Step 1 / prewriting due: done in class on February 22nd
Step 2 / proposal and secondary research: due by class time March 1st (we will go over these in class)
Step 3 / autoethnographic observation and journaling / fieldwork due: start by February 25th; finish by March 8th by class time
Step 4 / quantitative data gathering: start in class on March 20th; continue on your own
Step 5 / Draft #1 due: March 8th by class time (we’ll peer review in class)
Draft #2 due: March 22nd by 11:59pm
Draft #3: March 29th by 11:59pm (we’ll write reflections in class)
Note: Your prewriting, observation journal / fieldwork, quantitative data information, drafts, and final version should all appear in your Google Drive shared folder by the specified due date.
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Most of us are part of digital Discourse communities that we participate in daily. But what are our communication habits within those communities? This primary research project asks you to play the part of a social science researcher as you observe your own online habits in a particular digital community.
After choosing a community (a social media site, a gaming community, a blogging group, a fan site, a fantasy sports league, etc.) you’ll need to maintain an observation journal of your interactions and the interactions of your community members for about a ten days. At the end of your observation period, the piece you will compose will incorporate your observations and your interpretations using principles of ethical research that we will discuss in class.
The goal for this assignment is to formulate ideas about online language use, so make sure to address the unique patterns of communication you observe in your digital Discourse community in your analysis.
Your research process for this project will follow some of the basic steps for ethnographic research outlines in the chapter we read by Seth Kahn:
Step #1: Prewriting
- What Discourse community will you focus on? Why?
- What do you know about the community you’ll study? What do you think you know?
- What are your biases and predispositions towards its members?
- What are the questions you’re interested in trying to answer about communication within the community?
- How do those questions about that particular Discourse community connect to larger questions about communication in the world that you might have?
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Step #2: Proposal and Secondary Research
- Develop a central idea to focus on based on the patterns of communication you begin to notice during your observations.
- We will look at examples of proposals in class and begin developing a proposal (a very specific academic genre) for your project.
- To write the proposal, you’ll need to do some secondary research using library resources (academic journals, books, etc.). Your secondary research will most likely focus on some of the “bigger ideas” you’re trying to approach with your research. (For example, you may want to think about issues of race, gender, sexualities, dis/ability, etc. in terms of the digital Discourse community you’re observing.)
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Step #3: Observation and Journaling/Fieldnotes
- Begin observing your communications habits in the digital Discourse community you’ve chosen. Your observation should be on-going, should take place during your regular interactions with the community, and should last for 10-14 days.
- Kahn says that part of taking good field notes means describing your physical surroundings. Make sure that, in your journal, you describe the format and appearance of the digital Discourse community you have chosen. If these elements change, make note of that in your journal.
- As you observe, take notes in a journal (you’ll turn this in). Kahn describes an ethnographic journal as “a running monologue.” Use your journal, then, as a space to list all of your actions, all of the interactions you have with other members of your digital community, and any other important details about the community that you feel are relevant to your communication habits in the community.
- Pay close attention to any patterns you begin to observe in your communication. They may not appear at first, but after a few days, you should begin to pick up on at least one.
- The University of Southern California has a great guide for observation journal content to supplement Kahn’s advice. One tactic you may find helpful: Try keeping a “double entry journal.” (One column for descriptions; one column for reflections.)
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Step #4: Quantitative Data Gathering
- In class, we’ll begin thinking about gathering quantitative data from your online Discourse community to help support the qualitative, ethnographic information from your observations.
- After you’ve gathered the data, you’ll need to develop a simple visualization to include in the final draft of your Empirical Research Project.
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Step #5: Drafting and Revising the Empirical Research Project
- As you begin drafting, take a look at this example from a student researching Call of Duty.
- Staying focused on the main idea you discussed in your proposal, describe your experience. Remember that the genre we are using here is based in social science. While you should be describing your personal experience and should also be giving explicit details, you should also be maintaining a tone that is appropriate for the genre.
- We will discuss the format of this paper in greater detail together, but we will be following the typical format of empirical studies that we often see in academic journals. (I’ll be posting examples soon!)
- Some things to keep in mind as you write:
- Your essay should be focused on the central question/idea you developed.
- You should discuss your conceptions of the online Discourse community prior to observing it. (True, you used the community regularly. But how has your conception of the e-community changed now that you’ve observed it closely?)
- You should describe your observation process in a Methods section.
- You should describe some of your explicit observations.
- Use your analysis of your observations to draw conclusions that back up the main idea you are trying to convey in the essay.
- All secondary sources must be cited using both in-text citations and a reference page in either MLA or APA format.
Categories: Assignment Guidelines
Tags: assignment #2, autoethnography, empirical research project, ethnography, primary research, proposal, qualitative data, quantitative data, research question, secondary research, social science
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