Research Mentoring

Summer Intensive 2023

Research Mentoring

Early phase of research

• Exploring interests
• Asking questions + mind-mapping
• Consulting scholarly overview sources

Middle:

• Research versus searches
• Understanding source purposes using BEAM
• Organizing using search logs
• Evaluating source usefulness + reading efficiently

Later:

• Writing resources

Throughout:

• Motivation and procrastination
• Navigating academia

Phases of research + tasks

Early on:
Exploring interests and choosing a topic

Understanding scope and requirements of the project

Framing research question(s)

Figuring out what literature is out there (quick-previewing & collecting)

Middle:

Reading (skimming and more focused reading)

Finding more specific sources for particular purposes (BEAM)

Note-taking, pre-writing

Later:
Making arguments and explaining evidence in writing

Citing sources

Throughout the process:

Procrastination + motivation (NCFD, Dean's office)

Exploring research interests

How can you help someone figure out what they want to write about? (Or how can you pick a topic to work on?)

Early phase: exploring, framing

Reading / Writing

• Syllabus
  • Highlight the words you find most interesting.
  • Are there particular weeks/topics that stand out?
• Course readings
  • What readings did you like best? Go back and take a 2nd look
  • Were there any recommended readings for the week(s) you liked best? What stood out to you about them?
• Journals
  • Go into Browzine and explore some journals in the category that seems closest to your course.
• Popular Scholarship
  • Look at articles on The Conversation, Journalist's Resource, and Knowable Magazine

Exploring interests

How can you help someone figure out what they want to write about? (Or how can you pick a topic to work on?)

Writing

• Free-writing -- Set a timer and write for five minutes, stream-of-consciousness.
• Find a more approachable blank page -- WhatsApp, Discord, random scraps of paper - wherever you find it easy to express your thoughts

Talking & Listening

• Record a voice memo talking through possible ideas, pros and cons
• Record a conversation with a friend
• You might use speech-to-text to create a transcript you can review later (e.g. Apple, Windows, Otter transcription - 300 min or 3 uploads free)
• Write down some notes, then listen to them being read aloud
  (e.g. Read&Write or other text-to-speech tools)

Exploring interests

How can you help someone figure out what they want to write about? (Or how can you pick a topic to work on?)

Visual

Bedraggled daisy diagrams (or other venn diagrams) are a relatively simple way to brainstorm interests and find areas of overlap (Kristin Luker, Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences).

Two examples:

• Food and notions of authenticity
• Facebook use and student happiness

Mind-maps can also be helpful, particularly for narrowing down your topic. You can map out potential sub-topics and group similar questions.
(for example, this mind-map about Irish music)

Other types of diagrams

Asking questions and mind-mapping

• Start with your questions (video, UCLA WI+RE)
• Mindmap and concept map examples:
  • This related handout has a good mindmap example
  • Example concept map on Seattle's plastic straw ban
  • Example concept map from Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega on behavioral changes around recycling (non-Twitter link)
     
• Extra resource: Developing research questions and creating keywords (interactive tutorial, UCLA WI+RE)

Project Planning

• Breaking down your assignment prompt
  PDF walks through key questions about an assignment; also available in Google Docs version [UCLA WI+RE]
   

• Research paper planner
  Breaks down the research process into stages, includes questions and tips for staying on track throughout [UCLA WI+RE]

Consulting scholarly overview sources

This describes a category of literature that can be helpful for choosing topics and exploring the literature.

These sources are particularly useful when you (or someone you're working with) needs to approach a project from the standpoint and methodology of a specific academic discipline

See the Topic Overviews research guide for links

Common types include:

• Review articles
  • Instead of reviewing a single book, review articles give an overview of the literature on a topic
  • Journals in the Annual Reviews series publish these exclusively
  • Other review journals include Review of Educational Research and Reviews in American History
• Handbooks and companions
• Encyclopedias
• Annotated bibliographies, e.g. Oxford Bibliographies

Consulting scholarly overview sources (continued)

• Find and Use Review Articles (post from UCLA WI+RE)
• Topic Overviews guide
• Database Finder
  • Under Database Type, choose Background Information
  • Includes links to Annual Review journals, Oxford Bibliographies, Very Short Introductions, etc.

Middle phase: finding sources for specific purposes, reading, note-taking

Intellectual interests

↓↓↓

Topics

↓↓

Research question

↓↓↓

Sources

↓

Argument

The BEAM model provides a vocabulary for talking about the different purposes that sources can serve in a paper.

B / E / A / M

Writers rely on background sources, interpret or analyze exhibits, engage arguments, and follow methods.

Bizup (2008)

B/E/A/M examples 

See the handout:

bit.ly/rias-beam

Search Logs

Useful organizational and planning tool for keeping track of multiple searches within a project.
Helps avoid repeat work by making past efforts visible.
 

Filled out: bit.ly/rias-search-log-example

Blank (printable): bit.ly/rias-search-log

You could use separate search logs for separate purposes,
for example:

• Scholarly articles and books (Arguments in BEAM, possibly)
• Data sources / primary sources (Exhibits, possibly)

Reading & Evaluating Sources

How do you tell if an article/book will be useful?

• Look at the descriptive metadata: subject headings, keywords – do the topics listed seem relevant?
• BEAM the abstract:
  • What's the background?
  • What is their main argument?
  • What evidence (exhibits) and methods do they use?
  • What purposes could this source serve in your work?
• Authorship: What experience do the authors have with this topic? Is it relevant for your work?
• Publication: Was this source published by an entity that's respected in the field you're working in? (e.g. a book from a university press, an article from a journal in the discipline, a video created by an experienced activist that people trust)

Reading & Evaluating Sources

Helpful resources:
 

Two tools ITS provides for easier reading:
Read&Write and BeeLine Reader

How to Read in College (Prof. Tim Burke, History)

• Learn to spot the argument
• Look for signposts
• Skim: is there a sequence? (e.g. in chapter titles or article sub-headings)

How to Read a Scholarly Monograph (Prof. Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard)

Reading & Evaluating Sources

(continued)

Note-taking tools and templates
 

Creating a simple synthesis matrix (Williams College, originally from Ashford College Libraries)

Using a literature review map (University of Manchester Libraries Student Team)

Fast Book Outliner (printable notes template, easy to replicate in a Google Sheet)

Mapping unfamiliar territory: using guided reading charts to navigate sources (chapter by Jennifer Jarson)

• Writing skills handouts (Swarthmore Writing Program)
• Harvard brief guides to writing in the disciplines
  (and the broader HarvardWrites site)
• Overcoming writer's block (UCLA WI+RE)
   
• May be a good time to suggest making a WA appointment

Later phase: making arguments, explaining in writing, revising

Throughout: staying motivated and organized, navigating academic vocabulary and norms (e.g. in assignment prompts, faculty expectations, grading)

flip back through these slides

pick a resource you haven't looked at closely / recently / ever.

look it over and choose one thing to share with the group

Prep for this afternoon's session on McCabe exhibits

What are some exhibits you remember seeing in McCabe?
 

To help inspire your questions and curiosity,

explore one or more of the following:

• Sublime Miscellany (Highlights from McCabe Rare Book Room)

• Black Excellence in Book Arts

• Book | Objects

• Book Artists and 9/11

• Pieced Together: Community Engagement through Collaboration (2002 article co-authored by Susan and Andrea Packard from Swarthmore's List Gallery, about a 2019 exhibition of quilts from Gee’s Bend, Alabama.)