Transcript Powerpoint

Research?
• Why does this course focus on writing from
sources or writing research essays? First, all
academic disciplines rely on research to answer
questions, support positions, or prove cases.
Second, most, if not all, professions rely on, and
require employees to perform, research: The act
of finding, analyzing, and communicating others’
ideas, combined with your thoughts, in order, as
Cicero once said, to teach, delight, or move.
Because…
• Performing research and incorporating it it well
into your writing is a difficult task that requires a
great deal of practice before you become
comfortable with it.
• Research is not performed randomly; rather,
research is performed to see what other writers
have said about a topic upon which you have
chosen to write.
Instructions
• Before continuing, I want you to go to the following site
https://www.lib.jmu.edu/gold/secure.aspx and complete
all eight modules of Go for the Gold. If you are reading
this at the beginning of the fall semester, you must
complete Go for the Gold, take the tests at the end of
each module, print out your scores, and bring them to
me by the end of the second week. If you are reading
this at the beginning of the spring semester and haven’t
completed Go for the Gold, the same holds as in the fall:
Scores to me by the end of the second week. If you are
reading this at the beginning of the spring semester and
you completed Go for the Gold in the fall, I want to see
your scores by the end of the first week.
Assignment Format
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Section One:
Goals:
Understanding of the process for selecting a topic.
Understanding of what types of sources are acceptable.
Understanding the process for performing research
through the JMU libraries’ databases through engaging
in a structured research process.
• Understanding the audience for the research essay.
Background from Syllabus
• Research-Essay Topic: In this class, GWRTC
103, you will choose your topics for your three
research essays from the people, places,
objects, and ideas mentioned by Alberto
Manguel in The Library at Night, and presented
by your peers during their Student-Led
Discussions. Look for people, places, etc. that
intrigue/interest you; that you want to know more
about, which is the reason for performing
research. For example, Manguel mentions a
person named Ibn Khaldun on page 29 of The
Library at Night.
Which Sources?
• Acceptable Source Types: All sources
used in your essays must be found
through the JMU libraries’ databases. The
reason I restrict you to the libraries is
because the sources you find there are
generally peer reviewed (read by experts
in their fields before publication) or if not
peer-reviewed, come from reputable
publications: Newsweek, Time, National
Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, etc.
Research Process
• You will have noted that I may have contradicted myself by using
Wikipedia to find out a few things about Khaldun while at the same
time, in the syllabus, forbidding you from using Wikipedia as a
source in your essays. I have no problem with you performing a
quick Wikipedia search in order to discover some initial information
about a possible topic, especially when, as with Khaldun for me, you
know nothing at all about a person, place, etc. mentioned by
Manguel or your peers. However, not only can Wikipedia be
inaccurate, but what it supplies you is a summary (sometimes a
summary of other summaries) of the available information on a
person, etc.; therefore, when you and I read a Wikipedia entry,
though we may learn some data about something, we haven’t
earned any knowledge through research and analysis, because a
Wikipedia entry doesn’t provide support for its claims. Rather, as
said, Wikipedia summarizes what others have said, and it is those
“others” to whom you should turn to learn about your topic.
Required Work For Each
Research Essay
• The purpose of this section of the Research Handout is
to guide you through the process (from topic choice
through finding sources) necessary for you to be able to
compose a research essay. We will spend considerably
more time on this area for the first research essay than
for the other two research essays. Attached to the back
of each of your research essays must be a separate
sheet that lists and answers each of the following
questions (in bold below) to demonstrate to me your
research process. You will not necessarily find the
answer to each question in the order listed below. I’ve
answered these questions with Ibn Khaldun as my topic
to act as an example of how you might answer them for
your topics.
Process continued
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What was your tentative topic?
What is your final topic?
Why are you interested in this topic?
Where will you look for information on your
topic? In what type(s) of databases?
Now that you’ve finalize your topic and
read your sources, and as you prepare to
compose your research essay, you should
be able to explain why your readers should
find your topic interesting. Explain why
here:
What did you learn?
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What was your tentative topic? (Ibn
Khaldun)
What is your final topic? (The Life of Ibn
Khaldun)
Why are you interested in this topic?
(Because Khaldun was a polymath, and I was
intrigue by his knowledge of so many different
fields when in our time we seem to overly
specialize. Also, I became interested in the
influence of Islamic scholars on Western
knowledge, something many of us know little
about in the West.)
My Research Process
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Where will you look for information on
your topic? In what type(s) of
databases? (For Khaldun, I initially tried
history databases, but that didn’t work
out so well. So I returned to a more
general database. I found two articles
that will be useful, plus because of these
articles, I was able to finalize my topic.
Sources Found
• IBN KHALDUN: THE LAST GREEK AND THE FIRST
ANNALISTE HISTORIAN.Preview By: Dale, Stephen
Frederic. International Journal of Middle East Studies,
Aug2006, Vol. 38 Issue 3, p431-451, 21p. (This article
comes from a peer-reviewed journal and discusses how
Khaldun was well ahead of his time in the study of
sociology and history.)
• The Ibar: Lessons of Ibn Khaldun's Umran Mind.Preview
By: Dhaouadi, Mahmoud. Contemporary Sociology,
Nov2005, Vol. 34 Issue 6, p585-591, 7p; (This article
also comes from a peer-reviewed journal and discusses
the social factors that contributed to the creative mind of
Khaldun.)
Where and How I found them
• I found both of these articles using the following
general search site:
www.lib.jmu.edu/general/default.aspx and
clicking on Academic Search Complete.
• Usually, I start with the articles search site:
www.lib.jmu.edu/resources/articles.aspx,
because the general site often gives far too
many sources to sift through. In this case,
though, the general site was more helpful.
Nevertheless, I recommend you begin with the
articles site for your research.
Where does your topic “fit”
• . In addition to the articles and general
sites, there is a site that searches for
books:
www.lib.jmu.edu/resources/books.aspx.
Using the book search site, I found the
following book:
Consider a book!
• Mahdi, Muhsin. Ibn Khaldun’s Philosophy of
History. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964.
(Because this book opens with Khaldun’s
biography, I decided it would be a good source.
However, because our library does not contain
this book, I had to order it through Interlibrary
Loan. The link to Interlibrary Loan requests
appears on all search sites. It’s very fast,
especially for articles, a day or two and they are
emailed to you, so don’t shy away from it.
However, you must begin your research in a
timely manner.)
Getting Help
• In addition to the three research search
sites listed above, I encourage you take
advantage of the Ask a Librarian site at:
www.lib.jmu.edu/help/ask.aspx. However,
please don’t go to the Ask a Librarian site
until you have tried searching on your
own.
Why this topic?
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Now that you’ve finalize your topic
and read your sources, and as you
prepare to compose your research
essay, you should be able to explain
why your readers should find your
topic interesting. Explain why here:
GWRIT Learning Objectives
• Before I can explain why my audience would find
my topic interesting, I must understand just who
my audience is. An expertly researched, wellwritten essay can fall flat if I disrupt my
audience’s discourse expectations. By
“discourse expectations” I mean the way that
communities of researchers use, and expect
others within the community to use, language.
For example, a historian uses language in ways
that differ from the ways a chemist uses
language, that differ from the ways an engineer
uses language and so on.
Who is my audience?
• If I compose my essay on Khaldun with the high level of
formality expected by, say, sociologists, but I aim my
essay at the general, educated U. S. public, I will most
likely not interest my audience. The same is true if I aim
at sociologists but use the style appropriate for the
public. Since I am more a member of the public than a
sociologist, and since I became interested in Khaldun
because I had found it interesting that while the West
was just emerging from the Middle Ages, Islamic
scholars like Khaldun were not only keeping knowledge
alive but prefiguring later developments, I decided to aim
my essay at the public. (The previous sentence is my
answer to question 5 above.)
Writing for an audience
examples
• I might begin my essay something like this:
• Few of us in the United States know that more
than 600 years ago an Islamic scholar
developed social-science theories not only
unknown in contemporary Western societies but
that anticipated many of the theories developed
centuries later. His name was Ibn Khaldun. He
was born in . . . .
What’s left to do….
• (Note: This document still needs sections
on evaluating sources and on
incorporating sources into one’s writing. I
simply ran out of time.)
• To evaluate students’ essays I plan to use,
almost exactly, the research essay rubric
we we’re given on Wednesday.