Work Cited / Bibliography

As we enter back into our research course from spring break, today's lesson is an extremely necessary aspect of the writing process: Work Cited page. Though we have gone over individual text citations, today is our day of focusing on the odds and ins of creating a readable, efficiently written, reader-friendly Work Cited page.

General Rules to live by:

1. The author is always cited first. The only exception is that if the author is anonymous or corporate. Also, it's last name, first name.

2. For multiple authors unknown authors and corporate authorship, follow the guide here.

3. Alphabetize citations by author's last name. This helps readers find the complete Work Cited citation quickly (since you use the last name in in-text citations). If no author: use title of the source.

4. Indent the second line one of an individual citation, and single-space.

5. Provide one space between individual citations, so that each can be seen as separate.

6. Formatting titles:

• Italics (or underlining) are for complete sources: books, anthologies, reference sources (dictionary, encyclopedia), magazine or journal titles, film/ tv shows, albums, long poems and plays published on their own, works of art, specific legal cases (Roe v. Wade).

• Quotation marks (" ") are for small sources: chapter in a book, article in a newspaper/mag, song title, official title of an art exhibit, a particular episode of a tv or radio show (Chuck = show; "Chuck versus the Pink Slip"=an episode)

7. In 2010, in MLA, you no longer cite the URL/web address for on-line sources. As we will have gone over, this is messy-ugly and the web address should appear NOWHERE in your essay or Work Cited page.

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Homework for next two classes:

Friday, April 2nd:

***We will NOT be meeting in class so that students can accomplish a few things:

1) Accumulate more sources for Work Cited page of final essay. Some of you need to majorly catch up by getting to the library and getting some secondary source material.

2) By e-mail, by 2pm Friday (4/2), for attendance credit: I want to read about what kind of final essay you are envisioning. I would like you to provide me with at least three well-developed paragraphs that:

• propose a title for your essay, and why this title

• what is your current vision for organizing your essay; provide the general structure you are thinking about using. It might help you to think of and explain through texts that you admire the way they've been put together. (You must provide a thought-out structure; meaning: you can't say "I haven't thought of that yet." Saying something along this line will get you an absence, and further demonstrate a lack of engagement.)

• Who is a writer that inspires you? How do they influence your writing, and how do they influence how you WANT to write your final essay?

• What are you thinking will be the main subject of your writing on your subject-culture? What is something in the culture that you feel represents/symbolizes the way you see the culture? How so?

Wednesday, April 7th:

• Have read Translating Culture: "Chapter 8: Finding a Focus"

• Bring in a typed draft of your final essay's Work Cited page with at least six secondary sources cited that you've been using, or have read and intend to use. Make sure that they are, in fact, secondary sources and not primary sources!

Indicative of Culture?

I know we are on Spring Break, but I had to share this article with all of you. Considering you should have been reading up on your subject-cultures enough, and started to observe firsthand enough that you are getting clues to how you will approach an essay...

Look at the research some academics have done on Paintings and Eating Habits over the last 1000 years!: "Study: Last Supper paintings supersize the food"

Why is that funny? Stop laughing!

What is humor?

Analysis includes the use of specific ideology (often found in guiding principles used) to better understand the complex construction of a text, and to better articulate our view of that text.

Analyzing humor, for example, allows us to better understand our humanity! At least, we hope that it does. Furthermore, analyzing one's humor is a great topic because humor is a great example of how individual our ideologies may seem on the surface while united underneath.

Huh? Well, let's look at three large theories of humor, as described on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Superiority:

• Thomas Hobbes’ “Superiority Theory”: “The passion of laughter is nothing else than sudden glory arising from some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”

• Eminency – having a higher status (for some reason)
• Infirmity – lack of strength, character flaw

Incongruity

• “Arthur Schopenhauer agreed in 1844, when he explained in The World as Will and Ideathat laughter is a way of acknowledging an incongruity between the conceptions that listeners or viewers hold in their minds and what happens to upset their expectations.”

Relief: see definition on IEP link

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Applying New Knowledge:

Connect to your texts (primary or secondary sources) through inquiry:

1. Which of the three general theories is most prominently used in this text?

2. Who is the intended audience for the humor? What might be some of the basic characteristics of someone who might find the text funny? (ex: gender, height, religion, race, orientation, the South, East Coast, urban, rural, 12-year-old/80-year-old?)

3. Where do your inferences come from in answering the above questions? Clarify your inferences by discussing the connections between joke content and plot, and the theory. To do so, provide detail that you would attach to the inference. (

Now, lets practice this by watching an episode of Flight of the Conchords.

• Record down important details that will help build context for your analysis. (Location; relevant details of person telling the joke; content of joke; theme of joke...)

• Record down your inferences for who the joke is meant for...and why you think this way.

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Homework Reminder:

• Translating Field Notes 1 is due Friday.
• Make sure to include a Work Cited page and in-text citation.
• Consult MLA guidebook for any confusion. I suggestion Diana Hacker's on-line resource.

Speaking of Personal Space

Yahoo had an article today linked from The Daily Beast website on the after effects of the Haitian earthquake. The article, "Haiti's Rape Crisis," provides insight into how physical space can be a contributing factor in the rise of sexual violence in Haiti. With so many people out of their homes, jammed into makeshift camps, a loss of personal space and erasure of the barriers one home provides, is it a surprise that such a societal injustice is exacerbated? Especially when we consider Liesl Gerntholtz's point that "Violence against women was a problem in Haiti long before the earthquake, with rape only recognized as a crime in 2005. The earthquake has only increased the dangers for women and girls, though, and they will live with that increased risk for many months, if not years, to come." Gerntholtz's belief that the increased risk may stay for years only emphasizes how important a role physical space plays in a culture. The lack of housing and a poor economy are going to leave these women stuck in camps more vulnerable to what seems to be an epidemic within Haiti's social structure.

Bringing Secondary Source Knowledge to Field Work

As you begin your primary research, doing field work, you are essentially taking on the role of amateur cultural anthropologists. As we go through our field work, it is important to integrate an academic/discipline-specific vocabulary that can (and should) help a researcher look more fully at their subject-culture.

For instance, knowing the what "proxemics" is and how the word is applied to one's observation of their culture can deepen your inquiry into non-verbal communication tactics. Click this sentence to a link to "proxemics" and other cultural vocabulary terms.

Proxemics is a subset of "Paralanguage," which also includes "kinesics" (body language). These are three terms that you, when you find them relevant to your field work, can be used as part of your secondary source research Word Bank.

For instance, going to the Columbia College library's on-line database and searching "proxemics" leads to about 83 articles. Sifting through the list, one can find connections made between proxemics and texting; proxemics, gender and leadership; proxemics and gender; proxemics and architecture; even proxemics and HULA HOOPS!!!

aside: there are quite a few relevant articles to those in our course that I have found doing research practice for this course. I suggest typing in "codes", "culture" and "urban in the three fields in EBSCO on the library's on-line database.

Homework:

• First, e-mail me an article (that you found on your own and that was not given by teacher) that you are reading that deals with your own field work. It does not have to be on "proxemics" or non-verbal communication. But, I'd like to see an example of secondary sources you are using as a guide to your own critical thinking about your subject-culture.

• Read (29 pages): "Crip Walk, Villain Stroll, Pueblo Stroll: The Embodiment of Writing in African American Gang Dance," by Susan A. Phillips. Now, instead of "giving" you the handout, you are going to have to search for the article (put in title and/or author) on Columbia College Library on-line database! (Oasis will not let me upload the article, plus it gives you a chance to do source research.)

Ethics Affecting Field Work

Ethical Code Repeated (from the American Anthropological Association):

1. R-E-S-P-E-C-T at all times during of research, both in collecting data, and in writing.
2. Privacy, safety & dignity: allow informants and individuals to keep it!
3. Inform & Get Consent from "central players" you are going to for information. Clarify PRIOR to starting research whether people want to remain anonymous or not. Perhaps they can/want code names!
4. Plan to Share your research, what you wrote and how you viewed culture.

Conundrums & Quandaries of Field Work

• Boring Events: What you observe might not involve the most exciting, crazy, subversive behavior. This does not mean that you need to embellish in you writing what actually was said or happened. If the events themselves are dull, then focus on making your analysis of events interesting.

• Passing Judgment -- Good or Bad: Do you think, before even doing field work, that this might be an issue? Are you close to people, or part of the culture? Do you find the culture "weird" and that is why you want to explore it? Do find things wrong within the culture that you would like to "fix"? Do you feel people don't understand the culture and you want to show how awesome they really are? We all have these feelings! The goal, again, is to work with these feelings and not FOR them --> taking guidance from secondary source material for analytical points, again, can help you get beyond your natural inclination to become too subjective. Find a guiding principle from a professional that will allow you to look differently at your culture/subject.

• Shutting Down: Again, the most difficult thing to do during research is to maintain interest all the way through, at the same level. What are some possible reasons you have lost interest? Answer this question when you feel yourself stuck in "I don't care anymore mode." Better yet, answer this question prior to research: make some predictions about what could cause you to shut down your own interests... (As TC states, self-reflexivity is the best way out of shutting down.)

• Lack of Detail: Did you not write enough down? Did you not document your culture using a camera or video recorder? No tape recorder? Or, simply, did you not get the kind of material you thought you would get? As the examples in TC point out, the journey into the culture is just as important and invaluable to your final essay as is your actual participation. What do you have to do to enter the culture? Don't wait until you get permission or until you go to that concert. Take notes on your process. One can get invaluable material for analysis from the struggles of just getting "into" culture. Rites of passage, accessibility, outsiderness, etc.

• Oversimplifying Culture: This partially relates to the fifth and first dilemmas in TC, but mostly from years of experience. Does the culture seem to doing nothing "new"? Are they fulfilling stereotypes? Or, are they completely "different" from what you expected and what was assumed? ... Either way, this proves nothing as far as any logically-driven professional is concerned. Don't resort to sound-bite rhetoric, and watch out for this in your writing and thinking.

Critical Writing & Thinking

Consider the five conundrums above. Considering the projects and sites chosen among the students in your class, begin to discern which sites might possibly lend themselves to the complications noted above. Are there things you might do or think about in order to avoid the stated pitfalls?

Homework:

• What are your goals for first "official visit" into your culture? (Some of you may have already started field work, unofficially.)
• Who are some informants that you plan to include in your research? How do you know them, and how will you (or did you) get their permission? Why these informants?
• From a secondary source text, what is one guiding principle you plan on applying to your primary research -- at least your first official "field work" visits?

Earth to Student, This is Earth...

The "conclusion" of a Research Proposal is very important. In the professional world, it is your last chance to try to get money/permission to do the research. The conclusion is the section in which, after providing all of what you want to do, your goal is to convince your audience why they should care, and why the project is relevant to your own learning/professional development.

Two generic ideas you should make specifically clear in your RPs:

1. local implications: how are your own scholarly goals benefitted from doing the project. What will this project help you learn?
2. global implications: what will your research ADD to the larger academic world? Also, outside of academia why would a general audience be interested in you writing on your subject?

WHY :: Significance

With both implications on your mind, how does one accomplish clarifying beyond the obvious?Below are some critical thinking/talking points which should inspire you to provide detailed explanation of why you believe people will be interested in reading that final paper that will be a result of your research.

First, you need to understand (if you don't) that you are, in some way, defending why I should let you write on your subject-culture. Look at me as your Publisher, Boss, or Chair of the Board. Look at the final paper as something that you want published, a personal goal you are trying to fulfill.

Now, the reasons your project might be relevant are numerous, and varied. Each of you should and will have different reasons for seeing the validity in doing your project. Here are a couple of categories in which your own vision can be articulated. These are just a few categories, or general topics, that you could center your "significance argument" around.

• Stereotypes // Assumptions -- the most generic and easiest to "see," because part of human nature is to stereotype the world to make life easy to comprehend. However, what about stereotypes are you exploring? Which ones, what might people learn? WARNING: trying to prove the validity or invalidness of a stereotype, whether it is a good one or a bad one, is not what our projects are about. You are not writing well-informed Op-ed pieces; you are investigating the beliefs and roots of what makes up the culture. Remember that! So, what do you hope an audience can learn from your researching stereotypes? Where do the stereotypes come from? What will we gain from knowing the roots? How do those roots relate to other disciplines? Other cultures? Do you

• Cultural Trend -- you may have identified in your proposal a behavior or belief you find to be "trendy." So what? What questions do you have? Do you have assumptions for where the trend came from, other trends it is similar to, assumptions for how the trend represents its culture? Will you explore how trends spread in your culture, and how is that relevant?

• Cultural Phenomenon -- trends and phenomena are siblings (or at least cousins). Do you see the behavior or belief you are exploring as a possible isolated or spotty one? But, if the behavior is so out of the ordinary, what makes it so "fascinating" to study?

• Culture Evolution -- are you exploring ways that your culture has transformed, for example, its language; its food sources; its religion? Again, what can be learned by identifying and exploring the transformation?

• Old Subject, New Outlook -- many subjects have been written about a thousand times over. Many of those subjects, though, are looked at using the same lens -- the same theories within the discipline -- over and over. For instance, many academics and journalists have written (and still do) about the failure of communism and Russia being a result of corruption within the military/govt. ranks (bureaucracy). It is a warranted cliche, but still a cliche, to discuss the bureaucracy. Why not look at other areas for the failure and fall of the USSR? Taking this example to our own projects: do you think your project takes a fresh outlook on a commonly explored culture? How is your approach fresh, and how are you looking differently at the culture?

• Cross-Disciplinary Theory Application -- perhaps you find relevance in the science geeks dream: taking a well-known, respected and practiced theory from one discipline and analyzing you subject under the principles of that theory. For instance, analyzing Isaac Newton's Laws of Gravity as they apply to cartoons! Or, more relevant to Cultural Inquiry: using sociologist Max Weber's theories of music and its impact on and by society and applying them to your own culture. In fact, what Weber did was to develop sociological theories by looking at the discipline that is "Music." He strove to make connections between a society and its music.

• Cross-Cultural Parallel -- do you think there might be a connection between two seemingly distinct cultures? How so? I find such work, even if not your focus, will be inevitable to your learning and understanding of...LIFE!

SO?!?

From the above topics, which do you find most fits why you want to do your project and why you think your project will yield worthwhile material? Have confidence in this proposal, and work to convince us to be interested.

Writing Prompt: in the next 20 minutes, defend your project! Develop some rationale from two places: 1. The above categories, and 2. By reflecting on your introduction* and what you have told us about your culture in it.

*This is one way that you can help build a theme throughout your proposal. You should have a theme in the proposal, and the conclusion should further ideas provided at outset of the Proposal.

Homework:

• Reminder: Research Proposal is due Wednesday!

• Read Translating Culture: Chapter 4 (framing ethical research)