Guidelines for Conducting Community Research in Academia

Outline Requirements

It must be handed in onlinethrough the Brightspace drop box. Any assignment received after this time will be subject tothe Late Policy of a 5% penalty per day.Your outline should be 1-2 pages typed; it should be formatted to be double spaced using 12-point font. With your outline you should provide a list of a minimum of 5 academic sources thatyou believe may be useful to direct your research or assist you in interpreting the interactionsyou record. Make sure when you choose a community to study that you will have access tocomplete your observation and interviews and that you will have enough time to complete theresearch. To prepare for your research make sure you have considered any ethical obligation you have; this may include contacting a member of the community to ask for permission toobserve, preparing interview questions, and gaining permission to interview. If you are going tobe conducting any interviews, make sure to have your information sign an Informed ConsentForm. I would recommend coming to my office hours or emailing me with any questions aboutethical questions for any study that will involve interviews.

Make sure to include the following in your outline:

- The community, location, or group, you will be studying

- The method that you will be using to conduct your research

- The research question you would like to investigate

- If there are any other studies looking at a similar question or community

- Any biases or beliefs that you hold about the community that may influence your work

or that may lead to “tunnel-vision”

. It must be handed in online, through theBrightspace drop box. Any assignment received after this time will be subject to the Late Policyof a 5% penalty per day.

Your final paper should be 4-5 pages typed; it should be formatted to be double spaced using12-point font. A minimum of 5 academic sources are required for this assignment, there is nomaximum.

To prepare to write your final paper - Observe your chosen community or event a minimum of

twice. If appropriate write notes during the observation, write complete field notes as soon as

possible after the interaction. Remember to the keys to good field notes! Include:- Date, time, and place of the observation

- Facts, numbers, details of the event

- Sensory Impressions

- Personal Response

- Words, phrases, conversations, and insider language

- Questions about behaviours or people that require more investigation

- Page Numbers to keep events orderedChiseri-Strater, E. (1997). Fieldworking: Reading and writing research. Prentice Hall.

You will need to reflect on your observations to find an area of interest and make sure you havechosen a focus that can be covered in the length of paper assigned. You should not onlyrecount details of events, you will need to draw conclusions from those observations. Tosupport your conclusions, make sure to include detailed descriptions and quotes from yourobservations. You can also use elements of a literature review of studies that focus on similarcommunities or questions to support your conclusions. You may decide how to structure your

paper to best answer your research questions. However, you should still have an introduction,body, and conclusion. Make sure that you choose an original title for your essay that reflectsyour research. This is your opportunity to be creative.

Optional Presentation: The presentation will be worth a 5% bonus added to the final essaymark. This presentation must be between 5-8 minutes in length and have an accompanyingPowerPoint. All PowerPoint presentations must be submitted by email to your instructor’semail. Presentations will be

spread across 4 classes (Monday, March 2. The presentation order will be random.Presentations are expected to cover;

- where the research was conducted