While some of the earlier assignments haven’t been graded yet, my schedule has allowed me to jump back into grading, which is why you have feedback on Week 10, Week 11, the Week 11 Replies, and Week 13.
Some common misunderstandings I’ve seen include what is likely an overreliance on citation generators. The Purdue Owl has a great explanation of why that can be problematic. There are also lots of examples I’ve repeatedly shared, usually from APAstyle.org. However, the sample student paper on that site can also help. And, now that I’ve reviewed the Week 13 posts, you can also use Benjamin’s Week 13 post as a good example of APA style references.
In that most recent week, a number of students also missed the rubric requirement to detail each search. These assignments have not been simply to make you go through the motions, but to understand them when you have other things to research or find out in the future. They have essentially had you create a research diary. Last week, as we discussed saturation, your diary entry should have also helped you determine whether or not the searches you conducted were generally useful–Were the results scattershot? Did it need more refining? Were they all off-topic?
An example of this would be Luis’ post, which used a sentence to discuss the general results of each search. If he thinks about future searches, he now knows, as he noted, that EBSCO Host could be particularly helpful and that searching for “regulations and laws” is more useful than only searching for “artificial intelligence.”
Another issue I’d like to note as you turn to your outline is a quick discussion of the scope of your proposal. I would not encourage you to propose a dissertation or a life-long project. One hypothesis and two variables are all you need, and so it’s easiest to stick to that. Again, Hank & Aki did a great job of that in their example paper.
Also, this is Research Methods in Informatics. As I’ve noted elsewhere, this should be related to the social scientific research you have been reading about in your text. Ideally, it should also be related to the flow of information, how do computer interfaces, computer readings or AI, or television shows influence whatever your main topic is.
With that general topic in mind, do be aware that you are welcome to adjust your topic at any time. The topic you chose at the start of the semester may or may not have been an easy one. These assignments have been to make sure you know how to find research through the library and review academic articles. If you go in a new direction, it will be up to you to determine how many searches you need and of what type. Hopefully, all these assignments will make such choices easier for you in the future.
Finally, I’ve gotten more emails from folks in this class lately and some notices of bad links. If you have questions or notice a bad link, please do reach out. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying learning more about whatever topic you chose and find that this class has helped your critical thinking skills. That is the essential underlying skill in all of the Program Learning Objectives that this course is intended to help you with.