Category Archives: Colby

Claims, Evidence, Reasons, and Warrants

Colby, Course Information, Fall 2013, Laura
Explaining Claims, Evidence, Reasons, and Warrants
Lindsey’s Whiteboard Madness!

Here are the results of today’s class on argumentation. Above, you can see Lindsey’s whiteboard musings, and below are the results of both of our activities! (Hover over any photo to see a caption; click to enlarge it for easier viewing.)

After writing down questions and discussing the primary points behind The Craft of Research‘s chapters on argumentation, we began the activity portion of the class with an “exquisite corpse”-style game, where we traded off writing theses and evidence. Later, these papers were annotated for places where warranting seemed a probable necessity.

After some work isolating each paper’s primary claim, we used that as a starting point for an expanded version of the reasons and evidence activity in Chapter 9 of The Craft of Research. Colby and Laura wrote out their reasons/core ideas (white notecards) and key pieces of evidence (blue & green notecards), and then placed those two sets of information in relationship to one another visually. They were then invited to trade places and rearrange the other person’s material according to what they felt was the most logical pattern. Prof. Isenberg then weighed in, rearranging the work of both students into what he felt to be the most logical pattern. Finally, Colby and Laura added warrants to this structure (gold & yellow notecards), placing them where they seemed most likely to come up. Thank you to everyone for a constructive and thoughtful session!

Research Consultation: Colby

Colby, Fall 2013

We began with the following questions/concerns:

  • Source management
  • Zotero
  • Time management

Source Management: When working with general sources, or sources written for a nonspecialist audience, use the index and the bibliographies rather than reading straight through. Taking the time to sort through what sources will be useful is not wasted time; it will allow you to direct your search more quickly. Helps distill the research question. In this case, we have a creative project and a critical project, and both are going to have to be built and grown at the same time. And if one part of the project isn’t flowing, you should work on the other part of the project–make time for the treatment as well as the critical introduction. But do a little bit daily–this will help manage the anxiety and make deadlines more realistic.

Colby’s DFW primary sources need a boost from secondary, lit-crit sources. Academic database searching is the way to go for this–on topics re: self-consciousness and autobiography in Infinite Jest. This is her next move!

Colby’s also going to keep an online whiteboard/general inspiration board online at Mural.ly. This will be an evolving, multi-dimensional space; the key is to always incorporate new material in relationship to old.

Zotero: We downloaded the standalone Zotero app for use on Colby’s Macbook, and discussed the benefits of the app versus the browser extension. We covered how you can use Zotero to take notes, how you can edit citations, Zotero for PDF management, and how to use it with Word when you are integrating your source material into your draft. Lindsey recommended making several Zotero folders (and/or tags) for sources: Sources I Have Read, Sources I Have Found, Sources I Have Yet To Find. She also recommended using Zotero’s “Notes” and “tags” functions for note-taking and file sorting.

Time Management: We talked about using Google Calendar for deadline management, and set suggested appointment dates in November in order to boost productivity. We also discussed the “pomodoro” technique (25 minutes of work followed by a 5 minute break), for which Lindsey recommends something like focus booster, and free apps like SelfControl, which shut off the more tempting parts of the Internet while you are working

Tablet Apps: 

  • Genius Scan is essential! Turns any iPhone or iPad into a scanner. Use this when working with books, especially in the library
  • Get a document reader that can annotate: GoodReader is a good one, Lindsey also uses iAnnotate PDF (which, despite the name, does more than PDFs)
  • Dropbox and Google Drive both have apps; be sure you are backing up your documents in the cloud
  • BEST APP EVER: Unstuck. Helps you when you are stuck! Seriously! It really works!
  • Simple Pomodoro Timer for time management/pomodoro technique
  • For getting ideas down: Lindsey likes OmmWriter (sweet interface; plug headphones in for calming music within the app) and Dragon Dictation (free! Talk to someone other than Siri!). If you are thinking visually she also recommends Paper, which is a sketchbook app.