Hi everyone, welcome to the home stretch! Begin writing your research paper this week (if you haven’t already). If you get stuck, refer to the organizational tools posted on this site: found in the Tip Sheets and Modules. Feel free to reach out to me if you need help, big or small. And most importantly, try to fit in a bit of downtime this week amidst everything.
Here’s what you need to do this week:
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- Leave comments the draft or intro of each person in your working group. Open their folder, view everything that’s in there, and write feedback on the folder “holistically.” Try to be compassionate and supportive, but don’t say things like “looks great to me, wouldn’t change anything!” See feedback instructions below.
- Continue writing your paper. Put your Second Draft of 4 double-spaced pages and a Writer’s Letter in your working group folder by Sunday, 11/29, 11:59PM.
- Give yourself time to rest, watch TV, eat food, etc 🙂
Instructions for feedback:
OBSERVATIONAL: What’s happening? How is the paper coming together? What is the paper about? What is it trying to do?
WARM FEEDBACK: What do you love? Where is there energy or excitement? When you identify something you love, write what you love about it in your comment, so the writer can understand what about that thing works so well.
COOL FEEDBACK: Keeping in mind that the draft is in its very beginning stages, what advice can you offer for further development? Is there anything that needs clarification? Are there parts where you got lost or confused (be honest)? Does the writer need to add more details in a certain spot?
Instructions for Writer’s Letter
Begin to develop a list of tasks you will work on next (i.e. developing a paragraph, moving a paragraph around, adding more examples, doing more research on a subtopic). By the end of this week, that list of tasks should take shape into your Writer’s Letter. Be specific: for every task you identify, you must write why this task will benefit your paper/ why you want to do it. For example: I need to add more secondary sources to support the claim I make in paragraph 4; I need to show a more cohesive transition between section 3 and 4; I want to clarify some sentences that are harder to read.
Writer’s Letter format:
Here are 3 tasks I will work on before turning in my final paper:
Here is something I need help with/ feedback on:
Review of Org Structures
Introductions
Thesis-Driven: example of what analysis looks like or why analysis is important. A story or quick sample of analysis is common.
IMRD: beginning with a surprising or engaging statistic from a study, and getting right into what the conversation is on the topic. Lots of citations right away.
Problem-Solution: Directly offering what the problem is and the context of that problem before exploring in more depth later.
Methods
Thesis-Driven: In the thesis, the way for making knowledge is hinted at before a more in-depth description is offered later on. Not really a separate section for this more in-depth description, but there can be. If you are interpreting texts in specific way, i.e. through a “lens,” that will be outlined here. This is combined with thinking through what other scholars have claimed about the topic, which makes methods/ introductions very integrated rather than separate.
IMRD: Written almost like a recipe, to try to outline all decisions made in trying to gather and analyze information using qualitative and/ or quantitative ways to do so. Someone should be able to read a methods section and would then know exactly what steps to take to replicate the study. You can also think of this as an abstract.
Problem-Solution: This is a flexible structure, but generally the method is implied in the structure. That is, it reviews a body of evidence, synthesizes information like a literature review does as a way to set up the solution section later.
Analysis
Thesis-Driven: Once the method for analysis is explained and demonstrated, the analysis is then carried out in sections separated by different themes or topics around the thesis. The significance of what is found in the analysis can sometimes be integrated into these sections of analysis prior to a fuller investigation in the conclusion.
IMRD: The results section will provide information about what was found when the analysis was carried out. Much of the analysis was done “off the page” and is reported here. No interpretation is directly made, but you can indirectly gather what that interpretation might be.
Problem-Solution: The analysis is carried out both in the background information section, where a collection of knowledge is defined for the subject, but also in the solution section, when there is a justification made for why a specific solution would work best based on the background information. Like Thesis-Driven, analysis/ conclusion are a bit integrated.
Conclusions
Thesis-Driven: Usually something at least slightly new happens here, where the writer wants to gesture toward the value of the analysis carried out, possible new directions or applications of the analysis, and perhaps some space toward what limitations they ran up against (counterargument, perhaps). Thesis is restated in a new way, more fully developed.
IMRD: The discussion section now provides a direct comment on the interpretation of the results, there is usually mention about limitations in the study (counterargument), there is often a gesture toward future directions for the research.
Problem-Solution: The solution sections often are sort of a conclusion but there may be a more formal conclusion that repeats what has been said but in a way that might underscore the urgency for taking action.