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last.updated 10.27.08

 

Field Research

Purpose

When we write, we will use various sources to support what we have to say. While textual sources can give you a good sense of how an issue is perceived in general or in other places, doing some of your own research can give you a good sense of how the issue plays out locally. Field research also gives you access to experts and a more one-to-one opportunity to learn more about the subject that just reading up on a subject does not offer. For the Audience Research Memo, you will be doing some field research to learn more about your audience. But the first step of doing any field research is establishing your research question. We will discuss strategies for defining these guiding questions in class today.

Freewrite–Reflective Write

For fifteen minutes, use the principles of rhetoric and genre to explain the composition of your Proposals. In other words, use this opportunity to explain to your instructor the deliberate decisions you made to compose this text. You can do this by hand or type it out.

Discussion–Research Questions

Research questions are the primary, and often broad, questions researchers use to guide their research process. While some of these questions may be used for interviews or questionnaires, the questions used for these research tools are often more specific and help the researcher to answer the research questions. For example...

Research Questions Source Details
How do faculty across the campus use Social Networking sites? Interview with faculty members, examination of SN profiles

Interview

  • Please show me around your profile page.
  • Why did you sign up for a SN site account?
  • What do you usually do when you log into your SN site?

Examination

  • What applications do they use?
  • What information do they reveal about themselves?
How does their use of social networking sites influence how they teach writing? Interview with faculty members, examination of their writing assignments

Interview

  • What educational value do you think SN sites have?
  • How does the type of writing that you do for SN, compare to the writing you assign?
  • What do you value in student writing?

Examination

  • What type of assignment do they assign?
  • How do they assess the writing? What do they value?

Workshop–Getting Started

Use the remaining class time to start developing your research questions. You may need to start by doing some textual research on your actual audience or people like your audience.