MALS 130

Research Methods

(Non-credit; meets symposium requirement)

Instructor:  Klaus Milich,  MALS
Schedule: Tuesdays, 1 – 3pm
Location:  107 Thornton Hall

If you ask a neuroscientist, a philosopher, an historian, a sociologist and a literary scholar what, for example, the term "work" means in their discipline, you will receive very different answers because each definition depends on the specific disciplinary discourse. Hence, writing a research paper necessitates not just a personal opinion about a given topic but an awareness about the scope and research methods of the discipline in which one is engaged. The goal of this workshop is to make students aware of their own approaches to help them develop their framework for interdisciplinary inquiry. Discussions will address the following questions:

• What distinguishes scholarship from other forms of knowledge production (media, encyclopedias);
• How to distinguish acknowledged fact from scholarly interpretation;
• What it means to read and write "critically;"
• How to turn everyday notions and experiences into scholarly questions and why framing the right question is as important as the answer;
• How research strategies and different forms of systematic thinking help us at working places outside the academe.

This workshop will also cover methods of practical implementation, skills and strategies to obtain better results in research and class performance. Students will be asked to bring in examples of their current course work, or initial ideas for their thesis in order to practice how to plan/carry out research and to build up an argument. They will learn how to apply different tools such as excerpts, protocols, reports, summaries, or charts that help them to prepare a presentation, or to write a paper/thesis.