Manfred Kuechler,
Hunter College (CUNY), Department of Sociology
The Internet Research Paper
A New Type of Writing Assignment in the Social Sciences
Presentation at the
FIFTH ANNUAL TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
Baruch College (CUNY), March 15, 2002
If you received this outline as hard copy (on paper), a
web version is available at the following address (URL):
http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~mkuechle/Tech_Advice/webpaper.htm
Using the web version, you can then follow the links to documents
providing details and examples
|
This version contains additional and modified links
to updated
documents used in fall 2002 classes and fixes links which had ceased to
work.
Also, check the list
of tech advice papers for additional and updated help documents and
visit more recent course web pages on both the Bb5 and Bb6 server;
my course pages are open to guests except for privacy and
copyright sensitive areas. [Feb 2005]
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Preface
I have been using such assignments for a number of years now. And as
the Internet/Web has changed and continues to change, and as students'
access to the Internet (from home) and their Internet skills have
changed (mostly increased), so have the details of this type of
writing assignment and the way students are supported in completing
such an assignment. The ideas presented here are best understood by
looking at two specific courses (their associated web sites) as
examples:
- Social Movements and Social Change (Soc 309: Fall
2001, Fall
2002) -- an an upper level "writing and research intensive"
undergraduate class
- Empirical Research using the Internet (GSR 716: Spring
2002) -- a graduate class in Hunter's MS Program in Applied Social
Research
Both course sites are part of the Blackboard (Bb) installation at
Hunter College, and most parts of these course web sites are open to
"guests". Simply click on the "Preview" button when presented with a Bb
login screen after clicking any of the links to these sites in this
document.
If you are interested in the genesis of this type of writing
assignment, you can visit course web sites from previous
semesters/years
as well; for courses up to fall 2000, the course web sites are in
the ERes
system, also including Soc325.22.
What is an "Internet Research Paper"?
- Instructor provides
- a highly structured assignment with a specific topic focused
on fact finding; examples:
- Investigating a specific social movement (Soc
309)
- Investigating a specific social or public policy (GSR
716)
- training in necessary Internet skills (varies with type of
course and preparedness of students)
- feedback on various stages of the paper development (again
varies with type of course, more below)
- Students use the Internet/Web to
- access traditional (quality
controlled) library resources
online like
- the full text (and abstracts) of scholarly journal articles
- access government (executive, legislative, and judicial
branch) documents
- access archives of newspaper articles and other media stories
- access quantitative (numerical) information like census and
public opinion data -- in part using interactive features to customize
tables, charts, and maps
- access information (of
very
mixed quality) provided by others online
like
- position statements, press releases, and other
self-descriptions ("primary sources") by organizations, companies, and
individuals
- summaries and accounts ("secondary sources") by
organizations, companies, and individuals
- participate (with varying degrees of active involvement) in
information sharing and discussion with others (anywhere) via
- e-mail discussion lists ("listserves")
- discussion boards
- chat rooms
- Students present their findings
- as an htm document (web page)
- to be shared with other students in the class via a course web
site (an access restricted area of such a web site)
- possibly, to be shared with a larger audience contingent upon
both student and instructor approval
- (optionally), in an additional face-to-face oral presentation
during regular class (requires separate outline ["slides"] as visual
aid)
What is not an "Internet Research
Paper"?
Non-specific assignments with no guidelines and no rules
- where students can write about almost anything as long as it is
"critical" and/or takes the instructor's favorite (political or
methodological) perspective
- where students can find an ample supply of papers already
written, e.g., via paper mills
- where students are not required to attribute and to cite their
sources
- where students are not required to evaluate the quality of their
sources
- where it is not possible (or at least not feasible) to check out
the sources students used
How to guide the development of an "Internet Research Paper"?
There are several prerequisites without which this concept
cannot be fully realized:
- Course web site -- it does not have to be a Blackboard
(Bb) site, an ERes site or an independent site can work as well
- Students must have Internet access from home or be able
and willing to spend long hours in campus based computer labs (with
limited opening hours)
- Students must submit electronically (possibly via e-mail
attachment or on diskette) and in htm format (at least in later
stages)
Fortunately, by now, a very high percentage of students have (physical)
Internet access from home, so few students are excluded a priori. Also,
submitting in htm format is not a serious hurdle given the advances in
automatic conversion now available in standard word processing
software. So, these prerequisites do not exclude any significant
portion of instructors or students.
Guidance includes several components (details vary with type
of class):
- Development of basic Internet skills -- in class and via
written instructions, guides, tutorials (instructor-produced and
external sources) like
To gauge the extent of students' Internet skills, it is useful to
conduct an (anonymous) pre-class skills survey (results from GSR716
and from Soc309)-
Detailed
instructions and feedback on preliminary submissions (geared at
specific tasks) like
- Help with technical problems