Research Portfolio

Research Portfolio

Good research of a topic takes over an extended period of time, allowing you to ask many questions along the way by using a variety of sources and allows for plenty of time and space for reflection. You are beginning your research with a series of questions and some recognized assumptions, but you should be willing to let your discoveries change your mind and help refocus your research along the way.

This assignment will be the basis for our three main writing projects of the semester. In the beginning, we will focus on ethnographic methods of study as we work toward the Ethnographic Summary due in the first week of March. From there, your research will shift toacademic research for the second writing project.

You will be drawing on all of the semester’s research as you write your genre essays as you look at different ways to disseminate the knowledge you have gained through your study.

The more detailed and reflective entries are in your research portfolio, the richer and more rewarding you subsequent projects will be.

You’ll be making entries in your portfolio through the remainder of the semester. The following outlines the schedule for your entries as we work toward the Ethnographic Summary. When you do field notes (for a total of six), you’ll need to plan to spend at least an hour of observation for each entry. Some weeks may require more of observation. Plan for this now.

Entry 1: One page description of your site/community with visual documents (photos, drawings, maps, etc.). All field note entries require you to note the date, time and location of fieldwork as well as details such as who was there? What happened? What did you see?

Entry 2: Double-entry field notes that both describe your observations and give analysis of what it is you see. You will continue these type of field notes throughout the course of your ethnographic research. This means that you will have a total of six field note entries (including your first entry).

Entry 3: Interview transcription. You’ll likely be conducting several interviews. You’ll need to transcribe at least two.

Entry 4: Looking at your culture through a pop cultural lens. This will count as one of 10 sources you’ll be required to do during the course of your ethnographic research (the source you turned in with your proposal is another).

Entry 5: Artifact description, analysis and presentation to your writing group.

Entry 6: Key terms, both in terms of language your culture uses as well as terms you might use when searching for non-academic and scholarly sources on your topic.

Entry 7: Reflections over all that you’ve learned to this point. This will be the jumping off point for writing your Ethnographic Summary.

Grading

Because of the amount of work you’ll put into your proposal throughout the semester, I’m making it 5 percent of your overall grade. As with your other assignments, failure to turn in any portion of the portfolio when is due (you’ll turn in these first entries with your Ethnographic assignment and subsequent entries with your Academic Essay) will result in you receiving no credit for the assignment.

To receive full credit, your work must be complete, well-organized and contain both description and analysis. Doing this will make writing your projects so much easier.