The Research Journal assignment will provide you with opportunity to develop the habits that will help you engage in successful research and inquiry in the future.
During the first part of the semester, you will be engaging in "inquiry" and "research" as a way to explore issues or problems that interest you. No restrictions. Our goal during this time will be to learn about the relationships among Information Literacy and Research and Learning.
As we near mid-term, you will begin to focus on one or two issues that you want to learn about even further during the second half of the semester.
I will expect to see regular updates (weekly or more frequently), dated and explained fully enough to show that you are engaging in this part of the assignment sequence. Here you will keep track of the questions you are developing and are trying to answer with your research.
Of course, "questions" seem to assume a "topic" or "issue"; consider the following (we will discuss this much more fully in class during the semester):
Ideally, when we research, we are looking for answers to questions. We may start with a "topic," but we want to develop the expertise to identify issues or problems related to a topic and to develop questions that will help us understand the problem / issue in ways that will help us resolve or move toward resolution / solution. We research a "topic" as a way to understand / identify its parts, how / why it is meaningful for others. If we only stop with answers to the "what" questions, we are gathering information for an encyclopedia, in a sense. An information literate citizen moves beyond that process of only gathering information. We want to be able to use information, in our work and lives. We use information to address problems, concerns, issues that we face regularly in our work and our lives. Thus, the need to move beyond researching a topic and instead identifying problems that lead to questions. We do research to answer questions. More specifically, we will be learning about how to develop questions such as "how," "why," and "so what"; but you will also be looking for answers to "what" and "where" and "who" questions, too.
In the first part of the semester, and beginning with your first entry in this section, you have the luxury of exploring topics / issues that are interesting to you, whether they are related to your major, your career, or any assignment. For example, your first entry in your Research Journal may simply be sharing your interests with me and your classmates.
Our early interactions with the Library and other research resources will help you develop further questions. During these early weeks, we want you to experience what it feels like to do the kinds of research (inquiry, exploration) that contributes to your information literacy.
Please note that you are deciding only on what you want to learn more about through research. This is not a decision about what you want to write about. That decision comes later. This assignment sequence of the course focuses only on the "research as learning."
As we near the mid-term portfolio, you will begin to identify a focus for your work this semester. You will be developing research questions related to that focus and that will help you with the Semester Project Proposal that is due with the mid-term portfolio.
As you work on your project, your research will result in more questions, and more research. This section of your Research Journal is meant to help you practice developing and keep track of the many questions you generate to guide your research.
Perhaps one of the most valuable skills you will learn and develop in college (and beyond) will be your ability to ask meaningful questions and to know how to seek answers to those questions.
Each research journal will include the following information (copy and paste the information below into a google doc and use it as your template for each journal entry):