Lit Review: The Hows and Whys

The Lit Review

Part 1:

As you go through the different web sites, jot down notes--what are things you need to keep in mind? What is the order? What do you do with your sources? After you compile a list of notes,  start to think about how you are going to write you lit review. What are some difficulties that you might encounter? What are some things you feel pretty confident about? How is a lit review different than your research report? 

Part 2:

After reading through the sample lit review, respond to the following questions: (1) what are some important characteristics of a lit review? (2) what do you need to include in your lit review? (3) what are things that you do not do in a lit review? (4) what you do believe is most important to remember/understand about a lit review? 

Then create an outline of a lit review (similar to the spider web here), in other words, show me how you understand the design of a lit review. As you create it, think of your own research and how you might begin to organize it for the purposes of the lit review. 

Conclude: what, as you understand it, are the purposes of a lit review? 

CID and Good Ideas

Johnson says that "good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete." Using a coral reef system as a sort of metaphor, he shows how this can happen. 

Essentially by attending the "Conversations in the Disciplines," you were able to see Johnson's theory put into action. Good ideas connecting, fusing, and recombining together in the form of research and writing. I want you to pick one or two of the presentations--tell us who are you using specifically--and deconstruct the presentation using Johnson's theory to help do this. In other words, Johnson concludes his chapter by saying, "we are often better served by connecting ideas than we are protecting them." You are in essence responding to this notion by using one of the presentations as support of this. 

Be specific. Use both Johnson's piece and the presentation(s) as support for your deconstruction of where good ideas come. 

The video above is Johnson visually showing where good ideas come from. 

Remember: it's ok to step out of the box. Deconstruction is a great way to examine something in your own unique way. 

250-400 words. Engage with one another.

Due: Monday, April 22, 2013.

In-Class: Interview Prep

Today we are going to be discussing/thinking about the different methods you'll be using in your research. One of those methods is the interview. After completing a round robin with several different members of the class, I want you to do several things: (1) talk about issues that can come up in an interview; (2) talk about how to respond to those issues; (3) discuss what makes you most nervous about an interview--what might you do to help ease those nerves; and (4) generate a list of possible questions for your interviewee (if you have started this already then I want you to discuss the questions you have already created and why you created them the way you did).  (5) discuss how the interview can and will enhance your analysis in response to your research question(s). And last, talk about when and how you are going to go about setting up your interview--if you have done this already discuss how you have done this. Shoot for around 200 words. 

Surveys and Interviews

Interviews and surveys are two other methods you'll be using as part of your research. Even though MacNealy discusses only surveys in this chapter, there is a lot of cross-over between surveys and interviews. Where do you see this cross-over? According to MacNealy, what are the challenges and disadvantages to these methods? What do you need to keep in mind when designing your questions? What types of questions do you see yourself using in your own research? How do you analyze these questions? Conclude by discussing your plan for incorporating these methods into your research.

250-400 words. Engage with one another.

Due: Monday, April 15, 2013 by class time. 

Discourse and Textual Analysis

As part of your research, you'll be using discourse and textual analysis. According to MacNealy, what is discourse and textual analysis and why do researchers use them? From these definitions extend your thinking to your own research: how will you use these methods? Be specific--out of the 7 types of discourse analysis, which ones do you believe you might use and why? What texts have you already found to analyze? How else will you use these methods? 

250-400 words. Engage with others. 

Due: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 by class time. 

Brainstorming for Research Project

In this post, I want you to generate a list of 5-10 different topics that interest you for this essay. Then in two-three sentences explore what you know about the topic and why you picked it.

Next in about 200-300 words, I want you to narrow your list down to one or two and think through why these might be a good choice for you to research. Make sure think about how you are going to get be able to research the topic i.e. what type of observation might you be able to do; who could your interview; where could you look for articles, journals, magazines, etc? Then quickly discuss what you already know about the topic. What interests you about it to continue researching it for six-eight weeks?

**This brainstorming session should lead you into your research proposal which is due next week; thus, you want to be specific and clear in your response to this post. 

Genre Theory

In about 250-400 words, please respond to the following prompt:

Imagine you are a research assistant to a high profile professor at a university: he is a journalism professor. He needs you to compose an email to the entire communication department asking them to read the Russell and Yanez's article, so that they can include it as part of their curriculum. He believes that this article could drastically improve both the retention rate of journalism students as well as help them in their careers to be better writers. In this email, your job is to clearly portray why the Russell and Yanez piece should even be considered--so you are not summarizing the piece--in other words, you want to *sell them on the piece. Please include specific details, even quotes, from the piece as you attempt to persuade the department.

You need to write the post in the genre of an email following all the conventions of an email. So, your audience for the email will be the communication department. 

You are, in many ways, attempting to put into practice what you read in this piece. 

Additionally, remember that you need to respond to at least one peer's post. When writing that post, keep in mind the conventions of a blog: you need to be conversational and engaging. 

Due: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 by class time.