Today’s Plan:
- Review Research Report Expectations
- Group Time
- Homework
Calendar Update
Here’s what I wrote when we began the project:
You will work together in groups of 3 to analyze representations of gender, race, or sexuality in a specific genre of video games. You will develop a paper of around 2000 words and then transform the paper into a 10 minute video (similar to Sarkeesian’s). Papers will be due on March 4th. Videos will be due on March 22nd.
Here’s the update:
- Monday, February 25th: That’s today! Report Expectations
- Wednesday, February 27th: Work day in the lab
- Friday, March 1st: Williams and Bizup on Characters
- Monday, March 4th: Reports will be due in class for peer review.
- Wednesday, March 6th: Crash Course on shooting video and recording audio
- Friday, March 8th: What the hell is SuperBetter? Final Project 2 papers are due
The final videos will still be due on March 22nd.
Project Two Research Report Expectations
Your focus this week should be on finishing your games research. Different groups are at different stages of this process. But it has to get done.
The structure of the report will follow the standard research format:
- Introduction
- Methodology
- How you developed your corpus
- How you analyzed your corpus
- Findings (tables are acceptable, but keep them clean)
- Discussion
- Conclusion
It is hard for me to predict the word count for a project like this. But I am guessing something like this:
- Introduction: 300 words
- Methodology: 500-800 words (depending on how complex each system is)
- Findings: This section shares the “raw” data. Present that data in a form that makes sense–a concise table, bar graph, pie chart. Here’s where you tell me what you found.
- Discussion: Hopefully you can tell me 4 smart things about your research. Let’s say that each smart thing takes 400 words. So that’s about 1600 words. Here’s where you tell me about what you found–how it compares to previous research, what was un/expected, etc.
- Conclusion: These are tricky to write, but I am guessing around 200 words
So, altogether, that’s 2600 words. So that’s about 10 pages double-spaced. I originally said 2000 words (8 pages).
What makes this incredibly tricky is that some of you are working alone. Some of you are writing in groups. I am a bit unsure how to negotiate this. I’m going to go group-by-group.
- Cover Project: There’s four of you. So 1600 words for the discussion section feels right
- Double Trouble: There’s only two of you. Let’s aim for 2-3 smart things, so somewhere around 800-1200 words in discussion section
- Fight Club: Four people, 1600 words.
- Rated G: There’s 6 of you. SIX. Rather than increase the number of findings, I’d rather see you develop them further. So 3-4 findings and 2000 words. When you’ve finished your data collection, do some brainstorming and figure out what you have to say. Divide into teams. Conquer.
- The Absent Wonders: 3 people, 800-1200 words
- The Lone Ranger. Let’s be realistic and say 600-800 words. My guess is that you can come up with two clear findings
A final note: the length of paper isn’t really important. I am more interested in the rigor of your methodology, the quality of your findings, and the depth of your insight. Those are harder things to evaluate.
Early I indicated that I would develop gantt charts for the project to make sure that everyone pulled their weight and contributed to the group. That didn’t happen. But I did take the time to put together a feedback form. The feedback form provides me insight into the project.
Homework
Two things:
- Obviously, complete and submit the report
- Complete your feedback form
- Make sure you have a copy of SuperBetter
