WRT 105 | Byrd Library Research – Database Assignment II

Now that you have a working rough draft in place, it’s time to reconsider and further hone your research materials by seeking out two (2) new scholarly sources.

The gist of this assignment is that writing and revising your draft has also revised and strengthened the way you conceive of your thesis cluster and your essay topic. As such, you are in a better position to search for supporting, or perhaps complicating (ala Writing Analytically), sources for the claims you make. You are in a better position

• to  identify and use search terms and search phrases, as these phrases will be far more specific to the particular direction of your topic;
• to evaluate the sources you do find, especially now that your argument has coalesced into a specific idea;
• to better understand the genres at work in the disciplines related to your topic;
• to better understand the different situations and literacies driving the conversations around your topic;
• to determine what types of claims you wish to make about your topic;
• to gather more background information so as to better engage the conversation surrounding your topic and your thesis cluster;
• to bring a level of thoughtful complexity and depth to the arguments you make because real inquiry acknowledges that surface-level answers rarely engage the communities /audiences in a meaningful way—such arguments have little rhetorical impact and are rarely productive or worthwhile (think about it—are surface-level answers really worth the time and effort it takes to write an 8 page essay?).

Remember: part of writing a strong argumentative essay is to acknowledge that your topic, and the argument you hope to make, is part of a larger critical conversation— a second set of sources rounds out your particular part of that conversation. Academic genres value problem-posing inquiry and academic arguments seek and value complexity.

Byrd Library Assignment II

Return to the library’s website / front door here: http://library.syr.edu/

• Using SUMMON, enter your new and improved search terms.
• Use the task bar at left to narrow and hone your results.
• Identify two (2) scholarly sources that either support your thesis arguments, or which complicate (i.e. add complexity) to your thinking. Note: these sources should enable you to better articulate and develop your thesis topic—perhaps the source will offer a complimentary perspective, or perhaps the source adds a layer of information that rounds out your cluster’s sense of consequence. The point is to select sources that help in a meaningful way.

For each source

• Save the source to your computer and bookmark its Permalink.
• Complete the Source Information Form and print it out.
• Print out the following from your source (academic sources tend to be lengthy): The first two pages (don’t include the db coversheet) of the source, and two pages from the source that are most important to your issue-based question / potential thesis cluster.
• Staple your Source Information Form to the top of your source pages.
• Bring the hard copies to class
• Post to both your and the class blog site.

 

Download a copy of the assignment below.

WRT105_LibraryDatabaseAssignment_II

WRT105_SourceInformationForm_Fall2014

*** Note … It may be easiest to download the form itself, fill it out, and then paste it into your post.  The form  is an MS Word table, and tables don’t cut & paste all that well into WordPress. There is a table tool for wp, but it’s not all that convenient. ***

 

 

Title:
Author(s):
Publication:
Publication Info (volume #, page #s, month and year, if part of source’s info)
Pub. Type: (newspaper, popular magazine, trade journal, journal of opinion, scholarly journal)
Date of Publication:
Date Accessed:
Source Type: (review, letter to editor, editorial, column, article, journal article, popular book chapter, scholarly book chapter)
Permalink:
Database: (db name / library catalog)
Main argument of source:
How source is relevant to my topic issue:
How I envision using this source:
Additional Notes / Important Details: