Research Logs

Research Logs

Each week you will document what you are learning in English 235 via a Research Log Entry. The goal of these entries is for you to capture the in-process moments of insight and learning, including the posing of questions. For each entry, I will offer some brief instructions via the course site as a starting point, and you are encouraged to extend your entries beyond these instructions as unanticipated things emerge in your work. These log entries wil also serve as a resource for the self-evaluations that will be central to our assessment of your work in the course.

Some thoughts/expectations for Research Logs

• Logs are not meant to be entirely formal or informal. They exist in a kind of middle state. You might equate them to an academic blog or lab notebook. They are not academic essays and they are not personal diaries.
• Feel free to use “I” when writing your logs.
• Logs are written to document your work and provide you some reference as to what you are learning and what you are working on in class. You are documenting your work for yourself and for me. These logs will support the self-evaluations and assessments for the class.
• Remember your logs have a reader – me and perhaps your peers. Adopt an organizational approach with a reader mind. Don’t assume just because we are working on related projects and reading the same things that we know what’s going on in your head.
• Logs should include links to relevant things (ex: things you might be reading independently related to coursework). They should include embedded images and other media related to your projects (ex: snapshots of project protypes). When including material that is not yours be sure to include credits (ex: author names, titles, links to originals, etc.).
• When responding to assigned readings in logs be sure to refernce these readings. When appropriate, point to specific examples in texts. Use quotes. Use paraphrases. Use a clear citation method. This doesn’t have to necessarily adhere to strict MLA or APA format, but a direct quote should be in qutation marks. If there is a relevant page number for a citation – include it.
• On length/word count. These logs do not have a strict word count; however, I tend to encourage students to write a little more rather than a little less. My sense is that 100 words is not going to be enough space to effectively do the work of these logs. And…1000 words is probably overkill. This will potentially vary week to week, but my sense is that 400 – 600 words (give or take) per week is probably the sweet spot for this kind of writing.