Today’s Plan:
- Reviewing Methodology Sections
- Developing Our Discussion Section
- Assignment Sheet and/for Writing Center
- Report Due Date / Jim Corder Reading
Reviewing Methodology Sections
One update. My original methodology blog post indicates that I identified 375 jobs for coding. However, the folder of jobs I provided the class contained only 249 jobs. Additionally, checking the spreadsheet, only 217 of those 249 jobs were reviewed by our team of researchers.
Let’s review the criteria for the methodology section I included in our class notes:
- First, how did I collect the job ads (I described this process in a blog post, condense my Brumberger and Lauer discussion)?
- Second, how did you select your 20 jobs from the job corpus?
- Third, from where did we draw our coding scheme? [Note: In reviewing this, I realized we missed a major question, so here’s another one:]
- 3.5, how can we concisely explain coding to a non-social scientist?
- Fourth, what did we do to ensure that our data was reliable?
The overall goal of a methodology section: Could I recreate this work based on this section?
Discussion Section
Now that we’ve got our data finalized and (hopefully) looking pretty sweet, it is time to generate some thoughts about it. Here’s what you can do in your discussion section:
- How does it compare to previous research (i.e., Brumberger and Lauer?). Put your top codes in direct comparison with theirs. Any surprising differences? Or does our research corroborate theirs?
- Anything jump out at you? Anything you are pretty sure will surprise our audience(s) (particularly high school seniors / incoming first-years but also faculty?) What do you see that they probably don’t expect?
- Let’s crowd source some “action points” for our audience. Since we know what the top skills are, we can try and think of courses/opportunities at UNCo that are particularly good at transferring those skills.
I’ve got something with which we can work.
Report Assignment Sheet / Writing Center
Remember that you can earn extra credit on your final grade by bringing your report to the Writing Center. I’ve written up Thursday’s class notes into a more formal assignment sheet that you can bring to your consultation. The WC can help you regardless of where you are in the process! If you need help with organization, developing discussion points, working through the methodology (checking to see if someone from outside the class understands your description of our process), formatting graphs and figures, working on style, whatever–they can help.
Final Due Date
The final due date for this paper is Saturday, February 12th, at midnight.
Thursday we will meet in Ross 1240 to review introductions and then have time to work on your reports.
In preparation for next Monday’s class, I’ll ask you to read Jim Corder’s “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love” (files section) and complete the Canvas discussion post.
