Personal Research Guide

Introduction/Rationale:

The personal research guide is an opportunity for you to begin to explore a professional or disciplinary discourse community you are joining or intend to join. Using primary and secondary research methods, you will explore the ways your disciplinary or professional discourse community knows and does by identifying significant genres, key experts, important publications, professional organizations and conferences, online presence, commonly employed research methods in the field, major topical or conversational trends from the last 5-10 years, and broad disciplinary values. You will use this exploration of key disciplinary and/or professional literacies to begin to develop a research guide for the course that will aid you in your exploration, research, and writing within your academic discourse community.

Assignment Prompt:

Begin by identifying the disciplinary or professional discourse community you wish to enter and the knowledge you already have about your disciplinary or professional discourse community. Then, using Swales’ six characteristics of discourse communities as a heuristic (bulleted below) generate questions about the field’s purposes, discursive practices, genre conventions, etc. based on your knowledge gaps. What do you need to know or want to find out?

From there, meet with your disciplinary librarian, advisor, etc., in order to investigate the library’s reference guide for your field of study and the key databases, journals, and research tools appropriate for your disciplinary or professional discourse community. This primary research will provide you with key research tools for exploring the academic moves of your discourse community. You will also draw upon Wardle (2004), Carter (2007), and Thonney (2011) in order to discover how fields of study use similar genre conventions when researching and writing for the community.

Minimum Requirements:

From your primary and secondary research, your research guide should include at least three web pages with 1,500-2,00 words total. The research guide should present a description and analysis of least three major communicative practices used by members of your discourse community to accomplish their goals. Of the three, one must be a research article from a peer reviewed journal in your disciplinary discourse community. The other two can be academic or professional examples of communicative practices. These communicative practices should reflect, or at least connect to, reading, writing, and research values uncovered during your research of your disciplinary or professional discourse community. They should also show analysis of how the genre conventions of those communicative practices demonstrate how the field knows and does through writing and interaction.

Once you have conducted your primary and secondary research and answered your initial questions, compose a web-based research guide that includes the following information:

· Swales’ six characteristics of discourse communities as a heuristic that organizes the information you’ve gathered and formats the guide for easy reference

· A definition of the discourse community in terms of its “common public goals” as understood both by a practicing member as well as any professional organizations associated with the specific discourse community.

· At least three major communicative practices used by members of the discourse community to accomplish the above goals (one being a peer reviewed research article and two being academic or professional examples).

· A list of prominent “participatory mechanisms” or venues where members publish, share, and discuss information. This includes the field’s major journals, conferences, databases, and other forums for important conversations in the discipline.

· A description of significant “mechanisms of intercommunication” or genres typically used by members of the discourse community to share, discuss, and critique new disciplinary information. This section should include specific examples, not just broad categories like “articles” or “websites” or general statements of topics like “issues in medicine.” Thus, for each genre described, students should reference a specific example and briefly highlight the major genre conventions, issues or topics addressed by the specific “mechanism” under review.

· A description of contemporary major topics of conversation as well as any significant changes in your chosen field of study that have taken place over the last 5-10 years. This section should also identify a short list of the most important terms, acronyms, and key words that make up the disciplinary vernacular.

· 2-3 of your own research questions about the contemporary major topics of your discourse community (as identified above). These questions and their revisions will continue to drive your research over the course of the semester.

· A bibliographic list of all pertinent resources you have uncovered during your search (even if uncited), using the citation method appropriate to the field.

Learning Objectives:

Research

· Use primary and secondary research methods to discover key disciplinary or professional genres, research methods, organizations, topics, etc.

Write

· Describe key communicative practices using concrete evidence and examples from research.

· Compose research questions that follow from this analysis and description.

· Work through careful revision and editing based on peer and teacher feedback and the student’s own review of and reflection on a draft of the research guide website.

Due Date(s) For Major Project Milestones:

Rough Draft due 5.19.19 by 11:59 PM on Canvas

Final Draft due 5.26.19 by 11:59 PM on Canvas

Assigned Readings and Helpful Resources: