Institutions:
Academic
Writing Center, Humanities Department - University of Copenhagen
The Royal Library, The National
Library and Copenhagen University Library
Copenhagen
Addresses:
Akademisk Skrivecenter
Det Humanistiske Fakultet
Københavns Universitet
Njalsgade 126, lokale 23.5.05, 2300 København S
The Royal Library
P.O.Box 2149
DK-1016 Copenhagen K
Tel.: (+45) 33 47 47 47
Fax: (+45) 33 93 22 18
Contact persons:
Lotte Rienecker
Academic Writing Center, Humanities Department,
Copenhagen University
Tina Buchtrup Pipa
The Royal Library, The National Library and Copenhagen University
Library
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Scribo
- A Research Question and Literature Search Guide
The design of this software is intended to
support and enhance the development of research questioning, information
and literature search and the general process of research paper writing for
student in university and college settings.
Background
Most university writing is graded, but but
there are few opportunities to learn and get acculturated to writing and
litterature search methods, techniques and strategies. There are only very few
writing programs or facilities of any kind, no student tutors, no general
writing courses. At Danish universities, there's only individual
supervising of paper writing by discipline teachers, generally from 4th semester
(BA project) and forth – feedback on drafts.
There is no overall program for
Information Literacy. Instruction to libraries and information search are to
varying degrees incorporated into the discipline courses and introduced by
discipline teachers below BA level.
This is usually restricted to basic and
practical aspects of knowledge of certain material types, concrete resources
and local standards. In addition discipline specific and generic - non
obligatory and non ETCS giving - courses are offered from institute,
faculty and university libraries. Besides the first introduction the knowledge
of these courses and attendance is low.
The
software Scribo
It is designed to meet the requirements of
the research paper.
A research paper is defined as a problem- and source based
documentation of a piece of research.
A majority of research papers are empirical ( i.e. contains analysis of
data, applying scientific methods and procedures + methodological discussions,
small-scale). A minority of research papers are theoretical discussions.
The program consists of the following parts:
1. research question, subdivided
2. information and literature search and strategy part
3. connection of these introductory steps to structuring and enhancing
further steps.
There are six functions in the program:
1. Questions
2. Note pad for drafting
3. Explanations
4. Advice
5. Examples
6. Dictionary.
The software contains 4 examples from genuine papers and theses.
Use
and users
The purpose of the program is to guide the writer from topic to
research question and a literature search, and to teach the research paper genre
and academic information literacy to users. It is intended as a preparation
for and supplement to the teacher’s supervision, not to supplant the work of
the teachers, or that of librarians or writing center staff.
It often takes a student 2 – 3 hours to work through the program, topic in
hand. The user works by writing, reading and at the end of the program gets 6
choices of export from the program: with/without the program questions, the
literature search strategy alone etc.
The software is used widely by university students and others.
Key
concepts
The
pivotal point of the Scribo software and the research paper is the research
question.
The specific information search skills are central to the
inspiration, argumentation for, and coining of a research problems.
The relation between the formulation of research questions and the
development of an information and literature search strategy can be seen as circular.
Systematism of the field is a phrase used in the program: By that
is meant any concepts/theories/ methods used for analysis, discussion etc. in a
paper.
Systematisms/ Analytical Tools =
- categories
- concepts
- theories
- methods
- models
used in any discipline.
The
underlying concepts of the research paper genre
The Research Paper - 5 basic questions
1. Your research question: WHAT is it you are asking?
2. Academic purpose (and use) of your research: WHY are you asking that
particular question?
3. Data/material/ phenomenon in your research paper: TO WHAT data etc.
are you addressing your question?
4. Concepts/theories/ methods in your research paper: WITH which
analytical tools are you going to approach your data
5. Procedure of your research: HOW are you going to carry out your
research - step by step?
The
genre and the information-and-literature-needs
The
underlying understanding behind Scribo’s literature search module is that the
information and literature needs for a research paper can be broken down into
the following five elements:
1. Your research question: WHAT is it you are asking?
1 Sources which explicitly treat the problem
2 Sources with different views of the problem
3 No sources (confirmed)
2. Academic purpose (and use) of your research: WHY are you asking
that particular question?
Field and context litrature to lend a purpose to the research
3. Data/material/ phenomenon in your research paper: TO WHAT data etc. are you
addressing your question?
Primary sources, empirical material (all media), data, information
4. Concepts/theories/ methods in your research paper: WITH which
analytical tools are you going to approach your data
Theoretical and methodological books/articles
5. Procedure of your research: HOW are you going to carry out your research -
step by step?
Similar research for procedures
Using
Scribo as a teaching tool: Large group Scribo tutorials
Scribo is mainly used as an individual tool
on the university intranet. The authors have done a number of demonstrations
(sometimes up to 60 students) with the following activities:
· 60 – 75 min. of
individual work, during which they are available for questions and help
· print the work
· 60
min. feedback in class on individual examples of research question + purpose, concepts/theories/methods,
data/material + literature search strategy. The research
librarian reacts specifically to the suggested search
strategy, search words, resources etc.
From Autumn 2006 Scribo will also be introduced in newly launched master
thesis workshops for social science students. These workshops are planned
and marketed in a collaboration between the Copenhagen University Library and
the pedagogical Center at the Faculty of
Social Sciences.
The Center
regularly does a “road show” to all the master thesis students at their
institutes in the beginning of each semester.
Lessons
learnt from teaching genre and information literacy with Scribo
The program was completely redone in 2004, featuring the two new elements:
1) information and literature search and
2) the four commented examples.
The literature search module connects a research library’s search tutorial to
the writer’s own ongoing paper, and helps break down the research question
into needs for specific kinds of sources, as well as give awareness to the
methodological elements in applying and integrating information search and
strategy into the paperwork and to the need to know of and how to use different
search techniques and resources.
In a collaborative perspective working with a research librarian, has shown the
writing consultant (Rienecker) that search for literature and information
requires a degree of precision in terminology that effectively shapes those
genres, which require a substantial literature background.
Especially in the humanities, many research questions contain broad and
imprecise key words, which are not instrumental for electronic searches and can
sometimes be indicative of a too vague and unfocused problem idea. The very
existence of the databases and the search engines, the very fact that a search
all too easily renders thousands of hits, will prompt the student towards posing
narrower questions, in fact researching more small scale and become explicitly
aware of their own influence on coining the problem, perspective and possible
analytical outcomes – or revert to asking the supervisor or the librarian what
books are on their shelves. The terminology open to a writer is shaped by
library terminology logic, which may not be identical to the logic of the
disciplines in question, nor to the writers.
The research librarians, teach us to be more scientific, in
the sense of being more precise in what we as student and researchers ask, and
addressed to which knowledge bases. The librarian mediates what scientific
searches demand, and what an information search demands will in it´s turn shape
the way research questions can be posed.
The ever-repeated stance that the elements of a paper (and of Information
Literacy) are the same across disciplines is not readily accepted. Several
representatives from the natural sciences are interested in Scribo only if it
includes examples from their fields.
This embedded and collaborative piece of e-learning presents itself as relevant
to the student: many students will acquire skills, knowledge and
competencies in Information Literacy that they would not otherwise have had the
opportunity for or interest in.
Embedding Information Literacy teaching is founded on strategic as well as
pedagogical considerations.
Integration and embeddedness supplies meaning and
relevance to Information Literacy.
In Scribo this is done simultaneously: the literature search is
written, learnt and executed simultaneously.
Pros
and cons - what is the point?
Scribo applies very well to social sciences,
less so to philosophy or any other discipline where research papers may resemble
essays, in that they may not be clearly methodological.
Scribo is best
adapted to analysis papers. It is difficult to build into a piece of
software such important aspects of teaching writing as rhetorical awareness of
specific purposes, formats, themes and audiences.
The goal of all writing development ultimately should be rhetorical awareness,
rather than a mere allegiance to format and convention.
The intention behind the software Scribo is to scaffold a process of design
of the basic elements of the research paper. The same type of consideration
applyes to Information Literacy. Many researchers/teachers know by
experience how to find and qualify information and literature, but are not
explicitly aware of their own praxis and other methods and techniques. By
giving different examples of how it can be done and illustrating what the
information and literature search process necessarily consists of in order to do
independent student research, Scribo empowers the student user in a proactive
manner, e.g. as opposed to thesis supervision which is in nature generally
reactive.
Is it at all possible to teach academic writing, search skills (and other
practical and intellectual competencies) by teaching genre and generic
competencies across disciplines and external to the subjects taught? The authors
say yes.
The research paper is about using systematisms of a field to conduct an inquiry,
a piece of research of the student’s own, and it is a training in
employing methods, concepts and theories as well as teaching the students
information search skills and a sense of academic production of knowledge and
academic integrity. These are general academic competencies.
Teaching them separately (in supplement to subjectintegrated) also gives focus
to the field of knowledge, e.g. research question formulation, project planning
and information literacy. This makes it possible to use and develop a language
to speak of the specific skills and competencies that in turn helps students to
be more aware of what is expected of them beyond the discipline specific
curriculum.
In order to set further focus on the requirements and expectations to the
students, Academic Writing Center and Copenhagen University Library are now
launching a collaborative student paper contest for the Faculty of Humanities,
Autumn 2006: “In Search of Excellence”, where prices are given to the
best paper in terms of writing/communicating, analytical and information
competencies. The faculty dean has accepted to be in the panel of judges, which
will add even more attention to the the competencies as well as to the
collaborative element.
Rich and useful information about this
software and its application to the general process of research paper writing
is available in English in the following paper, presented at Creating
Knowledge IV - Empowering the Student through Cross-Institutional Collaboration.
International
conference at The Royal Library and University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen, 16-18
August 2006:
Lotte Rienecker - Tina Buchtrup Pipa, Scribo:
A Tool for Proactive Collaborative Teaching.
Keywords:
academic writing guide - modular software - academic writing - thesis writing
- academic research - research paper writing - information literacy
- academic information literacy - research questioning - research question -
research papers - research paper genre - information search - information
searching - literature search - literature searching - research skills - search
skills - information skills - information needs - literature needs - method
skills - analysis skills - analytical tools - rhetorics - rhetorical awareness -
academic competencies - students' empowerment - students' support - individual learning tool - scaffolding - collaborative
teaching - proactive collaborative teaching - IL integration into curriculum |
