Tag: classnotes

Class Notes 2/24/2016

“Writers who make strong claims need to map their claims relative to those of other people” (They Say I Say 30).

Agenda:

  1. Make sense of the genre of scholarly articles (new genre for us)
  2. Summary (as a tool of research writing)

Genre

  • Category/Type (different styles) short story, poem, etc
  • Music, film, books
  • like/don’t like
  • sorting tool
  • what makes a genre? perception, subject/content, style
  • organized (easier to find stuff)
  • flexible
  • response to a recurring rhetorical situation
  • figure out how genre works: better writers, better readers (use similar techniques), more flexible writers (tools for new situations)

Article Activity

  • Intro/early childhood
  • relate concepts (identify), why?(we could do more)
  • how they do it
  • questions (how education/social science overlaps with public health)
  • methodology of studies 
  • survey of literature in fields of education of public health looking at crossover
  • k-12
  • facts using pro and cons, open for interpretation
  • free lunch-more aware of healthy choices, could increase obesity (both sides)
  • smaller class size does not have as  positive an outcome as they were looking for
  • abstract
  • what they did how they did it
  • review evidence from studies, which educational components are necessary for good health outcomes at all education levels?
  • higher ed
  • factors already in play continue into higher ed, good education, good college experience. Not as good education will lead to no college or not as productive an experience
  • college=better health
  • increase people going, doesn’t reduce health inequalities, then the elite schools will have better health
  • not all govt controlled
  • conclusion
  • summarized studies, warrant new studies, use public education to promote public health

Scholarly Article Format

  • Introduction
  • Literature Review
  • Methodology
  • Data
  • Interpretation/Findings
  • Conclusion (should give a “So What?”)

Reminders:

  • Service Reflection #2 due by the end of the day on Friday
  • Bring a scholarly article related to your topic of interest to class on Monday
  • Service Reflection #3 is due on Monday as well

Class Notes (from library workshop), 2.15.16

Workshop with Patrick Wiliams, 2.15.16

Some issues to keep in mind as you evaluate sources

  • authority
  • currency
  • validity/accuracy
  • audience–jargon is a pretty good indicator of audience—even if you’re not sure what you’re looking at, you can take some cues there
  • point of view

Patrick’s recommendations for specific research tools beyond ProQuest:

  • SCOPUS (all scholarly, focus on science, tech, medicine, social science, arts, and humanities); provides “who cited this” function
  • Social Sciences Full Text (a lot of public welfare, social work, and urban studies, so it might be pertinent to these students’ projects)
  • GreenFILE (collection that is focused on sustainability and environmental issues, but draws from variety of disciplines in social sciences and health)

Remember that there are multiple different ways to access databases, depending on whether you know what you’re looking for–you can look at subject-specific lists, search for name of database alphabetically, or browse area-specific research guides including this one for public health: http://Researchguides.library.syr.edu/public-health

Pay attention to the search results as a set–there’s a lot to take note of here:

  • different publications where this topic is being discussed (journal titles)–this can be useful in further searching
  • references lists for valuable texts, which provide jumping-off points for additional searching
  • how many other scholars have cited this piece, which points to significance of a particular publication

From within search result, you can email, print, or cite (without RefWorks here, you can just have it generate a fully formatted citation that you can just copy and paste yourself).

Note that the journal titles are often hyper links—you can click to see full table of contents, which is particularly helpful if this article is appearing in a special edition whose theme and other contents would be valuable to you

Library subscribes to over 500 different databases–you can use SUMMON to effectively search across different databases for something specific (if you have a title or author you’re looking for). Unlike Google Scholar, the library’s website provides you FREE full-text access to all this information–take advantage of it!

Feb. 3rd, 2016–CLASS NOTES

Feb. 3rd, 2016

WRT 205 CLASS NOTES
Announcements:
  1. When you post notes on the blog, post them within 24 hours of class so your classmates will be up to date with whats going on. TAGS: #Classnotes, #DATE
  2. PUSH BACK DUE DATE–no longer due Monday, now Wednesday, Feb. 10th, 2016. (Will be speaking about it in class today.)
Improving End-of-Life Care: A Public Health Call to Action–by Sally Hass
What we know from her Introduction:
-Her goal
-Her audience–pushes emotion into the reader. Her first chosen word is “We”.
Q: What do we like to get from the introduction?
A:  -Some type of thesis statement
-Some type of engagement, the author reaching out to the reader. (Most texts are read by the people that are supposed to read them.)
-Learning what value the text has to you–why you should care?
-Why should I care? What are you going to argue?
-Setting the tone–is it funny? Is it a story, personal antidote?
Technique (One paragraph at a time) Answer:
  1.  What does the paragraph say/main idea?
  2. What purpose does this serve in the larger piece?
Writing style: Very explicit and straightforward
-Pg. 4–She begins the comparisons to talk about how the two different fields (public health and clinical health) connect.
Grammer:
–Parallel Construction: When you build you sentences the same way. *Very useful when you have a complex, multi-part argument and you are trying to get your point across.
–Coordination: When both ideas are equal.
(Ex. Death happens to individuals; it is a population experience.)
–Subordination: When one idea has more weight than the other.
(Ex: Though death happens to individuals, it is a population experience.
–Dependent Clause: When a group of words can not stand alone, which needs to be coupled with an independent clause.
Ex: Though death happens to individuals (<DEPENDENT!), it is a population experience.
–Independent Clause: When a group of words can stand together on its own.
Ex: Though death happens to individuals, it is a population experience (INDEPENDENT).
**All of the comparisons that Hess makes subordination comparisons, which makes public health the main idea of the text.
What is Framework:
-Pulling in a lot of information and explaining what she thinks these things mean.
Ending Class:
  1. Bring essay to class on Monday (Improving end of life care)
  2. DUE MONDAY: Go back to original post(s) that you shared on the blog, and do a quick comment that lays out the rhetorical situation: author, audience, purpose, context, exigence (<why the text comes to be? What is the driving force that made them create the text?)
-Locate and explain two of your posts (couple of sentences) examples of how the text uses research material and what purpose(s) that stuff serves.
DUE NEXT WEDNESDAY:
-Larger scale rhetorical analysis: Select three to four texts and focus on the writerly choices that are in the texts-how the writing is put together. (Any links on the blog.)