Today’s Plan:
- Attendance
- Calendar
- Friday Sign-ups
- Paper Expectations
- Finding Sources with Google Scholar
- Summarizing Sources (Academic Writing)
- Homework: What You Need to Do to Prepare for Friday
Calendar
Amazing as it might seem, we only have 4 class sessions left. Here’s the calendar:
- Friday, Nov 18th. In place of class, I will meet with people for 15 minutes to check on their research progress.
- Monday, Nov 21st. Class is optional. I will be here to look at paper drafts, help find research, answer questions about difficult readings. If you want extra help, then please email a Monday appointment request for anytime between 10:00 and 2:00. Please note that a complete draft of the paper will be due on Friday, November 25th at 11:59pm. If I do not have a draft of the paper by Friday, I will not be able to provide you feedback before the final draft is due.
- Monday, Nov 28th. MLA/APA format for papers, citations, and the works cited/reference page. Paper course evaluations.
- Wednesday, Nov 30th. MLA/APA format for papers, citations, and the works cited page #2
- Friday, Dec 1st. Crafting introductions and conclusions.
Please note that the final paper will be due Sunday, December 4th at 11:59pm.
Paper Expectations (Grading Rubric)
Final papers should be no more than 2500 words and no less than 2000. Papers should:
- Have a clear central argument/claim. I should be able to underline the sentence or two that makes this claim explicit
- Every paragraph in the paper should refer to this claim. At the end of every paragraph, I should know how that paragraph advances the central claim.
- The introduction of every paper should make clear what problem it is solving.
- The introduction of the paper should develop kairos (i.e., make clear why the paper is relevant or necessary now).
- Every claim needs to be reinforced by evidence. Evidence must be contextualized (that is, as a reader I must know where the evidence comes from and why that source is credible; establish ethos for your sources). I will not give a minimum number of sources. Guideline: you should use at least 5 articles.
- When using text sources, you have a responsibility to summarize the source for the reader.
- I will pay particular attention to how well you transition into sources and focus attention on particular passages (moving from a general summary of the entire source to sharing with the reader one particular, important part).
- Papers must anticipate counter-arguments. This can be done by pointing to sources that disagree with your argument, or by inventing hypothetical objections. No argument is perfect; demonstrate that you are aware of your position’s limitations.
- On the sentence level, I will be checking that each sentence has a logical connection to the one before it. I will be listening for logical breaks.
- I expect the prose to be error free. Make sure you read your paper slowly and out loud before submitting it. I will hand out a checklist for grammatical concerns after the Thanksgiving Break (first we build the house, then we clean and decorate it
- Papers need to use at least one analogy.
- Papers need to cite all sources according to either MLA or APA format.
- Papers need to be formatted according to MLA or APA format.
- Papers need a works cited or reference list in MLA or APA format.
So:
- Makes a central claim: 10 points
- Introduction establishes kairos (problem/timeliness): 10 points
- Paragraphs advance argument: 10 points
- Paragraphs make claims: 10 points
- Paragraphs contain evidence to support claims: 10 points
- Transitions into sources establish ethos and orient the reader: 10 points
- Sentences maintain logical connection: 10 points
- Paper contains an analogy: 5 points
- Prose is readable and error-free: 10 points
- Citations follow MLA or APA format: 5 points
- Paper is formatted in MLA or APA: 5 points
- Paper has MLA or APA Works Cited / References list: 5 points
Finding Sources with Google Scholar
I want to follow up Monday’s visit to the library by demonstrating how to find relevant sources in conversation with a source using Google Scholar. To get started, I want you to type the name of one article you found on Monday (or are using in your paper) into the Google Scholar home search page. If you don’t have the title of an article, then I expect you are in a bit of trouble, but you can type in a key word. For my example, I am going to type in the name of a book–Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken.
The first important link on Google Scholar is the cited by button under the search result. In my case, I find out that Reality is Broken has been cited 2134 times. But, when I click on the link, I quickly learn (just by skimming titles) that not all citations are useful. In this case, many of the top hits deal with gamification, which is not my topic (Brynat, err, my, topic is about the effects of gaming).
Scanning the titles, however, I see one down the list that looks promising: “The Benefits of Playing Video Games.” While my paper is on the negative effects of playing video games, this could still be useful. Research papers have to consider the counter-argument to their claims. That means that, if this is a well-written article, then somewhere in it there will be a string of citations that deal with the negative effects of gaming (and the abstract supports this idea).
Final check. If you can access the .pdf of your source, you want to do a search for the author’s name. Why? Because I want to know if the article in question has an extended discussion of my first source, or just mentions it in passing (a citation dump). In this case, there’s two references to two main ideas in McGongial.
Of course, I can just do a search for “video games waste of time.” The 6th result is an article called “Dependence on Computer Games,” and it has been cited 450 times.
Two other links worth playing with: the time range on the left side of the page (note that most academic scholarship takes at least a year, if not two, to go from draft to publication). And, next to the Cited By, the Related Articles feed, which uses key words and text scans to make recommendations.
Summarizing Sources
As we move from writing online to writing in a more academic context, I want to stress what it means to use a source. What is research?
Research presents a reader with information she hasn’t read. You should not expect a reader to be familiar with the articles and material you present them. It is your responsibility to introduce it to them, to tell them why it is credible, and to focus their attention on whatever part is important to your problem/claim/argument/position.
So, as you read the articles you found Monday and today, make sure you are:
- Identifying the claim/problem the article wants to address–can you reduce the article’s purpose to a sentence?
- Identify the method/evidence the article uses to support its claim
- Identify, if different from the claim/problem, what change that article wants to make
Let me turn attention briefly to two articles I have written to show how I do this. First, an article comparing Bruno Latour and Emmanuel Levinas, the second an article examining how I apply the teaching style of Jody Shipka.
In both what you will notice is that when I bring in a name, I dedicate 2-3 sentences discussing that goals that name wants to address: what problem is she trying to solve?
Preparing For Friday
Bring pages for me to read. These pages should be written about your sources. When writing a research paper, write the introduction last. Write about the problem first, but don’t worry about writing the thesis until after you have written about your research material. I would like to have at least 2 pages-double spaced for us to discuss in our meetings on Friday.
I’ll open Friday by asking for you to tell me your elevator pitch–that is, what is the current state of the paper’s purpose (the Booth exercises). I will take a few minutes to read your paper. I will then ask you for what sources you have. We can then spend the remaining time working out an outline for the paper or finding more sources.
