Please join us for the first annual Honors 110 Research Exhibition on December 10, 2010 from 1:45 – 4:30PM in the SUB II Ballroom, where HNRS 110 students will present their research in poster format. Over the course of the afternoon, the students will host their posters and share their work in conversation. The afternoon will also feature finger foods and refreshments for everyone to enjoy.

Schedule

1:30 – 1:45 – Set-up for 1st Half of Poster Session
1:45 – 2:45 – Poster Session #1 (for classes who had recitation 1:30-2:20)
2:45 – 3:00 – Clean-up Poster Session #1 and Set-up Poster Session #2
3:00 – 4:00 – Poster Session #2 (for classes who had recitation 2:30-3:20)
4:00 – 4:30 – Mingling and Clean-up

Poster Categories

• Economy, Politics, and Public Policy
• History and Global Issues
• Media, Technology, and the Arts
• Science and Nature
• The Mind and Learning
• The Body and Health

Poster Guidelines

An exhibit is a visual representation of research, as well as an interpretation of the topic’s significance, much like a small museum exhibit. The analysis and interpretation of the topic must be clear and evident to the viewer. Combine labels and captions with visual images and objects to enhance the message of the exhibit.

The poster must be a 3′ x 4′ trifold poster board. Posters can be purchased from the Honors College office for $5.

There is a 300-word limit to the poster, which applies to all text created by the student (including titles, subtitles, captions, graphs, timelines, or any other supplemental material in which students use their own words). This limit does not apply to quotations from sources or to citations.

Deadline

The finished posters will be due in class on Thursday, December 9. We will have a mini-exhibit of our own class that day. You’ll take the poster home after class, and bring it back to the official exhibit the following day.

Tuesday 11/16 and Wednesday 11/17

Both from 6 – 8pm in the Eastern Shore Multipurpose Room

Join Ms. Anderson as she teaches you how to design academic posters for your HNRS110 Research Project.  Learn about using space effectively, the visual flow of information, and how to create an effective poster.  Each session is limited to 25 people so please RSVP to dander10@gmu.edu.  These sessions are highly recommended before you begin your HNRS110 poster. Make sure to bring an outline of your paper to this session.

We are now moving into the serious researching and writing phase of HNRS 110. This week you’ll begin working in earnest on a research draft. Next week (November 1-5) you’ll meet with either Professor Sample or Daniel Anderson to discuss these drafts. And shortly after that, you’ll complete a research plan that outlines your next moves for the research project. The research draft is worth 10% of your final grade, and the research plan is worth 5% of your final grade.

Research Draft

This is a 6-page draft that illustrates the kinds of “research problems” (see Booth 51–65), claims, argumentation, and evidence that scholarly sources are currently articulating in relation to your own research project. The research draft should accomplish two goals: (1) engage at least 2–3 sources (see Booth 84–100) relevant to your research agenda in order to (2) articulate an expanded version of what The Craft of Research calls your “research problem” (see Booth 51–65). Your objective here is to formulate your own argument and practice synthesizing sources effectively, by bringing them into a dialogue with one another. The draft should include an MLA-styled bibliography of the sources you cite in the draft.

There are various ways you could accomplish these goals. For instance, you might present one major source in detail and explain its position on several issues in relation to other sources pursuing the same or related research problems. Or you might identify and introduce a key research problem shared by several sources and summarize their positions, noting important differences in the claims made and evidence used. Or perhaps you might present a key issue or point of contention and analyze 2–3 sources’ positions in some detail.

Regardless of your approach, this draft should actively engage your sources and bring them into to dialogue with one another. All of this should be framed by the broader implications of your research problem. Who are the main stakeholders in the topic, and how do their perspectives differ? Whose point-of-view is privileged or validated by competing stories? What controversies and problems are central to your topic? What questions do you want to ask about this topic? How or why are the answers to these questions significant? How will your project challenge or supplement the research problems of other scholars working on this topic?

Deadline: 24 Hours before your scheduled meeting with either Professor Sample or Daniel Anderson, email your research draft to whichever one you are meeting with during the week of November 1-5.

Research Plan

Your research plan is a 3-page document that builds upon your conference with either Professor Sample or Daniel Anderson. The research plan begins with a precise restatement of your research problem, continues with a summary of the salient points you took from your conference, and concludes with a detailed plan of what you need to do in the next several weeks to conduct the rest of your research. You must be as specific as possible. Your plan must be accompanied by a bibliography of at least 6 relevant sources, of which at least 4 must be peer-reviewed. The plan should follow correct MLA citation form.

Deadline: 48 hours after your meeting with either Professor Sample or Daniel Anderson, your research plan is due, via email.

In preparation for the first annotation, your research journal task for Tuesday, October 12 is simple: list, in MLA format, five promising sources for your research project. Pick the single most promising source and briefly explain why you think it’s promising. This is not an annotation. It is merely you speculating, based on the source’s title or abstract, why you’re excited about looking into this source.

Don’t forget to select a date for your research question presentation: http://www.doodle.com/qvyii7zxuhynqp5a

Remember the following broad guidelines:

• Tightly focused presentation in which you introduce your broad topic to the class, identify your narrower research question, summarize the conversation about that question, and highlight why this research matters.
• 9 slides timed at 20 seconds per slide
• Follow the 1/1/5 rule: you must have at least one image per slide, you can use each exact image only once, and you should add no more than five words per slide.

For your fourth research journal entry, complete the following sentence, using a research topic that you’re kicking around as the basis:

• I am interested in researching ____________
• because I want to find out _______________
• and this is important because ____________.

Then come up with three questions that you yourself have about this research question. They might be questions about what you need to know before you can start tackling the above question.  Or questions that you think your skeptical professor might ask. Or questions that will help you narrow your focus even more.

Have this done by class time on Tuesday, September 28.

For this research journal entry, which you should complete by class time on Tuesday, September 14, find an example of an “official story” somewhere online. This could be on a corporate website (similar to the Shoal Creek Golf Club site), a news site, a fan site, or even Wikipedia.

In your journal entry, do the following:

1. Name and link to the site you’re looking at.
2. Very briefly, explain what “official story” is presented on the site. (2-3 sentences)
3. Then highlight what counter-story or unofficial story is missing from the site. (2-3 sentences)

Welcome to the class blog for HNRS 110 (Fall 2010), at George Mason University. This site will be an essential component of the course…as you will soon discover.

If you are a student in HNRS 110, you can go ahead and register for the blog. You may also browse the class guidelines and calendar. You can also download a hard copy of our HNRS 110 syllabus here.