Major Research Paper Prompt

You can access a downloadable pdf version of this prompt here: Major Research Paper Prompt PDF

Why?

As we’ll be exploring throughout this quarter, Writing Center studies draws from a wide variety of contexts and disciplines. While many of you are interested in tutoring or teaching at some point in your future careers, many of you might not be. With this in mind, this assignment offers you the opportunity to find and make connections between interests in your life (academic, personal, professional, community-based, etc.) and any aspect of Writing Center studies that you find relevant.

The Assignment

For this assignment, you will be writing a 2400-3000 word research paper that answers the question:
How can Writing Center Studies either influence or be influenced by another discipline and/or context?

Your discussion should draw from research in Writing Center scholarship and should seek to make connections between the work done in Writing Centers and another context or discipline. You will also do a Work-in-Progress Update as part of your project.

The Research Paper

While the scope of this research paper is anchored in a connection to Writing Centers, you do have a lot of freedom within that established focus. That is, you are welcome to draw from any other discipline or context for your discussion. This could range from discussing how anthropology as a discipline can inform the way that writing center consultations are conducted to considering how your part-time job could learn from the policies of writing centers to speculating how a financial advisor might benefit from time spent working as a writing consultant… or any other connection that you can make.

A few things to keep in mind as you are researching and drafting your paper:

  • You should draw most of your research from Writing Center scholarship. There are open-access online journals, such as Praxis or The Peer Review (which we’ll be spending time with during Week 4), or there are resources available through UCSB’s library, such as The Writing Center Journal or any number of individual articles.
  • You are welcome to consider any aspect of Writing Center work that you are interested in, including but not limited to:
    • tutor-training
    • non-verbal communication
    • mission statements
    • collaboration/collaborative learning
    • outreach
    • staffing
    • policies
    • writing anxiety
    • feedback
    • brainstorming
    • interpersonal interaction
    • problem solving
    • space (physical space… not outer space)
    • dialogue
    • play
  • revision
  • cross-cultural communication
  • identity/ies
  • research methodologies
  • management
  • interdisciplinarity
  • non-directive approaches
  • disability
  • epistemology
  • systemic oppression
  • the concept of expertise
  • English language learning/learners
  • rhetoric
  • liminality
  • You can use whatever citation style your prefer (MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, etc.), but it should be consistent throughout.
  • You are welcome to use the first-person, “I,” but the discussion should be analytical in nature.
  • Your paper should follow traditional writing expectations (use paragraphs, complete sentences, cite your sources, make conclusions, etc.), unless you reach out to me to discuss other alternative approaches.

The Work-in-Progress Update
(due Monday, November 30th)

As part of the major research paper, you will also be sharing your project (or at least, what progress you’ve made on it so far) with your classmates during Week 10 via a video you will share in the Dialectical Journal. *Note: This is required for everyone.

Your video should be approximately 5 minutes long, should present your project, and should explain where you are in the process, what choices you’ve made, and what questions you have (what you would like others to comment on/about). *Note: They really shouldn’t be anything to stress about. 😉

Your video should be in your individual folder and linked in the appropriate Dialectical Journal by the end of the day by the end of the day Monday, June 1st. During Week 10, we will be taking a look at how everyone in the class is doing with their final research projects. This is both an opportunity to receive feedback on your project and see how others are approaching a similar task in a different way.

In your video, you can/should:

  • present the topic/connection you are researching
  • present the argument you are making,
  • establish some of the sources you’re using and why
  • talk about what you’ve accomplished thus far,
  • talk about some of the theories/beliefs you’re connecting to discussion
  • express the concerns you have at this point, etc.

In other words, these “updates” are all about sharing your progress with your peers, talking through your ideas, and getting some feedback about it all. Additionally, you should use visual aids (power point, google slides, prezi, sway, canva, etc.) to help convey your ideas and ground your discussion in tangible points.

Watch this short video to see how to use Zoom for your final project

The video is a bit old, but it should still be helpful, hopefully.

Note: You will not be assessed based on the quality of the video, but more on the content. That is, I recognize these are new challenges for many, and I am not looking for how well you can edit a video. So, I recognize that a good portion of your videos might be you just speaking to the camera. That’s fine; as long as you have some slides along the way, I have no problem with that. (As the video above explains, you can actually do the whole thing via Zoom… just record yourself in a meeting and use screen share. It’s surprisingly easy. That said, feel free to email me or tag me in Google Drive with any questions you have at any point.)