Post by WIDboard on Oct 11, 2011 17:59:11 GMT -5
One of the most important parts of successful research projects and papers is ensuring that students are asking the right questions as they go out to do their investigations. Prof. Rachel Riedner uses the following questions as a preliminary assignment to help guide her students' thinking when it comes to research (a Word document version is also attached):
__________________________________________________________________
WID Pre-Research Assignment
Rachel Riedner, Director of WID,
Associate Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies
1. What questions does the author ask? How are these questions asked? How could the questions that the author asked be rethought?
2. What sources or “facts” are considered “common knowledge” in the paper?
Critical Questions:
• Might everyone who reads the paper share the same “common knowledge”?
• Is there consensus on what is a fact?
• Who gets to decide what facts are and how they are considered?
3. How does the paper use exhibit sources? Are exhibits an occasion for the paper? Do they lend support to the papers claims?
4. What claims does the author make about the exhibits she is interpreting? How does she affirm, dispute, refine, or extend interpretations that others have made of the same exhibit material. Or, if others have not considered the particular exhibit she’s analyzing, how does she talk about this exhibit source in terms of arguments that others have made about similar material?
5. What exhibits aren’t considered that could be considered? How might different evidence change the paper’s claims?
6. Who is considered an expert? Who is considered knowledgeable? Who is listened to? How is expertise used?
Critical Questions:
• Could you suggest others who might have knowledge about the material?
• Other voices who could be included or listened to?
• How might including these voices change the approach to the material, the exhibit sources that are considered, and the arguments that are made?
7. How does the author use key words or key terms in the paper? How does she explain these terms? Does she develop the terms in the paper?
8. What disciplinary knowledge (if any) does the paper rely upon? Can you identify what discipline the author is in? How might you do this?
9. What is the author’s method (approach to the material)? Remember, the method might not be explicitly cited in the text. Can you identify the method? Does the author’s approach to the material give us a rich means of interpreting exhibit sources?
10. What is the contribution or argument of the paper? What ideas does it further? What new lines of thinking does the author offer? What ideas or concepts does it help you think through and understand?
11. Does the paper’s contribution emerge from its consideration of new exhibits or new approaches to exhibits? Does the author assess the limitations of other texts or other arguments? Does it emerge from its methodology? Particular claims about its exhibits? All of these?
12. How might you counter the claims of this article? Be specific--- you’ll need to explain how you might counter the claims of an author’s interpretation of an exhibit source, how you might approach the material differently, how you might ask different questions, how you might consider “expertise,” how you might draw from different disciplinary knowledge, how you might use key terms differently, etc….
__________________________________________________________________
WID Pre-Research Assignment
Rachel Riedner, Director of WID,
Associate Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies
1. What questions does the author ask? How are these questions asked? How could the questions that the author asked be rethought?
2. What sources or “facts” are considered “common knowledge” in the paper?
Critical Questions:
• Might everyone who reads the paper share the same “common knowledge”?
• Is there consensus on what is a fact?
• Who gets to decide what facts are and how they are considered?
3. How does the paper use exhibit sources? Are exhibits an occasion for the paper? Do they lend support to the papers claims?
4. What claims does the author make about the exhibits she is interpreting? How does she affirm, dispute, refine, or extend interpretations that others have made of the same exhibit material. Or, if others have not considered the particular exhibit she’s analyzing, how does she talk about this exhibit source in terms of arguments that others have made about similar material?
5. What exhibits aren’t considered that could be considered? How might different evidence change the paper’s claims?
6. Who is considered an expert? Who is considered knowledgeable? Who is listened to? How is expertise used?
Critical Questions:
• Could you suggest others who might have knowledge about the material?
• Other voices who could be included or listened to?
• How might including these voices change the approach to the material, the exhibit sources that are considered, and the arguments that are made?
7. How does the author use key words or key terms in the paper? How does she explain these terms? Does she develop the terms in the paper?
8. What disciplinary knowledge (if any) does the paper rely upon? Can you identify what discipline the author is in? How might you do this?
9. What is the author’s method (approach to the material)? Remember, the method might not be explicitly cited in the text. Can you identify the method? Does the author’s approach to the material give us a rich means of interpreting exhibit sources?
10. What is the contribution or argument of the paper? What ideas does it further? What new lines of thinking does the author offer? What ideas or concepts does it help you think through and understand?
11. Does the paper’s contribution emerge from its consideration of new exhibits or new approaches to exhibits? Does the author assess the limitations of other texts or other arguments? Does it emerge from its methodology? Particular claims about its exhibits? All of these?
12. How might you counter the claims of this article? Be specific--- you’ll need to explain how you might counter the claims of an author’s interpretation of an exhibit source, how you might approach the material differently, how you might ask different questions, how you might consider “expertise,” how you might draw from different disciplinary knowledge, how you might use key terms differently, etc….
Attachments:
