Also: turn in your short analysis projects as an attachment sent to the course email.
During the first part of class, you read through John Swales' "Creating a Research Space" and noted the three moves he identifies as important in writing an introduction for writing studies essays. We restated them as follows:
1. Establishing a Territory (or writing what your essay is about/identifying the focus/connecting to the writing studies' topic you will discuss)
2. Establishing a Niche (pointing out what your essay adds)
3. Occupying a Niche (writing what your essay will do/providing an overview of the essay's contents).
Writing a particular essay ALWAYS depends on your audience, purpose, as well as the genre you are writing in, so there is no formula for writing an essay, BUT as Swales points out, these three "moves" are characteristic of writing studies research essay's introductions. Under each move he listed some ways which researchers achieve the 3 moves. These components are use, alone or in combination to accomplish the purposes of the introduction (which Swales sets up as the 3 moves).
If you check the introductions of the research essays we have read so far (including Swales essays) you can see exactly how the different writers made these moves.
You spent then some time looking at the research essay you have identified for your project, and thinking about how you can use it to "establish the territory" and "establish the niche" for your research project.
How you will be graded for this course
Your syllabus (posted to the right) lists the following spread of points for the course.
1. Blog + comments (response to readings; practice analysis, drafts, reflections, etc) 150 points
2. Class presentations + group work + participation + homework 250 points
3. Short analysis project 100 points
4. Research project 500
points
-
200 points = Writing for project planning, creation of data collection tools, presentation and preliminary analysis of data
- 150 points=evidence of writing process including invention writing, successive drafts, and writing to critique and plan revisions to successive drafts
- 150= final research essay
As noted on they syllabus, we may re-negotiate how points are assigned for your research project, as a class.
In tonight's class we talked in some more detail about exactly how grades would be calculated.
For blogs, you receive 10 points per post. We will probably have a total of 16 posts, so you have a possibility of 10 points extra credit.
For class presentations, group work, participation and homework, you earn 15 points per class (again, out of 16 classes). The remaining 25 points were credit for the NIH training.
For the short analysis project, and the research essay, the discussion on the syllabus says we will develop specific criteria in class (see below).
Criteria for writing to develop the project and for evidence of the writing process are listed on the Research project assignment sheet. Also, as we finish the term, you will have a series of blog posts where you will receive feedback on what you need to do to meet these requirements.
Grades for the course are assigned in keeping with the following scale:
91 and above = A, with 90% = A-
81 and above = B, with 80% = B-
71 and above = C, with 70% = C-
This means that to pass this course you will need to earn 701 points or above (out of the 1000 possible).
Criteria for Short Analysis project
We listed the criteria for the project on the board and had a discussion about how to "weight" the different features so they will add up to the total score, and so that the "value" or importance of each criterium corresponds to the number of points it is assigned.
I pointed out that in practice, assigning a grades is more whollistic, since the effectiveness of one component shapes and is dependent on the effectiveness of other components. At the same time, our work to assign points to each feature can give students a realistic picture of what they need to work on and the relative importance (for their grade) of the different features of their composition.
We first assigned a "range" of scores for each component, and then "tweaked" our ranges so that the total score came out to 100 points (the total allocated to the project). Our scoring was as follows.
20 quality of the research question
20 developed categories of analysis relevant to the data and to the research question
15 relevant, effective examples to demonstrate what the categories show with respect to the research question
15 clear, direct statements of what the examples show with respect to the research question
15 clear, logical organization appropriate for writing studies research esays
10 conclusion sums up findings and reflects on limitations of the analysis and/or further possibilities for study
5 grammar/readability
We then tested our rubric on one of the sample essays. Our scores were in the same general "ballpark" - which suggests that we all had a similar understanding for the expectations for the essay.
In general, my score was more demanding for the research question, the use of direct statements, the organization (because organization includes not just the order, but the details of what each section accomplishes), and the conclusion than most of the groups, and I was more satisfied with the essay's development of categories, its use of examples and the grammar than most other groups. This is important for you to notice because I am the "audience" for your essays, the person who will be evaluating them, and you need to be aware of my expectations.
For next class:
Blog 11: Write a draft for the introduction to your research essay. This is an important post! It will help you frame your research in light of what other researchers have written. This will help you nail down your research question and identify your categories of analysis. For those of you who don't have an essay yet - email me immediately so we can set you up to move forward.
Due: Final Short Analysis project. If you are stumped, let me know so we can set up a conference. I am not available for conferences on Friday. I am in my office most of the day Wednesday and Thursday.
Due: Signed consent forms.
In class we will look at some sample research essays, and develop a rubric similar to the way we did for the short analysis project.
The rest of class will be a workshop to go over your research instruments (interview protocols, prompts for reflective writing, observation protocols, etc).
Good class and see you next week!
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