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last.updated 9.29.13
Conducting Primary Research
Purpose
During today's lesson you will see how primary research conducted. You will first have an opportunity to analyze and ask questions about a research study. Then you will start mapping out the details of your own research project.
Freewrite: Understanding the Article
For the first ten minutes of class, answer the following questions and keep your responses for your portfolio:
- What is DePew argument?
- What are some specific points that DePew makes to support his argument? How does the research data support this argument?
- What were some of the challenges that you experienced reading this article and how did you (try to overcome) each obstacle? What questions do you have about DePew's decisions for conducting research?
Activity I: Look at the Brains on the Professor
You will be assigned to the following group.
| Groups | Members | Section |
| 1 | Danielle, Olivia, Chad | Introduction (pp. 54-56) |
| 2 | Aaron, Dominick, Darah, Reid | Resistance from the Periphery & Social Media (pp. 56-60) |
| 3 | Cody, Morgan, Wanangwa | Methods & Bakul Case Study (pp. 60-63) |
| 4 | Yaminequa, , Kestyn, Jesse, Phillip | Dhanesh Case Study (pp. 63-67) |
| 5 | Brian, Ifrah, Becky | Victoria Case Study (pp. 67-70) |
| 6 | David, Simone, Trish | Conclusion (pp. 70-71) |
Work with your group to answer the following four questions in detail (bring in passages from the text to support or illustrate your answer). You will compose your responses in an email addressed to the instructor and each group member. Each person should print their responses and place it into the folder with their Proposal. You will have twenty-five minutes to answer the following questions:
- What is the author's overall argument for the entire article?
- What work is being done in this section. By "work" I mean the way that the content of this section supports the argument and the overall purpose of the article.
- What are the sub-sections of your assigned sections? You will not find them based upon a heading, so you will have to look through the content and determine what work each paragraph is doing and where the work changes. How do the subsections support the work of the overall section?
- What parts of this section do you have questions about? What did you not understand? What challenged your assumptions or surprised you about how college writing works?
After 25 minutes we will discuss your responses as class.
Freewrite II: Writing Topic
Use the balance of the class, to write an email to the instructor (kdepew@odu.edu) in which you describe 2 or 3 writing related topics that you want to work on this semester. For each topic explain why you are interested in the topic and how you might conduct primary research to examine that topic.