English 302-Advanced Composition: Social
Sciences
Dr. Terry Myers Zawacki
Summer
Session C--Section CS1: 2001
RobA 245; 9:30-11:35 a.m.
Office: RobA 112a; Office Hours: MTWR Noon-1:00;
993-1187; tzawacki@gmu.edu
Description Texts Course Requirements and Policies Weekly Schedule
Description: Our focus will be on ways of writing and researching common to the social sciences. As we progress, you will gain experience in observing closely and describing what you see; separating “facts” from interpretation; supporting hypotheses and thesis statements; abstracting and synthesizing information from sources; finding and evaluating research materials; and presenting your ideas and research in written “exercises” and formal papers.
Texts: -Bazerman, Charles. The
Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Discipline.
-Optional Handbook appropriate to your major.
-Articles listed by urls or handed out in class .
Course Requirements and Grading:
· Participation, including Attendance (I expect you to attend and participate
fully in every class); all in-class work and group work; e-mail
discussions: 25%
· Paper One—Ways of Knowing in Your Major: 10%
· Paper Two--Critical Analysis of Web Site in Your
Discipline: 10%
· Paper Three (Collaborative)—Report on Sources in
Your Discipline: 15%
· Paper Four—Review Article: 35%
(You may coordinate this assignment with research in another course or your own
particular research interests.)
· Take-home final: 5%
Important Information about Deadlines
Papers are due at the beginning of class on dates marked; grades for papers not
turned in when due are dropped one letter grade. No papers will be
accepted after I have returned graded papers to the class. Note: A
paper will receive an “F” if a student does not participate in every phase of
development of the paper, including workshops on drafts. I must approve
all research topics; moreover, topics may not be changed without my prior
approval.
In-class assignments and short informal exercises generally may not be made up
if you are absent.
Useful urls:
http://library.gmu.edu/resources/databases.html
http://www.noodletools.com/
(Take a look at this tool. It's fairly elementary but might offer some
helpful advice and databases to search.)
Tentative Weekly Progression and Due Dates
(Because of the shortened semester, I will be adjusting the reading and writing
schedule as we progress through the weeks. Please exchange phone numbers with
several people in class so that you are always aware of changes to the
schedule.)
Week One Week Two Week Three Week Four Week Five Exam
Week One:
July 2: In-class writing. What is a "social" science? What is a
social fact? The Process (and perils) of Observation. What is empirical
evidence? Qualitative and quantitative research?
July 3: Bazerman, Chapters 1, 2, 12. Annotate Chapter 12 as indicated in
Chapter 2.
June 5: Bazerman Chapters 6 and some or all of 13, 14, 15 (note--read carefully
the chapters most relevant to your major.)
Week Two:
July 9: Ways of knowing in the disciplines. Abstracting and Summarizing.
Summary of article . Bazerman Chapter 4.
July 10: Paper One Due--Ways of Knowing in Major.
July 11: Paper Two--Evaluating Websites. Directions:
Read article “Why Evaluate Websites” at
http://www.lib.auburn.edu/hum/evalsites.html. This article is available
through Prof. V. Montecino’s webpage. Next visit the website of the main scholarly
organization in your field (e.g. APA for Psychology). For your second paper,
see Prof. Montecino's guidelines for evaluating websites at http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm.
These are the guidelines you’ll follow to evaluate a website related to your
research interests and/or your major. Please be sure to distinguish
between an organizations or individual's website and an article which can be
downloaded from a site.
July 12: Continue work on website evaluation. Bazerman Chap 7. Read for
discussion of how to approach analyzing a writer's purpose and technique.
Do not do exercises.
Week Three:
July 16: Proposal for topic for review article due; see Bazerman 308-318.
July 17: Paper Two--Critique of Web Site--due. May be submitted to
me electronically at my e-mail address. Be sure to include the url for the site
you evaluated.
July 18: Ways of writing and researching in your discipline. Citing and
documenting. Work on Paper Three--A collaborative
paper exploring sources in your discipline.
July 19: In-class work on collaborative paper.
Week Four:
July 23: Synthesizing from sources. Read: "'As You're Writing
You Have These Epiphanies': What College Students Say about Reading and Writing
in their Majors" at http://mwp01.mwp.hawaii.edu/epiphanies.htm.
Also Bazerman 9, pages 253-272, and Chapter 10. Other readings and written exercises
tba.. For your convenience, you should carefully note those sources which
may be relevant to your research topic for Paper 4. Due: Annotated list of
sources for review article. (Review Bazerman 304-308. You are not required
to use notecards but you should have some system for keeping notes.)
July 24: Quoting, paraphrasing, and documenting sources. Bazerman
chapters 3. See directions for Paper Four, the review
article.
July 25: In-class work on collaborative paper and/or Paper Four..
July 26: Collaborative Paper Three due.
Week Five (July 30, 31):
July 30: Work on Review Article. Revisit Hilgers et al and Baz pages
308-320.
July 31: Full draft of Paper Four due. We'll use class time to revise and edit
drafts.
Due Exam Day, August 2 (10:30-1:15): Review article,
optional portfolio, and take-home final. Take-home final is a revision of
your review article for a non-scholarly audience.
Paper One: Ways of Knowing in Your Discipline (3-4 pages)
Your purpose in this paper is to describe to readers (me and peers who are not in your major) how your social science discipline goes about describing, analyzing, and evaluating human behavior. What kinds of "problems" and research questions is your discipline concerned with? What kinds of data do you gather and how do you gather it? Once you have gathered your research, how do you present it? (Please be familiar with the following terms as you consider my questions: epistemology; empirical evidence; quantitative and qualitative research; and primary and secondary data.) How are the methods of your discipline and the written products of research used in the workplace of your discipline? Given the concerns, questions, and processes of your chosen discipline, explain why you are attracted to the discipline and some of the issues that particularly interest you. Your thesis might read something like the following:
I'm drawn to my ___________ major because I'm interested in the kinds of problems the discipline of _________ tries to solve (or the kinds of questions the discipline of __________ poses) and the kinds of data that are gathered to answer these questions.
You might choose to tell something about your personal background and experience that draws you to the major and then go on to talk about the major itself. As you draft this paper, consider chapter 12 in Bazerman "Creating Knowledge." Also look at Chapter 13, 14, and/or 15 as one or more of these relate to your major. You may also want to talk with a professor in your major and/or a professional in the field you'd like to enter.
Here are some questions to consider:
:
· What are the discipline's fundamental assumptions or driving questions?
Are they stable or in a state of change? What would you say constitutes a
"fact" in this discipline? What do you consider objective and
subjective data? Does the discipline use experience and/or observation as
evidence? If so, how?
· What are the discipline's fundamental methods of inquiry?
· What kinds of careers are typically open to students with this
major? What kinds of writing and research might they do in those careers?
Paper Three: Report on Sources in Your Discipline
(Collaborative Process)
English 302*
The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to become better acquainted with sources in your chosen field and/or to describe the expertise you already possess. In the process, you are also preparing for your researched review essay (paper four) as well as for future research in your major field. For that reason, you’ll be looking at overview sources in your discipline and, at the same time, noting specific sources for the topic you’re researching. The finished essay will focus on source materials—both scholarly and popular (if relevant) rather than on specific material related to your research topic.
In order to share your expertise and overview sources, you’ll work on this assignment with another student in this class who shares your major; however, if no one has the same major or you choose to work on your own, you may forgo the collaborative process.
Finished Product: A 4-6 page essay, typed and double spaced. Notice I say “essay,” not responses to a list of questions. While you may write answers to the questions I’ve asked, your finished paper should have an introductory paragraph, a thesis related to uncovering expertise in a field, body points with supporting information, and a conclusion. Your essay will be graded on its structure and technique as well as on the comprehensiveness and quality of the information you present.
Preliminary Knowledge Inventory
1) Write everything you know about your chosen research topic.
2) Write what you think you need to know and/or would like to know.
3) List sources of information you’re currently familiar with.
Researching Sources
(Don’t be shy about asking the reference librarian for help. It will be
especially helpful for you to talk to professors in your major and other
professionals you know to start you on your search.)
· What are the major overview and bibliographic sources in your field
(specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries, abstracts, bibliographies)? Describe
them briefly.
· What are the most important databases covering this field? Describe.
· What are the major journals in your field? Who publishes these journals? What
is the mix of paper and electronic journals?
· Who seem to be the major contributors to these journals? Have any of these
contributors written books on the same subject?
· What are some major websites? Look at institutional sites, university sites,
and also at personal sites to determine credibility. Describe some.
· What is the relationship between scholarly and popular sources such as
magazines and newspapers. Do researchers use some “crossover” sources (U.S.
News and World Report, for example, is considered a credible source for
Government and Politics majors.)
· Who are some experts on the topic you want to research?
· More difficult to uncover but worth looking for are major conferences and
conference proceedings, dissertations, and listserves. See if you can
find information on any or all of these sources of information.
*Thanks to Scott Berg for parts of this assignment.
Paper Four: The Review Article
Purpose: To review the current state of knowledge in your major field of study as it relates to issue(s) or problem(s) you would like to investigate
Audience: Class members who share your major; your English 302 teacher; teachers in your major
Format: The review article
When members of a discipline (AKA your major) want to address a problem or
an issue in their
field because they think they have a course of action or solution that should
be considered, they
must first find out what others in their field have already written about the
problem or issue. This
investigation of the scholarly literature is called a review.
In a review the writer
- defines and clarifies the issue(s) or problem(s)
- summarizes previous investigations in order to inform the reader of
the state of current research;
- identifies relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the
literature; and
- suggests the next step or steps in solving the problem.
Unlike the writer of a researched report, who tends to look for answers to
individual research
questions, the writer of a review looks at how the authors in all the
sources used answer all the
research questions and compares these answers to find a fit for
his/her ideas.
Adapted from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed)
For this class, your review should be 1000 to 1500 words in length, not counting bibliography, and should include 4 or 5 scholarly sources in your major.
In this review, you should be able to demonstrate (and will be graded on) the ability to:
· Identify and develop research question/main idea
· Organize material
· Synthesize material from multiple sources according to main points
(not just summaries of sources without synthesis)
· Use evidence to support main ideas in support of research question(s)
· Paraphrase and, if appropriate, quote from sources
· Cite and document sources appropriately
· Use standard grammar, syntax, mechanics
· Use appropriate voice/tone/word choice for academic context