Course Content and Outcomes Guides (CCOG)

CCOG for WR 222 archive revision 202104

You are viewing an old version of the CCOG. View current version »

Effective Term:
Fall 2021 through Winter 2025

Course Number:
WR 222
Course Title:
Writing Research Papers
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Develops skills in critical analysis and documented argument through extensive research writing. Covers techniques to synthesize considered responses to designated text(s) and/or issues with the reactions of other writers. Includes information literacy skills developed through the use of library catalogs, professional databases and other forms of research. Includes paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, and documenting, using style appropriate to discipline researched. At least two conferences required. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  • Successfully organize and manage an extended, research-based, thesis-centered essay of 3500-5000 words (or an equivalent wordcount in shorter essays) using MLA, APA, or other appropriate documentation styles.
  • Demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving in the context of research by showing observational skills, drawing reasonable inferences from a variety of sources, perceiving and establishing relationships among multiple sources, as well as evaluating and analyzing the structure and organization of sources and own writing.
  • Independently locate, examine, select, evaluate, and use various primary and secondary sources (including academic, printed, electronic, and interview-based).
  • Practice and demonstrate skills necessary to research writing, such as paraphrase, summary, direct quotation, citation and documentation.
  • Understand the ethics of research and avoid plagiarism.
  • Suit writing style and research material to intended audience and purpose.
  • Demonstrate control of research and voice to make an original claim.

Integrative Learning

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.

General education philosophy statement

English and Writing courses align with the PCC General Education philosophy by providing an appreciation of writing and literature from global and personal perspectives. Students in English courses engage the imagination, critical inquiry and self‐reflection, and in the process of doing so, cultivate a more complex understanding of their own culture(s), linguistic/communication practices, and perspectives in relation to others. Because the literary arts lie at the heart of most human cultures, they are essential for understanding each other and navigating our differences.

Research writing courses ask students to use critical thinking and reasoning skills in multiple ways: to identify the content, structure, style, and influence of texts, to examine how diverse perspectives affect human experience, and to understand, construct, and respond to ideas on a variety of issues. They ask students to examine how information is created, valued, and disseminated and what it means to engage these discourse communities through their own work.

Writing and Literature courses foster a stronger sense of engagement with history, culture, and society. Writing and Literature students develop an awareness of themselves as readers and writers in a global world, and an enlarged understanding of the relationships between language, identity, ideas, scholarship, communication, and transformation.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

Reading and writing assessment tasks will include the following:

  • At least one research-based, thesis-centered, appropriately documented essay of 3500-5000 words (or an equivalent wordcount in shorter essays)
  • An annotated bibliography (or equivalent)
  • Two conferences with the instructor
  • Class discussion

Other assessment tasks may include the following:

  • Shorter essay(s)
  • Study questions and exercises to support the techniques of research and research-based writing
  • Research journal used as a foundation for the research project
  • Responses to assigned text(s), in or out of class
  • Oral presentation
  • Group collaboration and participation
  • Personal and/or email interviews
  • Abstracts

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

  • Examine and discuss issues of plagiarism, ethics of research writing, credibility, authority, and self-directed learning
  • Advance the concepts of independent study and research, self-knowledge, and the ability to assess own work critically
  • Engage in inference, analysis, synthesis
  • Solve problems involved in an extended writing project
  • Perceive, connect, and integrate a variety of sources and positions, and establish own ideas in such a context
  • Demonstrate an awareness of audience
  • Recognize the distinction between scholarly (or peer reviewed), professional, commercial, and other forms of writing and resources

Competencies and Skills

  • Awareness of audience and voice in the context of research writing
  • Increased expertise in the process of research
  • Proficient time management
  • Engagement with scholarship and participation in a community of scholars
  • A sense of responsibility for own ideas and progress
  • Ability to analyze, select, edit, and place paraphrased information and
    quotations with appropriate context
  • Ability to use library databases to access academic and nonacademic  sources
  • Evaluate relative authority of print and electronic resources

Some sections may:

  • Focus on particular disciplines
  • Link to other courses
  • Incorporate service learning component
  • Focus on community-based primary sources such as interviews, local information and historical data

Possible Texts:

Bruce Ballenger, The Curious Researcher (Pearson Longman)