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631
Assignments
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ASSIGNMENTS
Interpersonal Living SCHOLARS FROM SPRING 2003 Ann Baimbridge FrymierCharles Berger Brian Spitzberg Roxanne Parrot Mark Orbe
Don Cegala Mary Ann Fitzpatrick Joe Walther Anita Vangelisti Alan Rubin INTERPERSONAL LIVING SCHOLAR PAPER Your scholar paper is to be a detailed study of the contributions of a prominent communication scholar who is particularly associated with one of the interpersonal topics that we have examined in this course. The work of the scholar you select should exemplify or illuminate an area of interest (or a particular style of work) that will provide a foundation for your final proposal. Your chosen scholar should be a living communication scholar (one who participates in the professional association and/or journals and other literature specifically associated with the discipline). Study of this scholar’s work will be part of your contribution to your final research proposal Your final paper should do at least three things: 1) It should review and report on the contributions that your chosen scholar has made to the field of communication in general and to interpersonal communication in particular. In doing this, your paper should have a particular focus and coherency which you can achieve by emphasizing that part or aspect of your chosen scholar’s writings as they bear on some critical issue, the development of a theory, the development of empirical knowledge on some specific topic, etc.1 For example, a paper titled “Charles Berger and the development of uncertainty reduction theory” would review Berger’s contributions to the study of interpersonal communication while emphasizing uncertainty reduction theory and locating the place of uncertainty reduction theory (and Berger’s contribution to it) in interpersonal communication studies. In preparation for writing this paper, you should read as many articles, convention papers, chapters of books, and books by your scholar as you can find, again emphasizing his or her writing on some specific theme, topic, issue or theory, etc. You will also need to read some work by others on this or related topics, theories, etc. to locate your author’s work and also to prepare you for the second major aspect of the paper. References in your scholar’s work to the work of others should provide you with many clues to the sources that you need to examine. _____________ 1 By focusing your paper in this way, you are much more likely to produce a paper which can be revised as a paper for presentation at the meetings of a national or regional communication association (e.g., much more likely to produce such a paper than you would if your paper lacked such a focus). A paper that you later develop out of the work you do for your research proposal might or might not emphasize the work of your selected scholar. 2) The second aspect of your paper (though it need not be “part two” or even a separate part) is a critical analysis and evaluation of your scholar’s contribution to the area or discipline. For example, you would take note of Berger’s specific contribution to the development of uncertainty reduction theory, the import of that effort to the substantive area and/or the discipline at large, and characterize just how his efforts make a difference to the topic (or area or discipline), how they advance it, and/or how they define it. Your paper should make it clear to the reader just why your chosen author’s work is (or is not) worthy of study. There are some other ways of critically analyzing and evaluating your scholar’s work. You can ask what is missing in the work. You can also notice and report on what other scholars/researchers say about the work and note how they use it. You can even comment on how what these other scholars say, or how they use your scholars work, is, in your justified view, right or wrong. 3) The paper should also briefly treat your scholar’s other work and her/his intellectual biography. If these topics do not easily fit into the paper as you construct it, they may go into appendices. Additional Details A. Papers should be of convention-submission quality and approximately 18-22 pages in length -- (excluding references)--Annotated bibliography is due on November 12. B. Papers should follow APA (5th ed.) style and format with specific exceptions. C. The final manuscript is due Wednesday, November 12. D. While the content of your essay is its most important feature, grading will also take into account such matters as spelling, grammar, punctuation, form, and style. ____________________ 2 These exceptions are provided for in the APA style manual itself for student papers. Psychology journals sponsored by the APA discourage extensive use of substantive endnotes and any use of substantive appendices. For the purpose of this paper, you may feel free to use these devices, especially if it helps you in keeping the main line of argument in your paper “on track,” as it were. Further, and contrary to specific APA style, single-space any block quotations that you employ. Although that is not the form that you would use for a paper that you submit for publication, it is the form often employed for the distribution of a paper at a meeting and often for submission for presentation. |