This assignment asks you to think carefully about both responsible use of evidence and the originality of your argument.
Present to me by the deadline a 250 – 350 excerpt from your emerging capstone project. That is, you should not present an excerpt from an assignment for another class but rather an excerpt from your draft to date of your capstone.
Two qualities, however, must distinguish this excerpt.
1. ORIGINALITY
Your excerpt must be an original argument wherein you are an “architect of new knowledge” rather than a “reporter of existing knowledge.” What makes research authentic or an argument original?:
A. The evidentiary base for the argument is unpublished or new (interviews with subjects are explicitly excluded from (A) for the purposes of this assignment. That is, you cannot cite interview you have done for your capstone to achieve originality along the lines of (A); if the only original material you have is interviews, you will have to (B) or (C) below for this assignment)
or
B. You have combined existing knowledge from disparate fields in some new, original, and useful fashion. That is, you demonstrate a meaningful or revealing connection or relationship between existing pieces of knowledge so that although the research or knowledge itself may not be inherently new (as in A. above), the connection between the discrete pieces of that knowledge is new. Merely synthesizing existing knowledge within a field–book report style–is unlikely to rise to the level of new knowledge.
or
C. You review the history of developments within a field or idea (change in thinking, players, evidence, etc…) in a way that reveals previously unnoticed significant shifts, trends, disconnections, or patterns. Or you point out disagreements and debates within the field and the (possible) reasons for them: “scholar x argues y about t, but scholar f argues j about t. Much of this difference can be explained by difference k in their evidence.” C is, of course, what a “lit review” should do.
2. PRESENTATION OF YOUR EVIDENTIARY BASE
In addition to the 250 to 350-word excerpt you provide me, you will provide the full evidentiary base for your argument. If you are quoting from an article, provide the full page from which you quoted (even if you quoted only a sentence). If you are making an argument from a document or chart or the like, produce the whole document. In short, provide what is needed to assess the responsible use of evidence in your capstone. Be sure to include this evidentiary base in the word document you submit through blackboard–so use screen shots or whatever images are necessary to include the material. (How to take screenshots Mac and PC) Contact me if you have questions–for some projects this may be a little trickier than in others.
3. Explanation as to Originality
In addition to the 250 to 350-word excerpt you write, also provide a 50 to 100-word explanation as to why in this excerpt you are making an original argument (see 1. above for what constitutes an original argument)
REQUIREMENTS
A. In your excerpt, clearly identify your cl/ev/wa for each paragraph that presents evidence. Again, not all paragraphs present evidence. But if a paragraph presents evidence, it should probably take the form of a cl/ev/wa paragraph. (-10% if you do not)
B. Be sure to use direct quotations in support of your argument every time you present significant evidence (where appropriate by discipline). (-10% if you do not)
Do not use indirect quotations for points directly relevant to your original argument.
C. Integrate and introduce your quotations using either method three or four from the explanation in HW3.
(-10% if you do not)
D. Be sure to reduce your direct quotations to ten or fewer words. (-5% if you do not)
E. Punctuate your quotations properly (-5% if you do not)
F. Follow whatever citation method is appropriate for your discipline. (-5% if you do not)
G. Do not begin or end your direct quotation with an ellipsis (-2% if you do not)
H. Be sure to pay attention to authorial voice in whatever sources you rely upon; author x may summarize author y in order to disagree with author y. That summary, accordingly, would not be the expression of author x‘s argument or opinion.
