Here are some useful research guides, grading rubrics, and other helpful material.

• Some are links to useful websites.
• Some are web-based guides that build on the work of others, with links to the originals.
• Some are PDF files.  A few browsers require you to save these to your desktop for viewing.
• Those marked “CC” were created by Jim Spickard.  They may be used, modified, and redistributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  (See below for what this means in plain English.)

With that legal stuff out of the way:

On doing research:

• • “The Concept Paper” — a 1-page guide.  (Click here for a downloadable CC version.)
  • A one-page handout on 20 Literature Search Strategies (CC).  95kb PDF file, revised 1/16
  • “Web Literacy for Students”, by Mike Caulfield — an online (open-access) book about fact-checking the Internet.  Highly recommended.
  • “Types of Research” (CC). 52kb PDF file
  • “How Many Subjects” (a guide for non-random interview projects) (CC). 71kb PDF file
  • “How to Write an Interview Protocol” (CC). 82kb PDF file
  • “Interviews” — an online guide from Research Methods Knowledge Base
  • “On Fieldnotes” (a template with instructions) (CC). 47kb PDF file
  • “What Statistical Test Should I Use?” (a flowchart) (CC). 77kb PDF file

Assignment guides: Instructions for specific assignments can be found on  this site’s Assignments page.

• • About PechaKucha presentations.
  • The Unessay: an assignment developed by Daniel Paul O’Donnell
  • Guidelines for group book presentations.  14kb PDF file
  • Rules for Writing (a guide for Jim Spickard’s classes). 183kb PDF file
  • University of Redlands WB (Writing Across the Curriculum) Rubric 71KB PDF file

Grading Rubrics: 

• • “Field & Data Exercise Rubric”. 103kb PDF file.
  • “Research Example Rubric”.   139kb PDF file
  • “Research Proposal Rubric”.  135kb PDF file
  • Standards for Blog Posts
  • How I Grade Course Participation
  • Research Design Rubric (Excellent/Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory version with details about each design element) 182kb PDF file
  • Research Design Rubric (Summary A-F version) 130kb PDF file

Assignment forms:

• • “Literature Search Exercise”  162kb PDF file
  • “Citation Styles Guide”  90kb PDF file
  • 20 Literature Search Strategies (CC).  95kb PDF file, revised 1/16

Evaluation forms:

• • Evaluation form for class discussions. 272kb PDF file
  • Group project contribution report — long form. 369kb PDF file
  • Group project contribution report — short form. 324kb PDF file

Websites with useful material on research: (see also the Web Resources section of our Readings page)

• • Research Methods Knowledge Base — a website by William M.K. Trochim, Professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University
  • Every Monday through Friday, Kevin Lewis posts abstracts from scholarly research at his National Affairs Blog.  He presents a different topic each day, with 20-25 (usually) insightful articles.  This is a great source for locating solid research designs!!
  • An extremely incomplete list of YouTube videos on quantitative data analysis and statistics.  Some of are well done, some are deadly boring, but all have good content.
  • Norton Publishing’s “Methods in Context” video series: a set of talking-head interviews with researchers who describe their research projects.  Short but useful.
  • Graham Gibbs: “The Research Interview”  6 You-Tube videos, which together form a long lecture on the whats, whys, and hows of research interviewing.  Boring but complete.  Worth a look/skim.

Websites with useful material on writing:

• • Gingko: An Online Writing Tool
    This web app uses outlines to make your writing easier.  It lets you separate major, minor, and sub-minor points, fill each with text, and reorganize that text at will.  Read the description from the ProfHacker blog or go directly to the site at http://gingkoapp.com/.

 

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What is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License?

It means that:

• You may redistribute the work freely to others in any medium, provided you cite the original author and include the Creative Commons license.
• You may alter, remix, and/or build upon the work, provided you indicate which parts were created by the original author and which parts were created by you, and provided you distribute the composite work under the same Creative Commons license as the original.
• You may neither sell the work (nor any altered, remixed, or transformed derivative works), nor may you charge anyone for access to it, nor may you use the work for commercial purposes.