GEOG 696 readings, S/06, Dr. Rodrigue

GEOG 696 Readings

Seminar in Geographical Research Methods

Spring 2006

Readings, in order of assignment

Introduction to Graduate School (1 February)

Hornbeck, D. 1989.: So ... you wanna go to graduate school? In On Becoming a Professional Geographer, ed. M.S. Kenzer, pp. 10-16. Columbus, OH, and other places: Merrill.
Clifford, Nicholas, and Valentine, Gill (eds.). 2003.: Getting started in geographical research: How this book can help. Ch. 1 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 1- 16. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Groening, Matt. 1987.: Lesson 19: Grad school -- some people never learn. From Life in Hell: School Is Hell but It Beats Working. Available at: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dmirman/gradschoolhell/schoolishell.html.

Current Trends in Three Journals in General Geography (8 February)

Healey, Mick. 2003.

How to conduct a literature search. Ch. 2 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 17-36. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

For each of the three general journals below, browse any six issues of tables of content dating from the year 2000 and later, taking notes on recent trends in the kinds of research being reported in it, paying special attention to trends in your area of geography: human, physical/environmental, or technical (accessible online through our library):

Annals of the Association of American Geographers (all subfields)
The Professional Geographer (all subfields)
Transactions, Institute of British Geographers (all subfields)

Qualitative Methods in Human Geography (15 February)

Maxwell, J.A. 1992.: Understanding and validity in qualitative research. Harvard Educational Review 62, 3: 279-300.
McKafferty, Sara L. 2003.: Conducting questionnaire surveys. Ch. 6 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 87-100. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Longhurst, Robyn. 2003.: Semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Ch. 8 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 117-132. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Laurier, Eric. 2003.: Participant observation. Ch. 9 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 133-148. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Bondi, Liz. 2003.: Empathy and identification: Conceptual resources for feminist fieldwork. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 2, 1: 64-75.
Davis, Jeffrey Sasha. 2005.: Is it really safe? That's what we want to know. The Professional Geographer 57, 2: 217-221.

Peer Critiques and Unscheduled Community College Jobs Workshop (22 February)

Critique peer thesis purpose statements
Attend community college jobs workshop

Quantitative Methods in Physical Geography (1 March)

Lane, Stuart N. 2003.: Numerical modelling in physical geography. Ch. 17 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 263-290. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Souch, Catherine. 2003.: Getting information about the past: Palaeo and historical data sources. Ch. 13 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G. Valentine, pp. 195-208. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Betancourt, J. L.. 2004.: Arid lands paleobiogeography: The fossil rodent midden record in the Americas. Frontiers in Biogeography: New Directions in the Geography of Nature, ed. M.V. Lomolino and L.R. Heaney, pp. 27-46. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
Holmgren, C.A.; Norris, J.; and Betancourt, J.L. 2006.: Inferences about winter temperatures and summer rains from the late Quaternary record of C4 perennial grasses and C3 desert shrubs in the northern Chihuahuan Desert. Journal of Quaternary Science (forthcoming).
Available at http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog696/holmgrenetal.pdf
Begin revising and expanding your statement of purpose into a one page pre-proposal. This pre-proposal should include the following elements: A revised thesis purpose statement. Again, this is ideally a one-sentence declaration of the scope, methodological approach, and subject matter. Check your writing to eliminate any empty, hazy, or padding words? Does the verb suggest the methodological approach you plan for data acquisition and analysis to answer your research question or test your hypotheses? Look at that purpose again with a really beady eye: Is the purpose feasible? That is, can you imagine actually doing this amid all the constraints of your life, within six months to a year? Literature mastery? Data collection? Analysis? Interpretation? Write-up? Really? For the rest of your pre-proposal, briefly indicate why your topic is important to anyone besides yourself. Frame this importance in terms of the literature you've been reading in your area. Does your thesis fill a theoretical gap or help resolve a theoretical question or debate? Alternatively, how does it enrich existing literature? How is it geographical? Briefly discuss the data you will collect, how you'll collect them, and problems with them. Briefly discuss how you will process these data to interpret or analyze them. Look your statement over very critically: You need to be your harshest critic. Is the statement well-written? No grammatical gaffes? No surprising spelling? Good and varied sentence structure? No sexist usage? No pretentious language or, even worse, misuse of "big words"? You may find it helpful to write it up until you're exhausted or done, even if you've warbled on for more than a page or two. Just get your ideas down. Then, go back and re-organize them and cut, cut, cut. Get it down to one (or 1.5 pages). Revise again until it reads beautifully. Show it to a friend or two and ask them to ream it. Nurse your hurt feelings. Calm down. Revise again.

Library Boot Camp (8 March)

Mr. Greg Armento, the librarian specializing in the geography collections, has agreed to give us a 1.5 hour tour of the library and of its electronic resources. Meet in the Spidell Room in the library at 7:15 p.m. sharp. Go there directly, rather than to LA4-204.
Expand your initial statement of thesis topic to a one page (no more than two pages), in light of your peer critiques, the peer critique guidelines above, and seminar discussion on 02/22. If, on sober reflection during the two weeks you've been writing your pre-proposal, you feel that the initial topic idea isn't really workable, you are free to come up with a different topic for your revised statement.
Please take the self-directed module on human subjects with automated test scoring. You need to take the module, though you will not be penalized if you get a poor score: The point is to be exposed to the material. If you score above 70%, however, the system will "pass" you and register you with the Institutional Review Board on campus, which will make your life easier later, if there is any human subjects component to your thesis (interviews, focus groups, use of individual data, and so forth, which can affect even very physical geography oriented theses).: http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/research/our/compliance/orientation/modules/human_subjects/index.html

Institutional Review of Human Subjects Issues and Pre-Proposals (Ides of March)

Guest Lecture

Dr. Jim Till (Director for Research Compliance, Office of University Research, Division of Academic Affairs, CSULB) will provide background on Human Subjects issues, how the CSULB IRB is set up to review Human Subjects before research takes place, the power it has to stop a research project that has not undergone IRB review, and how you can get your project "vetted" ahead of time. Dr. Till is on the Institutional Review Board. Dr. Till has asked that all of you take the self-directed module on Human Subjects linked above for last week's readings before he comes to talk.

I would also like you to visit the IRB web site: http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/research/our/compliance/irb/: become familiar with the contents of the: Application Form for Standard or Expedited Review of Protocol Applications the accompanying Instructions

Additionally, please read through a workshop originally put together for community college and high school students participating in our Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Project, which discusses ethics in science and specifically discusses plagiarism and, more to tonight's point, human subjects in research: Rodrigue, Christine M.; Behl, Richard J.; Ambos, Elizabeth L.; and Bauer, Roger D. 2004. Introduction to Ethical Considerations in Research, Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Project workshop, departments of Geography, Geological Sciences, and Anthropology, CSULB.

Turn in 5 copies of your pre-proposals for distribution to your subdisciplinary team peers

Start working on the first draft of your full thesis proposal. You might want to review the grading rubric I'll use to evaluate your proposal and which your peers will use: http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog696/rubric.doc. If you know how you're going to be critiqued, it might help focus your writing.

GIScience and Pre-Proposal Critiques (22 March)

Batty, Michael. 2003.: Using geographical information systems. Ch. 23 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G.Valentine, pp. 409-423. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Nellis, M. Duane. 2005.: Geospatial information technology, rural resource development, and future geographies. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, 1: 1-10.
Rowbotham, David; de Scally, Fes; and Louis, John. 2005.: The identification of debris torrent basins using morphometric measures derived within a GIS. Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography 87, 4: 527-537. 403-422.
Criticize the pre-proposals written by your subdisciplinary team members, evaluating and commenting on each of the criteria presented on 1 March when the pre-proposal assignment was presented. Provide enough information so your colleague clearly knows which items are problematic and how they might improve them. Then, rate each of the pre-proposals in your group (including your own masterpiece) with 1 being best. You must rank them: No ties. If you feel two are virtually tied, rank 'em anyway and, in your comments, explain that you feel why they're awfully close.
Anonymous. No date.: You lost me in the third paragraph: A guide to gracious criticism. University Writing Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. This reading is optional but quite helpful in learning how to do peer-critiques.
Continue working on your full proposal, always with an eye to the critique form your peers and I will use.

Writing Proposals and Theses (29 March)

Bradford, Michael. 2003.: Writing essays, reports, and dissertations. Ch. 29 of Key Methods in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford and G.Valentine, pp. 515-532. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Madsen, David. 1983.: Preparing the research proposal. Ch. 4 of his Successful Dissertations and Theses, pp. 35-62. San Francisco and other places: Jossey-Bass.
Rudestam, Kjell Erik, and Newton, Rae R. 1992.: Overcoming barriers: Becoming an expert while controlling your own destiny. Ch. 8 of their Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process, pp. 131-144. Newbury Park, CA, and other places: SAGE.
Veroff, Jody. 1992.: Writing. Ch. 9 of Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process, ed. K.E. Rudestam and R.R. Newton, pp. 145-167. Newbury Park, CA, and other places: SAGE.
Continue working on your full proposal, always with an eye to the critique form your peers and I will use.

Unveiling of Your First, Possibly Embarrassing Draft (5 April)

Bring three copies of your full proposal, for distribution to the other people in your circle of vultures and moi.
Using the rubric for proposal evaluation available from the course home page, go through your colleagues' first drafts over the next two weeks, for delivery back to them on 19 April. The rubric consists of a series of statements rated along a 0 to 1, 2, or 4 scale. In using this rubric, remember that you are trying to identify possible problem areas for your colleague to repair before turning in their Majestic Final Draft. So, if you find yourself debating whether to give a 0 or a 1 or, perhaps, a 3 or a 4, err on the side of the lower score. Be very sparing with the highest scores available: It does your colleague no good to get a bunch of brilliant scores when the paper isn't really brilliant (and, from what I've been hearing from you the last couple of weeks, most of these little efforts are going to stink at this point).
Please be sure to make some comments at the end of the evaluation. Sometimes using rubrics doesn't catch your wholistic sense of the project: If you feel that your numeric score is too high (or, more likely, too low), qualify your feelings in prose to help your colleague out.
At the end of the semester, I want you to turn in the Majestic Final Draft AND your rough drafts as evaluated and marked up by your colleagues. I'd like you to rank your two peer critics in terms of how helpful s/he was in your revision work. I'll independently evaluate how helpful you were to your colleagues, too. So, being "nice" now is not nice to your colleague, nor to your own grade. Welcome to professional peer review!

Spring Break! (12 April)

Continue working on your peer critiques AND on revising your own full proposal.

Peer Critiques (19 April)

Turn in your peer critiques. Read your own and get depressed and angry. Get it out of your system and then go back to revising, this time with peer critiques to help focus your revisions. And, since Monsieur Boudreau keeps asking, "there aren't any readings over spring break, are there?", I just had to include a reading list:
Jones, I.R. and Allen, E. 2002: Detection of large woody debris accumulations in old-growth forests using sonic wave collection. Transactions of the Important Tree Scientists 120, 2: 101-209. Available at: http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog696/treeinthewoods.pdf.
Kaub, George F. 1974.: National Geographic, the Doomsday Machine. The Journal of Irreproducible Results 20, 3: 22-23. Available at: http://www.jir.com/geographic.html.

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Document maintained by Dr. Rodrigue
First placed on web: 01/15/99
Last revision: 04/04/06