Week Eight

For Week Eight, we begin learning about research as we look ahead to our third major project, with steps due in the coming weeks, and to the Final Portfolio, with preliminary steps due this week.

For our third and last major writing project (before the Final Portfolio), you will be conducting research to support your position in a written argument. The final version of this researched argument will be due as your 14.1 assignment (full instructions are on the Week Fourteen page), but you will be completing steps each week leading up to that final version (see table previewing steps further down on this page).

To get started learning about research and source use, complete the following tasks:

• Read HTWA chapters 43-48

• Read "Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources" by Cynthia R. Haller

• Read "Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills" by Randall McClure

• Watch "Writing with Sources: Quoting, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing" (YouTube)

• Review the two slideshows below on Intro to Research and Using Sources Ethically

• Take a look at these Resources on MLA:

  • HTWA chapter 53

  • University of Louisville Writing Center videos on MLA (YouTube)

  • Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide

An argument makes a claim based on reasons supported by evidence. The evidence comes from published sources and field research. An effective argument uses rhetorical appeals, devices, and features appropriate for the rhetorical situation and avoids fallacies.

Research takes time, focus, and effort. Therefore, you should strive to choose a topic that interests you and is a serious, academic, debatable issue with adequate, requisite source material available. Let’s break that down:

• Serious = important, significant, consequential, and/or far-reaching

• Academic = educational, scholarly, instructional, and/or philosophical

• Debatable issue =

  • Debatable = open to debate, discussion, and/or argument; disputable; reasonable people may disagree

  • Issue = an important topic for debate or discussion; a matter of dispute between two or more people

• Adequate, requisite source material = you must be able to find the requisite number and type of sources required for this project

Do not pick topics related to the following: abortion, gun control, gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, or free college tuition.

***Ultimately, I must approve your topic. We will have a class discussion on topics and approval in Week Nine. This class discussion will start early in Week Nine so that all students can end Week Nine with a firm topic. Thus, you should begin thinking about topic ideas, do some brainstorming, and perhaps some initial research, to help you formulate ideas and be prepared for Week Nine.

This project will span several weeks. The table below previews the steps and the weeks in which each will be due. More information on the steps will be provided in the weeks due.

In Week Three you were told to be thinking about what web builder you wanted to use for your Final Portfolio website and to be sure to keep all versions of your papers to be displayed on that portfolio. The full instructions for the Final Portfolio are now available on the Week Fifteen-Finals Week page.

Despite that "warning" about versions in Week Three, I've had at least one student contact me about draft versions. Many of you may have been using the same Google Doc for drafts and final versions of your major writing project papers. I try to prevent this by requiring that the versions be named according to the week (e.g., 6.1 versus 7.1). Alas, though, it seems many of you simply change the name of the document (or don't name it correctly to begin with) and now have an issue with displaying the different versions for your portfolio.

From this point forward, be sure to name your Docs correctly and save versions. For the Reflection and Rhetorical Analysis projects that we've already completed, there are a couple of ways this can be addressed for the Final Portfolio:

Option 1 (preferred method):

1. Open the Google Doc containing the final version of your paper. Make a copy of the Doc (File>Make a Copy). Name the copy correctly as the final version (e.g., 7.1 Rhetorical Analysis Paper <YourLastName>). Close that version.

2. Go back to the Doc you made a copy of and click to see the version history (File>Version history>See version history). Select the previous version from the right sidebar, then click the blue "Restore this version" button near the top left of the screen. Rename that version correctly as the draft (e.g., 6.1 Draft for Peer Review <YourLastName>). If you have multiple versions in the right sidebar (i.e., you worked on your document on several different occasions, save all the versions in a way that you can tell their order); the more versions you share on your portfolio, the easier it is to illustrate process.

3. Share all versions you now have on your Final Portfolio. Make sure that your permissions are set correctly for viewing these documents on the portfolio ("Anyone at UALR with link can view"). Otherwise, when you share the documents on your portfolio, either via links or as embedded docs, they may not allow access. If the documents are not accessible on the Final Portfolio, your score will suffer.

4. Do this for every paper that you edited all in one document.

Option 2:

1. Share the final version of the paper in question. Write a detailed explanation of the changes (revisions and edits) you made to progress from the draft to the final version and include it on the portfolio webpage containing the final version (linked or embedded).

2. Again, make sure that your permissions are set correctly for viewing documents on the portfolio.

3. Again, do this for every paper that you edited all in one document.

Whichever option you choose, you'll need to display evidence of process (preferably in versions or, alternatively, via detailed explanation) on the Final Portfolio. So the versions/explanations need to be there by the time the Final Portfolio is due (at the end of the semester). However, for this Week Eight, I want to see that you:

• have read and understood the instructions for the Final Portfolio (on the Week Fifteen-Finals Week page),

• have considered the best way to present your work/organize your portfolio website,

• have decided on which web builder you will use to create your portfolio website, AND

• have created a live, published portfolio website with a home/landing page, effective structure and navigation, working menu and appropriately named pages.

Thus, you will submit your portfolio website link as your 8.1 assignment detailed below.