Blog #12

My participants will be 30 undergraduate students from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taken on a volunteer basis.  I as the primary researcher will be soliciting volunteers for this project, and will attempt to do so based on several different demographics which I will identify, such as: male (straight, typical) male (gay/bisexual) male (straight, atypical/gender activist) female (straight/typical) female (bisexual/gay) female (straight, atypical/gender activist).  There is no potential danger to my participants, and as such I need to take no precautions in protecting them aside from ensuring confidentiality.  My primary question about my data collection method is how to conduct an effective interview, and so I am talking to professors that conduct qualitative research to train myself to be an effective interviewer.

Blog #11

The full text of my article can be found @:

http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologywriting/ht/method.htm

This article addressed writing a method section specifically for the type of paper that I am doing, an APA formatted research paper.  For this, my methods section needs to be thorough enough that a reader could fully replicate my study based only on reading this section.  It explains who the participants were, what they did, what the researchers did, and details how all data were gathered.  my methods section will include how I chose my participants as well as how many and from what population, will explain my interview process including all of my questions and all of the controls i used to make the interviews effective as well as a description of how they were conducted.  At the end of my methods section, a reader should have a clear sense of the strengths and limitations of my methodology, and should be capable of replicating my work if they desire to do so.

“positive sandwich” for Why are killing sprees increasing

Dear Pete,

We thought that  you did an excellent job connecting to the audience.   Your clear thesis and easy to follow writing style facilitated our understanding of your standpoints on the presented issue.

In order to improve the validity of your argument, it would be helpful to include other sources in your argument.  You used only yourself and the New York Times as sources, and this comes across as you trying to overgeneralize a narrow source of information rather than trying to prove a point.  More credible sources would strengthen your argument considerably.

Great job using rhetoric in your argument.  Both your presentation of yourself as an authority and your appeal to the audience’s emotions helped to pull in readers.

Blog http://wolfemarknckn.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=106&message=6#10

Rubric:

We included five categories in our rubric and graded the article on a scale of one to five in each of them.  A rating of one indicates a complete lack of an element of writing, a three is average, and a five indicates that the graders saw little  to no room for improvement.  Our five categories are:

1. Use of research to support the author’s thesis
2. Author’s ability to connect to their audience
3. Author’s use of voice
4. Author’s use of rhetoric in their argument (ethos, pathos, logos)
5. Writing conventions.

For the article “Why are killing rampages increasing?”, we gave the following ratings:

1. Use of research:  2.5.  The author used research in his argument including a graph, but he relied very heavily on a narrow range of sources (specifically the new york times), and on his own authority.  We also think that the way he presented research was misleading, especially in that he implied that his figures were solid and had high external validity when in fact he failed to adjust for population growth as well as relying solely on statistics from one source for over half century of data.
2. Author’s ability to connect to the audience: 4.  The author used several techniques to pull the audience in and get them on board with his hypothesis, including a provocative attention statement, a visually impressive graph, and appeals to emotion via fear tactics, all in the opening page of his article.
3. Use of voice: 3.5.  The author’s voice was authoritative.  He starts by presenting his credentials, uses the first person excessively and cites his own work several times.  That said, he did a great job breaking the topic down into layman’s terms and making his work readable for a wide audience range.
4. Use of rhetoric to support an argument: 4.  The author did a great job presenting himself as an authority as well as engaging the reader on an emotional level.  His only problem in this category was his logical argument.  His appeals to himself make his argument circular, and he is making sweeping generalizations in terms of social theory based on a narrow source of data.
5. Writing mechanics:  5.  The author’s use of writing conventions, including logical flow as well as proper use of grammar and vocabulary made this article an easy read.

Blog #9

The full text of my article can be found @

http://www.ehow.com/how_4678909_write-good-introductory-paragraph.html

This article stressed that before you write an introductory paragraph, you should have already done a great deal of pre-writing for your paper.  This includes everything from developing good research questions and a strong thesis to doing effective background research and finding reputable sources of information to support your hypotheses.

Both articles agree that the first sentence of a publication is perhaps the most important one of the whole paper.  No matter how good your points are, regardless of how well you defend and support your thesis, all of your work falls on deaf ears if your intrroductory sentence fails to entice the reader to delve further in to your work.

A good introductory paragraph, then, is one that hooks the reader on the first sentence and pulls them in to the body of your work.  The audience needs to connect with the idea of the first sentence and follow it through to the indication of the importance of your thesis.

Blog #8

The full text of my article can be found @ http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/instruct/guides/evaluation.html

The Cornell article had a very sensible breakdown of what to look for when evaluating a source of information.  My source from UCAL Berkley broke things down in a very differnt way, and I think that combining both will result in a better way to evaluate sources overall.

Cornell article assessment:

• Author:  credentials, amount of recognition in their field, associations with organizations
• Date of Publication
• Edition
• Publisher
• Title of journal
• Intended audience
• Objective Reasoning
• Coverage
• Writing Style
• Evaluative Reviews

The Berkley article covered many of these same elements that all of our classes read, but also added the element of scope  in their source assessment.  For scope, a reader should analize the breadth of the article in reference to their goals.  Is this source one that gives me a wide but unspecific basis on which i can build, or is it narrowly focused on perhaps one of several ideas that my topic will deal with?

Blog #7

The introduction of a paper sets the scene for an author’s research.  A good intro should explain what the focus of research is, how it has developed, and what direction it is going.  it ends in a thesis that prompts the research preformed by the author.  This is where groundwork is laid in terms of the underlying logic of why research is important and needs to be conducted.  A good intro will undoubtedly cite sources and discuss previous research breifly.

A literature review follows an introduction.  here, the author goes in to depth examioning the previous research done on their topic.  Articles are broken down, their methods and results are re-hashed, and the significance of their findings are explained and tied in to the research at hand.  Covering previous research in a literature review shoudl be fare more detailed than the breif overview of previous research given in an introduction.

An annotated bibliography can be a powerful tool in writing both an introduction and a literature review.  Looking at their own annotated bibliography can help a researcher to process the information that they have assembled, to put it in logical order, and to decide what elements of their background research should be covered in the opening of their paper.  An annotated bibliography should include most of the information that an author needs to write a few breif sentences in an introduction about previous research, and it provides a starting point for the literature review.

When creating an annotated bibliography, an author should critically examine their sources.  The articles in their literature review should have a few key elements.  They need to be recent (within 5 years) unless there is a specific reason that the researcher wants to use a [articular older study.  They also need to be credible sources of information, so articles need to be taken from refereed, peer-reviewed journals.

The author also needs to consider what audience their introduction and literature review are targeting.  Writing for a grroup of high school students, for example, requires a much more simplified and basic presentation of information than a submission for publication to a well known refereed scientific journal.  Writing for the wrong audience undermines your credibility as an author and as a source of information (“I don’t understand this and I think this author must be a pompus ass to use so many technical terms” vs “This author should be taking an intro level class, not submitting articles for publication”).