In Unit 1, you did some preliminary research on your topic and now, in Unit 2, you’ve narrowed it down to a research question. As we’ve discussed, however, research questions need to be divided into smaller, manageable questions. For this assignment, you will find two sources that each work to answer questions you have–and that help you move towards an answer for your research question.
• Purpose: For this assignment, you will find two sources that each work to answer questions you have–and that help you move towards an answer for your research question. You will provide a summary of each and then write a reflection guided by the questions provided below with the goal of helping you and your reader better understand your next steps in developing your larger research project. Your task is to persuade your instructor and classmates that you are exploring effectively, demonstrating intellectual curiosity, reading rhetorically and with an open mind. You will want to show that you are learning something new about your topic with each log and you will ultimately want to show how the process of writing this log has impacted your understanding of the issue and of the focus of your research project.
• Audience: Your instructor and classmates
• Genre: The genre you are writing in is a research log. Please see the assignment introduction page for more details.
• Skills learned/practiced: source selection, rhetorical analysis, summary, synthesis
Step 0:
Review Instructor Feedback. Your research question will lay the foundation of everything that comes next. If it isn’t appropriate, it can cause you significant trouble. Therefore, you must review the feedback that you received on Writing Your Research Question (https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/213267/assignments/2847437).
Step 1:
Open this Google Document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kMKug_MCKTEgJ72-QcFzAFKrJR9T96gdlk-Kr11aGIA/edit?usp=sharing) and make a copy to live on your drive (do not request edit access–once you make a copy, you will be able to edit your copy). Instructions (with images) for how to make a copy can be found in this page (https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/213267/pages/how-to-use-google-doc-and-share-2). You will use this Google Doc for Logs #1-3, submitting the same document for each one. You’ll keep adding to the document and submitting it again. That w
ay, I can always see your previous work in one place and so can you.
Step 2:
Once you’ve got a copy of the document above to work with, prepare a response using the questions below. For this log, prepare your answer under the heading for Log 1.
Remember: you can format the answers however makes the information clearer to you (subheadings, bullets, tables, paragraphs, etc). You’ll want to be able to understand this information later when you look at it without my questions.
However, you might see your logs as polishedwritten texts with your instructor as the audience. You want to persuade your instructor that you are exploring effectively by demonstrating intellectual curiosity, rhetorical reading and an open mind. You will want to show that you are learning something new about your topic with each new log, and will ultimately want to show how the process has impacted your understanding of the issue and the focus of your research project. You’ll also want to answer all the questions and to revise your log so that it is well written and easy to follow.
1 Write your research question at the top of the document under the “log 1” header.
2 Then below that, write out the questions that you developed previously (this will be the start of your log). Feel free to include any new questions that have occurred to you since then.
3 Do some research on the library webpage (https://library.fiu.edu/) or on Google or Google Scholar until you find sources that answer your questions (that you just listed for #2) a) in a way you can understand and b) that help you understand the large conversation better.
• Be sure to practice lateral reading (https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/213267/pages/lateral-reading-2)to ensure that these are reliable sources! Once you’ve found two sources you like:
• Post a link to each source (I’m looking for 2 sources). Below the link for that source, write the author of the source, title of the source, and location of the source. (For example, this might look like: “Waking up Tomorrow” by John Jones in NYTimes, or “Fundamental Skills for Nurses” by Jana Pickett in Journal for Medicine.)
• Then, below each link (so that I know which summary matches which link) include a rhetorical summary with each one of your sources. The Rhetorical Summary for Research Logs Page (https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/213267/pages/rhetorical-summary-for-research-logs-2)
provides you with the guiding questions that will help you write a rhetorical summary.
Put it together and reflect on your next steps.
After you’ve answered the questions above for each of those sources, post a summary of what you feel you understand about your topic, what you are confused about, what questions you still have. You should discuss:
• What questions do you have now that you did not have before? What might you want to research next? (You might consider Guidelines for Coming Up with Good Exploration Questions PDF (https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/213267/files/33086350?verifier=bVhpVY1SGmjzp2HpedliVIJEyuQqhClJOtx7JvBH&wrap=1) as you try to come up with questions to follow in your next log.)
• What do you understand (overall) about your research question and its potential answers? What aspect of the topic are you most interested in? You will have to start narrowing your research to a smaller sub-topic or question within your general topic. What ideas do you have for this narrowed focus? You might think about the article you’ve found most interesting or what major questions, problem or possible solution, you’ve found most interesting so far.
• If you were going to explain this topic to someone, what are the parts you would be less confident explaining?
• What are some phrases or terms that you see repeated a lot in your sources that might help you search for more articles on this topic? (For example, if I’m researching COVID, I might see that some sources refer t
o it as “coronavirus disease” or SARS-CoV-2. I may see that a lot of sources mention something called “long COVID”.)