1. Tucker Ippich
Ms. Lester/ Ms. Hamilton
World Lit./ Comp H
29 March 2012
Research Design Proposal
Research Paper Topic
For my research topic, I chose to study the effects of TBI on Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. I
want to find out if they are being treated fully, and also if the treatments are helping in a
noticeable manner.
What I Know about the Topic at This Point and Why I’m Interested in this Topic
At this point, I have learned exponentially more about the topic of TBIs on both veterans and
civilians. So far, I have read that TBI, or traumatic brain injuries, are caused by pressure waves
going through the air when an explosion goes off. They can also be caused by vehicle accidents,
but that is much less likely, especially with people in the Armed Forces. I have also learned that
Doctors at military hospitals are often trained to deal with people who have suffered from a
traumatic brain injury. Using something that they call “psychotherapy”, doctors can help PTSD
and TBI sufferers alike. Psychotherapy can be used by asking questions to people, starting with
baby steps until they can work up to regaining brain capacity and being more independent again.
I like to think of psychotherapy as physical therapy for the brain; the first few sessions barely do
anything at all but progressively, the person can “walk” again.
What I want to learn
I would love to learn more about the human brain, seeing how each lobe or cortex processes
different information. This is because while presearching, I saw that if a person was struck in a
certain part of their brain, critical injuries could happen while if it happened on other parts, the
worst that would happen would be a change in personality. I think that that alone is a very
interesting theory and I would like to pursue knowledge in that area. I would also like to know
how doctors use the psychotherapy techniques to heal a person who has been through so much,
almost back to how they were before that.
My initial List of Questions I have Learned about My topic
1. What are the symptoms of TBI?
2. What causes TBI? (How is an IED made?)
3. What percent of Americans/Veterans suffer from a TBI?
4. How well does treatment work for sufferers?
5. Which treatment works the best?
6. How can one heal from killing?
7. Is a combat TBI more difficult to deal with than a civilian TBI?
8. How does the human brain cope with such a brutal attack to it?
9. Can medicine help a person suffering with a TBI?
10. How does a Doctor become skilled in TBI patient recovery?
My Three Primary Research Questions

2. What causes a TBI?
How do we treat TBI sufferers?
How can we prevent some TBIs from happening?
My Research Plan
At this point, I feel like the online databases and news sources are the most promising
resources that I could use. The more current the data, the better it seems like for a project like
this. Also, with the online databases, they are just easy to find, easy to read, and easy to cite,
which basically will make this whole thing a lot easier. I think that I will probably organize my
information on a microsoft word document or on paper that I have just taken notes on. I do not
like the ideas of using scoop.it or evernote, but if I am absolutely required to, I will probably try
evernote because I dislike scoop.it very much. I would also rather not use a Symbaloo or
Netvibes page, as I feel that the Pathfinder has everything I could ever need on it. I will be using
Easybib for my citation tool, because the new citation tool is much easier than the old style
noodletools.
Content Creation Tools
I feel like I will be making a Prezi for my project.
Final Learning Product
For my final learning product, I am going to be making a digital text. I feel like using this
medium is better than the paper because I do not like writing research papers at all. I like
making Prezi’s because they are very “clean” looking to me and I like the fact that I can
completely customize it. I will probably use a shaping sheet as opposed to a mindmap to
organize myself too. I have never really liked doing mindmaps and they do not seem to help me
organize my thoughts, they just seem to splatter them all over the canvas. I would rather just do
a shaping sheet and save myself some trouble.