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A Brief Description of Advanced Research Writing: Advanced Research Writing 409 provides majors in the B.S. in Writing Program and others interested in advanced work in the forms and practices of writing in their disciplines with the opportunity to consider the meaning of professionalism, and to study the goals, audiences, sources, methods, and processes requisite for research and professionalization as writers in their fields.

In considering the nature of expertise and process of professionalization, Advanced Research Writing 409 maintains an interdisciplinary focus. It provides a seminar environment within which students in creative and professional writing, and students of other academic disciplines, may pursue individual or collaborative semester-long reading and writing projects approximating those undertaken by practicing professionals, without thematic constraints. You may choose to write about any topic of importance within your field, with an eye to actual submission of the work. The shared classroom context will allow us to communicate about sources, discuss problems, and give each other advice. In addition, we will consider what it means to write as a professional in your field and the differing requirements for research in creative and field-related genres.

My Goals for You as Students in Advanced Research Writing: There are several objectives and competencies we will strive to achieve and promote.

To identify disciplinary models of research and distinguish formal writing venues from general audiences and everyday experience.

To consider the rhetorical context in which academic and/or expert knowledge is developed, including the process of persuading colleagues of the validity of results and/or one’s entitlement to speak.

To produce an annotated bibliography and prepare and present a researched project in a professional area of the students choice, with the instructor’s approval, as part of a semester-long process--one that includes finding, evaluating, and integrating source material, planning and drafting, revising, and editing.

To understand the difficulties and problems associated with writing for multiple audiences and the importance of demonstrating knowledge of a field’s technical language while writing intelligibly for all potential readers.

To learn the appropriate technologies and resources available to you on-line and in libraries, as well as develop the habit of working with reference librarians and technology services to take full advantage of available resources in finding and evaluating sources.

To understand even independent projects as "collaboratively authored" and learn how to acknowledge one’s formal and informal, primary and secondary, sources fairly and accurately, as well as recognize the different standards for documentation in creative and professional projects. The student should master documentation styles appropriate for the project.

To explore available venues for presentation and publication of one’s work.

Evaluation of Your Progress: The most important area to be assessed is your completed research project and its presentation. Assessment of your project will include your research log and weekly short summaries and analyses of completed reading, interviews, surveys, etc. You are also asked to participate in shared reading and classroom discussion regarding our book, your projects and the process of professionalization as we find it elaborated by practicing professionals, in discipline-specific publication in print or online. We will carry on a threaded conversation regarding these issues online, a way in which your participation will be further assessed. I will ask you to contribute online links you find in your research to a resource page if you think they could be of general professional interest.

Examples of Possible Writing Projects:

Creative Writing: If you wish to complete a project in creative writing, I will ask you to select four or five areas of interest, ultimately narrowing to one. Next you will create a bibliography and prospectus and read a wide range of writing related to the subject, style, and genre in which you wish to work. This reading will further direct and refine your project. Students would produce a collection of stories, poems, and/or essays developed out of this reading.

Professional Writing: If you wish to complete a field-related project outside an academic context, the Federal Register is one source for discovering governmental regulations being contemplated for industries. You might pursue a research plan to produce a particular company’s testimony for or against the regulation. You might produce, in addition to this testimony, other documents the company might use to present its point of view, such as press releases, company newsletter articles, etc. Thus you will come to understand the role of professional writers who must defer to content experts outside the field of writing, exhibit and maintain professionalism for themselves, and translate technical material both for themselves and the general public. If you wish to complete an academic, field-related project, you should research not only the topic, but a conference suitable for presentation, a publication you will target for submission, how to shape the project towards the editorial concerns of the journal, and how to position it among topics currently of importance in the field.

Since much professional-level work is collaboratively authored, you may choose to write a collaborative project if you find a willing partner!

Specific Course Activities:

At times speakers will address the class about professionalism and writing in their fields. Representatives from Bailey Library and Technology Services will help you develop research skills and locate sources for your project. You will be asked to subscribe to an appropriate Listservs on the Internet where you can participate as well as monitor discussion among practicing professionals, in order to acquaint yourself with publications they typically read and methods of exchange they typically use. You can expect to report on your work-in-progress. I will do my best to make it impossible for you to procrastinate by setting interim deadlines!

The Research Log: In your research log I would like you to discuss the sources you have investigated, used, and rejected, and the amount of time you have spent in the library and searching on-line in order to help you reflect on the investment of time and energy the various stages of writing require. Doing so will help to develop your ability to manage a research project as a professional. You will also discuss how the project "shapes itself" as you read and write and how your audience and the venue for publication affect what you select to read and write.

A Few Words on Plagiarism and Attendance

In academic work it is a sign of professionalism to be aware of what has already been written regarding your subject and to use it in your own work, while making your own contribution. Thus you should not fear reading others' work and building on their ideas in formulating your own. Our book discusses, in fact, changing standards in the placement, number, etc. of footnotes and references in academic work over time. Just be sure that you give credit to those who have contributed to your thinking generally, those whom you paraphrase, and those whom you cite word for word. The real failure of plagiarism is not using another’s work, but failing to acknowledge you have! Handing in verbatim the work of another author, professional or student, without such credit is obviously a breech of professionalism as well as ethics. When discovered it will result in your losing credit for your work in the course.

Standards of documentation differ, of course, depending on the field, audience, and purpose, but nearly all writing develops out of a reservoir of reading that has literally become part of your life experience. Learn to be generous in acknowledging this fact, wherever possible. Precious little, if anything, arrives full blown from an isolated, inventive mind, in spite our culture's valuing of originality. There are ways to so echo your forbearers, even in creative work, that you make clear your debt to them. Frequently such connections enhance the prestige of your work rather than diminish assessment of your ability, as certainly is true, for instance, in the case of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-prize winning novel A Thousand Acres, based on King Lear.

Grading

Criteria for your paper and oral presentation of it will be outlined on assignment sheets.

Participation in class activities and discussion 30 Points

Oral presentation 20 Points

Research Log and Finished Research Project 50 Points