Synthesis

ROJECT 2: TOPIC: WRITING STUDIES

Research is an act of discovery; this is where you begin to plan for a sustained and feasible line of inquiry within writing studies. You will spend time reading, writing, and talking about writing.

Part 1: Begin by exploring key composition terms such as: inquiry, reflection, revision, synthesis, discourse community, rhetorical situation, audience, context, purpose, and genre in order to help you determine what sort of “niche” within a territory you intend to occupy.

Part 2: Pursue a line of inquiry through locating and evaluating source texts and data. You will propose and complete primary research (student-developed surveys, interviews, polls, artifact analysis, or observations) and integrate the use of scholarly texts as a way of synthesizing your research with those of published academics (thereby continuing to enhance your authority in conversation with scholars).

Part 3: You will draft a 5 page research essay where you show that you have begun “occupying your niche” in which you do the following tasks:

Craft a Swales-Like Introduction

Establish your territory by

claiming centrality

making topic generalizations

reviewing previous items of research

Establish your niche via question-raising

Doing this work means your introduction is a section of your draft, rather than just the first paragraph of your draft. Therefore, use as many paragraphs as you see fit for executing these moves. Refer to both the Swales text for guidance.

Craft Inquisitively-Driven Body Paragraphs

In your body paragraphs, spend time exploring your niche, using your research to do so. This work requires you pose questions, introduce your sources, explain key concepts/data from your sources, apply that source material to your questions, and then raise a new question that you investigate with another source.

Craft a Where-To-Next? Conclusion

The conclusion of your draft should focus on one key thing: Where do you want to go next? At the end of your essay, identify new inquiries that build from what you have thus far. What’s still on your mind? What are you still curious about?

Part 4: Once you complete a draft we will individually conference in order to support further research work.

Part 5: Peer review and revision.

Journal: Throughout this project, you will keep a log or journal of your experiences. In this log you will include everything from deciding which territory to engage in, to developing your inquiry, to investigating that inquiry (and all of the false starts, dead ends, and direction changes accompanying that) you produce a narrative of your experience throughout. I have created an assignment called “Project 2 Log” which you are responsible for throughout this project and is due at the end of the project. While it is not due until the end of the project, I will periodically check your journal to see how you are progressing with your project.