See our Course Calendar for assignments & due dates.
Element Overview: In this Course Element, you will conduct interviews with people from two different fields/disciplines who engage in research as part of their profession. CI faculty members are natural interview subjects, but you may know others as well. You will draw upon these interviews as well as additional sources you locate in Broome Library‘s databases to understand the context, purpose, outcomes, challenges, and rewards of the research process as represented by your interviewees, identifying areas of convergence and divergence in the two fields/disciplines you study.
The goal of this Course Element is to help you reflect on research as as an activity that is intellectual and practical but also exciting, frustrating, surprising, tedious, messy, fluid, ultimately worthwhile and satisfying (or not!), and always evolving. Ideally, you will learn that research is not reserved for those with advanced degrees, but something that anyone with passion, energy, and a sense of purpose can pursue.
Element Time Frame: Weeks 1 – 5
Writing Tasks – Rocking Research Essay: For this essay, you will write up a brief proposal that details your confirmed research subjects and what you hope to learn from them. You will conduct 10-minute interviews with two subjects from different fields/disciplines and write up word-for-word transcripts of those interviews. You will then write an essay that integrates material from your interviews as well as at least 2 sources from Broome Library’s databases that help flesh out your understanding of the research process as a whole as well as how it is defined in the different fields/disciplines of your interviewees. You will write one complete draft for peer review before submitting a final, revised draft for evaluation.
Speaking Task – Rocking Research Class Presentations: You will deliver several presentations throughout this Course Element. These presentations should be prepared but have an “extemporaneous” tone. The first will ask you to share your proposal to the class for feedback. The next will ask you to present 5 “Takeaways” from the interviews you conducted. You will then share the “Roses, Buds, and Thorns” from you essay draft. And the final presentation will ask you to reflect on your “Lasting Impression” from the work that went into your Rocking Research Essay. Each presentation should be no longer than 3 minutes in length.
Assessment: This Course Element will be evaluated holistically, taking into consideration the quality, thoroughness, and timeliness of your proposal, interview transcripts, essay drafts, presentations, and feedback to your peers, as well as peer assessments of your work.
