Most courses teach students to make arguments for their positions, to sift through material for "evidence" that supports them, as if lawyers making the strongest case for their clients were the best model for inquiry. This course, by contrast, teaches students how to treat their own ideas as conditional, how to assess and revise them in accordance with the materials that count as evidence. This course is for juniors and seniors interested in learning how to write a major research paper in the social sciences, and is designed specifically for advanced students doing independent projects, semester-long seminar papers or senior theses. Students can come to class with a topic in mind, can develop a topic in the class, or can pursue a variety of topics throughout the semester. The course will show how to frame an appropriate research question and how to determine what counts as an answer to that question. We will spend time discussing what constitutes valid evidence, how to identify and evaluate alternative explanations for the same event, and how to separate coincidence from cause. Along the way, students will become acquainted with a variety of research techniques, such as interviews, surveys, archival research, case studies and field studies. The course assumes no statistics, nor will it cover statistics; instead, our focus will be on more fundamental issues involved in conceiving and executing a research project. Requirements: weekly papers applying a method or research problem to a topic chosen by the student. Prerequisite: junior or senior standing.
SHANKS, C. JOHNSON