Homework answers / question archive / Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline Project: Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline (worth 5% of your final grade) Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline Goal: This short essay will help you better understand the conventions of scholarly genres in your discipline, specifically the differences between a research-based scholarly article and a literature review

Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline Project: Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline (worth 5% of your final grade) Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline Goal: This short essay will help you better understand the conventions of scholarly genres in your discipline, specifically the differences between a research-based scholarly article and a literature review

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Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline

Project: Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline (worth 5% of your final grade)

Researching and Analyzing Scholarly Genres in Your Discipline

Goal:

This short essay will help you better understand the conventions of scholarly genres in your discipline, specifically the differences between a research-based scholarly article and a literature review. When you write your literature review, you will write it in a way that matches the conventions of literature reviews in your discipline, and this short essay will help to prepare you for that.

Directions:

In a short essay of between 750 and 1,000 words, compare and contrast the rhetorical contexts and structure, language, and reference conventions of scholarly articles in your discipline using the following questions as a guide. You may number your answers, but please write in paragraph form to answer each question. 

 

Your responses should be focused on the context and conventions of the two pieces, NOT the content or the authors’ arguments. An A-level short essay will not only answer the questions below but will directly reference (using quoting, paraphrasing, and/or summarizing) the specific articles to support the analysis. We’ve been working on sentence-level language noticing in the live class and in your asynchronous work, and you should continue practicing that skill in this essay.

 

1. Find one research-based scholarly article (in which the author(s) have conducted original research) in your discipline and include the citation at the top of your assignment. Most of the scholarly sources that you used in Researching Scholarly Sources will fall under this category.

 

2. Find one standalone, comprehensive literature review (which can also be called a review of the literature, a meta-analysis, a systematic review of the literature, a systematic meta-analysis, or a historiographic essay if you’re studying history) in your discipline and include the citation at the top of your assignment.
   1. If there is any significant variation to literature reviews in your discipline, I recommend that you consult at least two different sample literature reviews. If you consult multiple literature reviews, you can focus on what is similar across the samples when you answer the questions below (instead of listing the answers for each individual literature review). If you are not sure that you have found a literature review in your discipline, please send me an email with the PDF and I will let you know whether it’s a literature review or not.

 

3. How do the rhetorical contexts of the two pieces differ? How are they similar?
   1. You can use the following questions as a guide but you should be prepared to move beyond these questions in your short essay: Who are the audiences for these articles? Who are the audience of the journals that they are written for? What are the purposes of the articles (consider both the purpose that the authors’ state AND the purpose that you infer using your Reading Like a Writer skills).
4. How do the structure, language, and reference conventions of the two pieces differ? How are they similar?
   1. You can use the following questions as a guide for the comparison of the structure conventions, but you should be prepared to move beyond these questions in your short essay: How are the articles organized? What kinds of headings are used (short headings, long headings, “discussion,” etc.)? If sections with similar titles are included (for example, “methodology”) how does the content within each of these sections compare? If there’s similar content, how do the headings differ?
   2. You can use the following questions as a guide for the comparison of the language conventions, but you should be prepared to move beyond these questions in your short essay: How do the authors’ convey they different purposes (for example, in research-based articles, authors are making an original argument, while in literature reviews, authors are conveying an overview of what scholars in the field have talked about when they talk about this topic)? How does the language used to introduce, analyze, and synthesize sources differ between the two articles?
   3. You can use the following questions as a guide for the comparison of the reference conventions, but you should be prepared to move beyond these questions in your short essay: In the discussion/analysis section, about how many sources are cited per paragraph? What kind of sources are used/referenced? How are the sources synthesized (in the sentence or in a parenthetical citation)?

 

5. What can you learn about your discipline from the way that the scholarly genres are written? How do the language and mechanics reflect the values and ideals of the discipline? If you are not sure, make an inference or take a guess—You have more knowledge about your discipline now than you did 12 weeks ago.

Formatting:

• Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
• Double-spaced
• Minimum word count of 750 words
• At the top of your submission include a bibliographic citation FOR BOTH the research-based scholarly article AND the literature review that you compared for this assignment.
• Include parenthetical citations (in the citation style appropriate for your discipline) when directly referencing the scholarly sources(s)

An A-level short essay will do the following things:

• Answer the questions thoroughly and thoughtfully
• Directly reference the text and give specific examples when comparing and contrasting the articles
• Show critical thinking and awareness when discussing the implications of these genre conventions on the discipline overall
• Be written in paragraph form, showing a clear connection between thoughts and ideas
• Be free from grammar and spelling errors that impede the reader’s understanding