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Graduate Studies
Graduate Office | MA-Generalist | MA-Literature | MA-TESOL | MA-Teaching English | PHD-Composition & TESOL | PHD-Literature & Criticism
ENGL 781/881 Research Skills: Studies in Literature as a Profession Dr. Cheryl Wilson Section 1: M-F 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
This course satisfies three credits of the Research Skills requirement. We all know that academe is a difficult place to be. Having a Ph.D. does not guarantee employment. That said, there are many ways in which students can prepare themselves to be competitive and successful when they enter the profession. Focusing on the practical aspects of literature as a profession, this course will cover a variety of topics including the job market, publishing, defining a field of study, writing in relevant genres, and teaching. Although appropriate for any student in the Masters or Doctoral program, this course will be aimed at those students seeking employment at the university level and/or those who are looking to develop their academic research and writing skills. Most of the course materials will be supplied by the students themselves and class meetings will frequently take the form of workshops and one-on-one tutorials. The purpose of this course is to provide a space in which students can engage in intensive work on the project or projects of their choice while situating that work within broader scholarly and professional communities.
ENGL 781/881 Research Skills: Research and the Hyperlinking of Knowledge Dr. Chris Orchard Section 2: M-F 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
This course satisfies three credits of the Research Skills requirement. This is a one-week intensive workshop designed for current high school and college teachers as well as other graduate students. Using the concepts of connectivity and the hyper-linking of knowledge found in the works of the popular creative innovator and intellect James Burke, students will learn and apply methods of research that will create pathways of information across different literary periods. Such will require students to encounter, record and analyze a multiplicity of different sources—both primary and secondary—in databases and archival material. Once students have understood and applied these pathways in different cultural periods and in different kinds of documents, they will conclude with a focus on a particular literary period, author or cultural concept of their choice, constructing a bibliography that reflects their findings and using methods of the course. There will be a variety of activities every day and the class will take advantage of hands-on research using archival sources at the library as well as a variety of extensive academic databases that include articles, pamphlets, and newspapers.
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