought of animals because I've had a passion for them my entire life. My heart ached for every animal I saw that was dead on the side of the road, and I wanted to take home every stray cat or dog that I saw and just love them with all of my heart. As I grow up, my love and compassion for animals grows exponentially. The more I learn about animals, wildlife, and culture, the more eager I am to do something to help. That's why I decided that being a Veterinarian is the only thing that will make me truly satisfied with my life. 

I decided to do specifically the topic of poaching because, recently, I have been watching a lot of National Geographic Wild, and one of the episodes was about poaching in Africa. After I watched it, I was just completely overwhelmed by how inhumane the poachers were and I got pretty angry. I couldn't believe that people would actually do horrific things to innocent animals for personal benefit. I wanted to do something, but of course, that's easier said than done. Since I couldn't physically stop people from poaching with my bare hands, when I was brainstorming ideas, I figured writing my 8-10 page paper on it was the perfect way to spread awareness about the topic. It was also a better way for me to gain more knowledge maybe to use for my future career as a veterinarian. 

There were so many ways that I could have asked my research question more specifically, but I decided to keep it a little more open than normal because, not only are there various animal species in different locations, but also because poaching is handled differently and "moralized" in different ways, depending on the geographic location. At first, I thought that I should restrict my topic to just South Africa, but after some thought, I decided to focus on Africa and Asia too because, not only are there different animals involved, but there are different methods and reasons behind the process. For example, a lot of people kill elephants and rhinos in Africa mainly for their tusks, or "ivory", but in Asia, specifically China and Japan, people kill tigers for their fur, bones, organs, basically everything.

Coming into this project, I have an extremely strong point of view, which is going to be hard to control. It's very hard for me to see the "pro-poaching" side of the argument, but I hope that reading articles and trying to see through the eyes of the poachers will help me gain more perspective. While I was doing the first three ILP's, I tried to find articles supporting both sides of the argument, which helped me gain more understanding and less bias as I had going into the project at the beginning. Don't get me wrong, I am still very "anti-poaching", however now, I can see where some poachers are coming from and I can set aside my bias while writing the paper. 

As I continue this project, I look forward to learning even more about poaching and the "animal victims" than I already know. I especially am looking forward to learning more about the underground market, the place where the poachers sell all of their materials illegally. I am also looking forward to reading more first-hand stories from poachers about how and why they do what they do. My second ILP was on an article like that, and I gained much perspective because of it. 

In my research paper, I hope to make my readers gain awareness of the effects and consequences of poaching. I don't want them to think, "Oh yeah, poaching is bad, I guess," I want them to be just as passionate about it as I am. I also want to gain perspective and knowledge myself about the topic as a whole. I am strongly biased against poaching, which may hinder me from seeing all of the facts behind poaching. I hope that, by writing this paper, I learn all of the facts, not just the ones that I want to see. I know that poaching is wrong, but I want to know just how wrong it is in the eyes of the world and I want to know how they plan to take action.

My research question is most definitely good enough to be effectively answered in 8-10 pages. I tried to include different parts and levels to the question, so that I can give a more definite structure to the paper. It will be easy to address my research question because I included the two most important parts; effects and actions. In terms of scope, complexity, and controversy, my question has a larger scope than just one geographic location, which I did to show variety and change. It is definitely complex enough; not too broad, but not too specific and confusing so that the reader goes into the paper not even knowing what it's about. Lastly, it is definitely controversial enough, and I even showed a little bias in my question to connect it with my thesis statement better. Overall, I think my research question is pretty decent, and definitely good enough to write my paper about. 
