Today’s Plan:
- Sicart Analysis Paper Expectations
- Reading an Analysis Paper
- Homework
Sicart Analysis Paper Expectations
The Sicart Analysis Paper will be due Monday, February 17th at midnight. A complete draft of the paper will be due in class on the 17th for peer review–this draft will be worth 20% of the final draft. The final draft will be due at midnight.
The Sicart analysis paper will be conference length, meanging 7-10 pages double-spaced, or approximately 2000-3000 words.
The length of the paper is not as important as the objectives. The first objective here is to analyze a game according to Sicart’s theory of ethical gaming. Your first paper helped you to identify Sicart’s theory, and we’ll go over a list of questions that can help you think through your gameplay.
A second objective here–a more tricky objective–is to reflect on whether your playthrough of a game identifies a “weakness,” oversight, missed element in Sicart’s theory. No, I will not provide an example. But, during your play, did you encounter a powerful ethical/emotional moment for which Sicart’s theory does not account?
So, your task is to evaluate Sicart’s theory, to give the reader an argument as to whether game X is an ethical game according to Sicart’s criteria. And at the same time, you might argue that game X is an ethical game despite the fact that it doesn’t match up with Sicart’s criteria. Or that X games suggests to us a criteria that Sicart doesn’t mention. There is a range of possibilities for this paper–and it is impossible for me to anticipate how your game, your sensibilities, your arguments will play out.
While I cannot predict the nature or trajectory of your thought, I can insist upon a particular outline. This is the standard “social science” outline for qualitative, textual, analytical research. I will refer to it as the APA Analysis paper (as opposed to, say, MLA or Chicago Style analysis paper which follow no pattern–they map out ideas in an idiosyncratic order unique to every argument/problem/rhetorical situation). APA format is a social science–and so it borrow from the scientific method, setting up the act of interpretation as a kind of experiment. There’s no “hypothesis,” but those of you familiar with science might recognize the process at work here.
- Introduction [What was the object of my analysis? What lens did I apply to it? What were the results?]
- Literature Review [What have other writers said about this object? What previous studies have been conducted?]
- Theoretical Frame [What is my lens for examining something? What was I looking for/through? Upon what theory did I orient my examination?]
- Results/Analysis/Discussion/Application/Witty Names
- Conclusion
Now, I do not expect your papers to have a literature review beyond Sicart–sections 2 and 3 will be crushed into one Sicart’s Theory of Ethical Gaming section. And, yes, that section should be a concise revision of your first paper, one that outlines 2-4 questions/elements of Sicart’s theory.
There are a few different ways to structure/organize section 4, and this depends on your game play experience and depth of ideas. Think of this like a grid. When it comes time to draft the paper, you either think about structuring on a decision-by-decision basis, like:
The first decision that challenges a player’s ethics concerns whether to lie to Herschel. The player has just arrived at his farm early in the game and plot summary etc. Sicart’s theory of player complicity comes to the fore in this season because thought thought thought. Of course, this decision also resonates with his discussion of something something something).
OR you can structure this around a particular theoretical concern:
Several moments in Walking Dead resonates with Sicart’s theory of player complicity–below I will focus on three of them: the decision to lie to Herschel, to save Shawn, and to save Carly. In each of these situations thought, thought, thought. In the first decision, to lie to Herschel, the player has just arrived at his farm early in the game and is forced to plot summary etc. What makes this decision so powerful from the perspective of player complicity is thought thought thought.
Two resources:
This is the first time I’ve thought about using a grid with this assignment, and if you think it looks like a useful idea, then put a link to your grid in your Gaming Journal and do your reflective writing in there. I can help you set this up / link stuff in office hours Tuesday or in the lab next Wednesday.
So, what does our homework and class schedule look like between now and Monday the 17th?
- Wednesday 5th. Class: Review Writing. Home: Play your game 90 minutes, write for 15
- Friday 7th. Class: Looking. Home: Play your game 120 minutes, write for 30
- Monday, 9th. Class: COMPUTER LAB, Review Writing.
Home: Play your game for 60 minutes, write for 20 minutes - Wednesday, 11th. Class: COMPUTER LAB, I leave you alone to write (I’ll come around and read some of your drafting). Home: Write for 90 minutes
- Friday, 13th [EEEK]. Class: Review the rubric. Grade Norming Session. Home: Print a complete draft of your paper for Monday. This includes a Reference List and a title (that does not suck).
- Monday, 15th. Class: Your paper will get read by three different people across three different vectors:
- The 25 minute substantive pass (thesis, first and last sentence of paragraphs, before and after quotes)
- The 15 minute stylistic pass (sentence syntax, circle subjects and underline verbs)
- The 8 minute APA pass (Running head & page numbers, in-text citations, reference list)
Academic Analysis Papers
Let’s scan a few:
- “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” – Can Playing Pokémon Go Influence Mood and Empathy? [social SCIENCE article
- Life Is Bleak (in Particular for Women Who Exert Power and Try to Change the World): The Poetics and Politics of Life Is Strange
- The Open, the Closed and the Emergent: Theorizing Emergence for Videogame Studies
- “This Action Will Have Consequences”: Interactivity and Player Agency
Homework
Play your game 120 minutes, write (or grid) for 30 minutes.
