PhaseB

=Phase B—Background information=

Goal
"I know what others have done before, either in the form of writing or action, that informs and connects with my project, and I know what others are doing now."

Processes
Background research in the library, on the internet, and by phone to find out who's done what before/ who's doing what (through writing & action) that informs your evolving project, including: > allowing for interplay among the 5 Fs, > locating a Key Article, > connecting with initial informant to guide your inquiries in their early unformed stage, > digestion and annotation of readings and conversations to clarify how they connect with your project. ,

Background research
Background research involves a continuing interplay among the **5 Fs: Find, Focus, Filter, Face Fears, File** > __Find__: Develop skills in using bibliographic searches, enlisting timely assistance from library personnel, identifying informants, etc. to help you find what you are Focused on as well as material that leads you to refine or rethink that Focus.. > __Focus__: What am I looking for now? What do I need to clarify what I know/need to know and keep moving forward? This will evolve as you Filter and digest what you Find. > __Filter__: You can't read everything you find, so use your Focus to push some items to the side (or into the recycle bin). What you do read should be digested actively, so you can refine your Focus. > __Face Fears__: Your Finding may be inhibited if you Fear that others have already done what you want to, or if you Fear your work is not important unless it is Completely Original. Instead, accept—even embrace—that the work of many others overlaps or intersects with your work. And be confident that, in the end, your project will be original because no-one before has ever been weaving that project into your work and life. > __File__: To help you Focus, clear your desk (and computer desktop) of material you are not using right now. Put the printouts and notes in places organized and labeled so you can Find them again easily. Expect to be fuzzy or unfocused at first, but don't wait till you have, for example, clarified your Focus before trying to Find material. Instead, start with your initial Focus and let it evolve as you see what you Find (or don't find), Filter it, and Face your Fears. Keep the 5F's in play as you proceed through the steps to follow.

> Learn or refresh bibliographic searching skills on and off the internet. > Use the catalogs and databases to locate articles or sections in books that provide what you need to move forward in your research. In order to identify the range of publications relevant to your project now -- rather than when it is too late in the project to be useful -- look especially for a:
 * //In session 2//**

Key (review or controversy) article
It's relatively easy to find an article that matches your project and gives you entry points, but a key article is much more than an entry point or affirmation of your gut feelings. It must point to many references to other publications and gets you close to being able to say, "I know what others have done before that informs and connects with my project."

> Establish off-campus connection to the University or local library (after getting your ID, barcode, etc.) > Establish your on-paper and on-computer Research Organization, including your bibliographic and note-taking systems, your journal/workbook/notebook, organization of research materials and any other handouts. > Continue background library, internet, and phone research to find out who's done what before/ who's doing what (through writing & action) that informs your evolving project. Actively digest what you read. > Work on both of Elbow's "creative" and "critical" aspects—opening up your topic to more and more considerations, and seeking order and priority in the overabundance of material produced by the creative aspect. Elbow's insight is to alternate these aspects, not to let them stifle each other, as you define and refine a manageable project. > Don't give up on finding written material on your topics, even if it's to clarify the ways in which what you are doing is unique. It's a common trap to say you've tried and failed to find something when you're protecting yourself from unarticulated fears/self-doubts by not trying very hard, making time, asking for help, following leads... Better to face your demons now rather than have them limit what you can do. 
 * //After session 2//**

Active digestion
It's easy to collect articles to read, but it's important for the progress of your project to sort out which give you what you need to move your project along. So you need to read "actively" -- Develop a process for reading that ideally involves the 5 F's, especially: > Focus: What do I want to learn now? Check out the title, intro, topic/thesis, ending, and subheadings of the article to see whether and how it connects. If not put it aside. > Filter: Although you can't read all of every article, it is worth the time to make "dialoguing" notes (e.g., putting these in brackets or on a facing page) so that at the end you have digested the article enough to say: What was argued? What was not? Where could it have been taken further? Where does all this connect with my project? Writing a summary forces you to push your own thinking further and make the material your own, and provides bits of text to use when you write your report. > File (see Research Organization)  Another approach to active digestion is a "Sense-making" response (see endnote to this Phase): a) I appreciated... b) I learned... c) I wanted to know more about... d) I struggled with... e) I would have been helped by... f) My project connects with this in the following way(s)... g) I disagreed with... h) I think the author/presenter should consider...  A third approach to active digestion is annotating your references (and compiling them in an Annotated Bibliography). Through annotation you check the significance of the reading against your current project definition and priorities, as well as compose sentences that may find its way into your writing. Annotations, therefore, should indicate the relevance of the article to your topic.

For an article or section in a book you have found, submit a "sense-making" response to show how it affirms and extends your thinking about your proposed research.
 * //By session 3//**

//**by session 4//**

Initial informant
Identify an initial informant to guide your inquiries in their early unformed stage, make contact, make appointment for a time before session 4, use your conversation with this initial informant to learn about leads, i.e., key people to read and/or contact, and give a brief verbal report in class 4 on the conversation. It is important to connect with others in your area as part of developing your own approach; it does not help to procrastinate on this as if other people's work threatens yours. (This assignment is different from interviews, which make sense under phase F.) Submit a photocopy of key article (or link to it online) with a paragraph describing how it provides you with a rich set of references to follow up on (and thus meet goal B, see above). 
 * OR**

Annotated bibliography
of reading completed or planned. The primary goal in annotating is for **you** to check the significance of the reading against your current project definition and priorities, and secondarily for readers to review the bibliography and help you identify holes and any mismatch between what you are reading and your Governing Question. An annotated bibliography also allows you to > a) compose sentences that may find its way into your writing, and > b) have your citations already typed in (use the format/citation style you intend to use for your final report). Relationship to your Focus is more important than quantity. Don't pack or pad this with zillions of references you've found in your searches, but instead use the compilation of a bibliography to stimulate your clarifying whether and in what ways an article is relevant to your project. Omit readings that no longer relate to the current direction of your project. Because your topic might have changed or should be more concise by the time you submit this bibliography, take stock of that and begin with a revised single-paragraph statement of the current topic and Governing Question. Writing a tighter statement will also help to expose changes, gaps, and ambiguities. Comments by others on your initial statement also helps, provided you ignore those rendered irrelevant by changes in your direction. -

Footnote on sense-making
Brenda Dervin, in the Department of Communication at Ohio State University, has developed a "Sense-Making" approach to the development of information seeking and use. One finding from Sense-Making research is that people make much better sense of seminar presentations and other scholarly contributions when these are accompanied by the contextual information in the items below. Reference: [|Dervin, B. (1999)]. "Chaos, order, and sense-making: A proposed theory for information design," pp. 35-57 in Robert Jacobson (ed.) Information Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. --- Author(s) Title of paper a) The essence of the project is... b) The reason(s) I took this road is (are)... c) The best of what I have achieved is... d) What has been particularly helpful to me in this project has been... e) What has hindered me has been... f) What I am struggling with is... g) What would help me now is... --- This "Sense-Making" approach also leads to recommendations about forms of response that authors/presenters learn most from -- and readers/listeners also. The response format suggested for active reading both acknowledges different voices and facilitates connections.

All Phases | **Next:** Phase C--Possible directions and priorities