Reminders for Class #5

Next week's class meeting (10/3) will be back in the "dungeon" in Krug 5. 

Reading:

-Booth: “Quick Tip” on page 83, and Chapter 6, and pages 271-276. (And Chapter 5 if you missed that last week.)
-Heffernan and Lincoln: “Guidelines for Critical Reading” from Writing: A College
Handbook (Course Reader).
-Katzer and Cook: “A Step-by-Step Guide for Evaluation” and “Questions to Ask” from Evaluating Information: A Guide for Users of Social Science Research (Course Reader).
-The last reading assignment is a bit complicated... The original assignment was Facione: 2006 update preface from Critical Thinking: What It Is & Why it Counts (Course Reader). However, I am putting this on the chopping block and possibly removing it from next year's 390 Reader. You guys are going to help me decide. Click this link for an alternate article on the same topic. Basically what you can do is start reading the first page or two of both of them (Facione vs. Fisher), or skim along in them both a bit, and decide which one you like better. Then you can finish reading the one you like in more detail. I'll put up a poll and we'll weigh their relative merits in class. 

Writing (yes, these are different than the original syllabus deadlines)

-Share (or email) me a draft of your Project Description ASAP if you haven't done so. I have already given some of you the green light to send this along to your mentor. The second draft should be shared to me before Monday's class (10/3); I anticipate giving that green light to the rest after I read that second draft.
-As previously announced, Research Log #3 will be a follow up to the library session, and should be posted to the course blog by Tuesday night (9/27)
-Post Research Log #4 to the course blog by the Friday night after the next class (10/7). This should be a revised list of your 25 research questions. I want to make sure to get that in before the holiday weekend because it will guide you as you start doing your background literature research. 
-Work further on your concept map if you're finding that helpful. We'll take a look at it in the next class and in our personal conferences, so don't lose it.

Bonus Opportunity: In addition to being the BIS director, Dr. Leonard also organizes an annual lecture series called "Moments of Truth." This year's lecture is next Tuesday (10/4), from 3:00-4:30 in the lobby of the GMU Center for the Arts. The speaker is Chris Myers Asch, who wrote an excellent book about the history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi called, The Senator and the Sharecropper. I can offer an extra credit opportunity of sorts for those who go to the lecture - you can post a brief review/response that will replace one of your nine research log entries.

Fine Print:  

As a follow-up to the library session, I will demonstrate how I found the Boix Mansilla article I posted here a week or two back. So this can be another example of how to use research databases. It is my speculation that Dr. Leonard left the article citation out of the original BIS 390 syllabus as a sort of treasure hunt exercise, but I felt we didn't have the time before. So I just found it myself.

Putting myself in the lazy student's position, because I am one, I go straight to Google for the article citation. I know I probably won't be able to get the article itself, which is likely to be a paid library resource. So the third hit on the article title appears to be the right one, and I get this citation: Change, v37 n1 p14 Jan-Feb 2005 . The first two hits seem to be earlier versions of the article that might have been given as conference speeches. I'm guessing Change magazine refers to its purpose rather than its cost, but that could work either way, ha ha. OK so now I know which magazine/journal I need, so I'll go to the main library page (library.gmu.edu). I click on e-journals because I'm optimistic and then type in the journal's title, and click search. It appears to be that first one, published in New York. So then I click on the JSTOR link, which is a database service that university libraries pay for (with your money), then I get a proxy access password prompt, which is way easier than this process used to be at my old university. At this point, I've apparently been granted access by GMU's electronic library elves. But I'm stumped, because this access stops at volume 36, or year 2004. But wait, why did I look for it on JSTOR when it was available in several other places? Now I'll go back and try Education Full Text, which sounds like what I'm looking for and purports to cover until "present," which should include 2005 unless there is some kind of hot tub time machine involved. Eureka. Now I'm into Volume 37, Number 1. I click full text PDF for the article I was seeking. I save it under a silly filename to my desktop, and then blah blah blah I put it on the blog. Lather, rinse, repeat that process about 10,000 times with more frustration, dead ends, work, and pressure, and that's your research project.

A student asked me a great question that will become pertinent in the coming weeks: If I am writing a project description for an investigative research project, does it make more sense to write an explanatory thesis rather that an argumentative thesis? I always thought that an "investigation" would have very little argument or none at all.

This is the answer I gave: Sorry that the terminology is confusing here. I want to make it clear that the investigative projects are all meant to develop an argumentative thesis. I suppose the background literature review that both investigative and creative projects do could be deemed "explanatory," but even there you are generally selecting, organizing, and framing the explanation to suit the nature of your project. There is no such thing as an explanatory thesis. An explanatory thesis would be, "I claim that in the pages that follow, I will be giving you pertinent information about the topic." That's not what we're going for here. You do need to make a value-added contribution to the interdisciplinary research conversation about the topic. Remember, no "book reports."