In-Class, Nov. 6th: Conclusion

How to Write the Conclusion:

• must be the best-written part of the whole research essay
• must answer your research question (you can restate it!)
• must relate to your Literature Review (example: if one of your article in the Lit Review was against marijuana, and listed reasons for it, but your own survey found out that most people were in favor of it, write about the differences.)
• must contain MAJOR findings (Unlike your Results section, which talked about ALL your findings from ALL your questions step by step, the Conclusion only contains the main findings in %.)
• must contain speculations/assumptions WHY your findings were like this. You don't need to be "right", since you only assume certain reasons for the answers you got. Example: If you found out that 90% of your surveyed students do not participate in off-campus activities, you might assume that their university work load and their job hours make it impossible for them to participate in off-campus activities....)
• must contain implications/recommendations for the practice. Example: If you found out that texting really makes students' grammar worse, you could recommend that teachers instruct their high school students in code-switching, so they become aware that texting lingo is appropriate in informal settings, but not in academic papers.

In-Class, Nov. 6th: How to Write Introduction

Today, we are composing the Introduction and Conclusion, and then, our papers are finished - yay!!!

Below are the guidelines for how to compose the

Introduction

• don't use the words FACT, PROVE, and TRUTH!!!!
• don't use, "the writer brings his point across." Say directly what the message is.
  
• stay general
• no quotes
• no personal opinions (non-evaluative)
• some facts and the status quo of your topic in society today
• can (not: must!) include statistics (%) that you got from the Internet. If you use statistics, you need to mention who found them out, and in which year, so that we know if they're still valid. Example: "According to a study of the Ministry of Health Education from 2006, 80% of the U.S. women who get an abortion are white...."
• if it is "common knowledge," you don't need to cite your sources. That means, if you get ideas from the Internet that could be common knowledge (i.e., could have been your own perception), then it suffices to say, "according to many students' view, the drinking age in the U.S. should be lowered because...", and then you list reasons you find on the Internet.
• last sentence: justify why your research was needed, and what GAP in existing research literature it filled. (Example: all your three sources were from the 1940s-1960s. Your research is from 2009 and gives an up-date on the situation. Another example: your three sources only talked about English students. Your research talks about other content areas, like History, as well.....)
• Stay in passive voice; no personal pronouns!!!
  

How to write Abstract

How to write the Abstract:

Task1: Go to this website and read about the four components of an abstract:

1) Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the problem? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap is your research filling?

2) Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get your results? (e.g. analyzed 3 novels, completed a series of 5 oil paintings, interviewed 17 students)

3) Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above procedure, what did you learn/invent/create?

4) Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications of your findings, especially for the problem/gap identified in step 1?

Also read the many example abstracts for different fields (social studies, humanities, biology, etc.) offered on this website. This is what your abstract is supposed to look like. Mind the word limit: 150-200 words!

Task 2: Then, compose an abstract for your own research essay, using the "real" data you got back from surveymonkey.

What's due on Wednesday

Due Wednesday, Nov. 4th:

On Wednesday, Nov. 4th, you need to have your completed Literature Review with you in an online version (with the corrections of the visiting Writing Center tutors applied).

In class, we will pair you up with a peer editor, to give the Unit Essay 2 (= Lit. Review) a final polish. You will hand in your Literature Review AS HARD COPY to me coming Friday, Nov. 6th, with your peer editor's comments attached to it.

THERE ARE NO REWRITES!!!!

Your chance for a rewrite was when the Writing Center tutors told you their comments, and when your peer editors gave your essay the final polish. You'll get your final grade for Unit Essay 2 (= 100 points) from me after Friday.

If you were at the Writing Center tutors' workshop last Friday (I count everyone who has signed the sign-up sheet), you will get the points for the workshop automatically. If you missed the in-class workshop last Friday and went to the Writing Center instead, I will give you the points for the in-class workshop as soon as your WC tutor sends me your conference summary in the campus mail. I won't collect any Lit Reviews of people who did NOT attend the workshop, or did NOT go to the Writing Center. Those will be considered an F. You can still hand them in for your Unit Essay 4, but that won't change your F for Unit Essay 2.

Of course, in case I still found a mistake, you need to correct it, because the Lit Review is a component of your Final Unit Essay 4 (the complete research essay; 200 points).

For those who go to the Writing Center because they were sick on the Workshop Day: you'll never know when the Writing Center will have time to fit you in the schedule for an appointment, so you can have an extension, if necessary. However, you need to submit your Lit Reviews so that I can grade them BEFORE you submit your final essay; otherwise, you'll make the same mistakes again in the final essay!!!

Also due on Wednesday: the finished "Participants" and "3 graphs" that we started on today in class. Those are homework. Please put them in the same essay (your template) that you submit to me for grading the Lit Review this Friday. The sections of "Participants" and "3 graphs" are only homework. You also need to repair those, because they are major components of your final essay.
next Monday, Nov. 9th, as HARD COPY with your peer editor's comments attached. I won't collect any without peer-edits; those will be an F. THERE ARE NO REWRITES, since your peer editors already pre-edited your essays.

Grade Overview:

Unit Paper 1 (Icarus): 100 points (last rewrites can be handed in on the last day of class before Thanksgiving break!!!)
Unit Paper 2: Lit Review (100 points)
Unit Paper 3: Annotated Bibliography (100 points)
Unit Paper 4: Complete Research Essay (200 points)

All unit papers together = 500 points out of a 1,000.

That means, when you had very good Unit Papers 2 and 3, your very important final essay will also be at least good (even if you were not so perfect in the other components)!!! ;-)


Overview of what we have finished by now (yay!!!):

1. Lit Review
2. Annotated Bib
3. Participants
4. the three graphs (with the REAL numbers, not the fake ones)
5. Annex (= your printed-out surveymonkey report sheet with your data)

What we will do on Wednesday, Nov. 6th:

1. pair you up for peer-editing of the Lit Reviews and Annotated Bibs (homework for the same day; email it back to your peers, so they can hand in their final corrected Lit Review on Friday, and their Annotated Bib on Monday next week!)

3. compose the Abstract

4. find out how to display the "qualitative data" (your open-ended text boxes that were not visible in the pdf report sheet that we printed out in class today)

5. begin to write the Results Section (which will be due on Monday, Nov. 9th)


For those who missed class today, Monday, Nov. 2nd:

Step 1.a: If you have LESS than 10 survey answers, take your own survey (from different computers) until you have 10 answers. Then, proceed as below.

Step 1.b: If you have 10 or more survey answers, click on "Collect," and CLOSE your survey, so nobody can take it any more.

Step 2. Then, click on "Analyze," and then on "Request Download" on the left side. Put the black bullet in "pdf format," and request download. Double-click on the download which appears on top of everything else on the right side of your screen. A zip file will open up your pdf file for you. Double-click on it, and print it out. This will be the Annex of your whole research essay.

Step 3. When you have printed your pdf document (= Annex), open your xls file with the "fake graphs" we created last Wednesday. Put the REAL numbers into your three tables (two were for matrices; one for a question of your choice, but no demographics).

Step 4. When you've created your REAL graphs, click on each picture separately (make sure you highlight the OUTER frame; otherwise, you just copy a little part from inside the graph!!!), right-click, say "copy," and paste it into your Word document (= template of whole research essay, where you also have your Lit Review, Annotated Bib, and participants).

For all:

HAVE YOUR WHOLE ESSAY WITH YOU IN AN EMAIL EVERY DAY, so you can type in the components that are still missing during our in-class workshops!!! Don't leave anything on the desktops; they might be cleaned up!!!

Preview:

The complete Research Essay (with Annex) will be due the last day of class before the Thanksgiving Break, Friday, Nov. 20th!!!

There are NO REWRITES, since we composed almost everything together in in-class workshops, and you could ask for help then. You also had plenty of peer-edits, and my comments on your Unit Papers 2 and 2 (Lit Review, and Annotated Bib).