RESEARCH PROPOSAL MEMORANDUM

Date: February 09, 2020

To: Mr. Guenzel

From: Ethan Woosley

Topic Description: In this past year, researchers have become increasingly interested in the Coronavirus
(COVID-19), specifically how it has affected many careers throughout the world. A central issue in recent
sources have been how various careers have change drastically in the way those careers work from day
to day. Much research has examined how different parts of the world have been affected by COVID-19,
though different conclusions have been made for each country. COVID-19’s effect on people’s careers all
around the world has been excessively studied. However, less attention has been paid to how COVID-19
has affected healthcare workers around the world. To focus my research, I will critically review these
sources with the ideas of rhetoric, rhetorical situation, and the idea of intertextuality to make further
connections to ask the following question, how Coronavirus affected healthcare workers mental health
around the world?

Documentation Style: I would like to use MLA format because I feel I am more comfortable with MLA
format that I would be in APA format, which would follow my major. With MLA format I feel I would not
have to worry about messing up any in-text citations and the works cited page, which will help me focus
more on the paper and less on worrying about having the APA formatting correct.

Purpose: My research topic is COVID-19s impact on healthcare workers stress, depression, and anxiety
around the world. My question is, how Coronavirus affected workers mental health around the world?
Using that question will allow me to branch off into multiple different topics relating to Covid’s effect on
how health professionals handled stress, anxiety, and depression in the workplace, how burnout from
these metal health issues was handled, how they played a role in their work abilities, while comparing
data of each country to graphs that represent the workers mental health status and telling how they
coped with stress to care for patients.

Intended audience: My intended audience would be everyone in my class, and the implied audience
would be everyone else that would read this paper.

Research Question / Preliminary Thesis / Argument: COVID-19 impacted global healthcare workers
mental health, having stress, anxiety, and depression levels in the workplace higher than normal,
impacts of the quality of work due to mental health problems, and how emotion played factors in
patient treatment and working ability.

Types of research areas: I will be conducting internet research, which will help me find recent sources
with correct data that I need for my research and will help me help me find evidence throughout the
world about the mental health of various countries. Using the idea of rhetoric and rhetorical situation, I
will analyze my internet sources to have the same reason for inclusion in my essay, I will use these
sources to build my readers knowledge about the subject before explaining my points and will use the
research to sound more credible to the audience.

Tentative List of References:

Amal M.Qasem Surrati. Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care workers, Journal
of Taibah University Medical Sciences, November 05, 2020

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658361220301566

Benjamin Y.Q. Tan. Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Health Care Workers in
Singapore. Annals of Internal Medicine. June 26, 2020

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1083

Gold, Jessica. The hidden Covid-19 crisis: health care workers' mental health. STAT. April 02, 2020

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/03/the-covid-19-crisis-too-few-are-talking-about-health-care-
workers-mental-health/

Jianbo Lai, MSc. Mental Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to COVID-19. JAMA
Network Open, March 23, 2020

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2763229

Lagasse, Jeff. COVID-19 pandemic is taking a toll on the mental health of frontline healthcare workers.
Healthcare Finance News. December 02, 2020.

https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/covid-19-pandemic-taking-toll-mental-health-
frontline-healthcare-workers#:~:text=In%20all%2C%2093%25%20of
%20healthcare,75%25%20said%20they%20were%20overwhelmed.

Liu C-Y, Yang Y-z, Zhang X-M, et al. The prevalence and influencing factors for anxiety in medical workers
fighting COVID-19 in China: a cross-sectional survey.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/prevalence-and-
influencing-factors-in-anxiety-in-medical-workers-fighting-covid19-in-china-a-crosssectional-
survey/D493886C34C350A01D3D0501AC89B9CB

Visuals, graphs, and charts: In my research I will use graphs and visuals to collect information about
stress, anxiety, and depression levels in each country and will support that data with information and
rhetoric.

Research Schedule:

W, Feb 24th, Digital Paper Trail Due

W, March 3rd, Workshop Draft Research Dossier Due

W, March 10th Final Draft Research Dossier Due

W, March 24th, Workshop draft Rhetorical Analysis Due

M, April 5th, Final draft Rhetorical Analysis Due / Workshop draft 1 Research Paper Due

M, April 19th, Workshop draft 3 Research Paper Due