This guide will help you find relevant resources and significant texts in your discipline.
ENGL 304: "This course in advanced composition considers the concept of discourse in the various disciplines. Through a carefully developed portfolio of significant texts in their discipline as well as their own work, students will explore the discourse of their major discipline; enhance their ability to think and write critically about contemporary issues; and develop advanced skills in research, analysis, and synthesis of information."
One powerful way to think about scholarship and academic writing is as an unending conversation.
For example:
When we enter a room and try to join a conversation in progress, we first have to listen and try to figure out what’s going on. At some point, when we’ve picked up enough context, we can join in. And when we leave the room, we leave the conversation still in full flow. That is how academic scholarship works. It builds upon prior research (previous conversation), when you conduct research information is added to it (you adding to the conversation), and then others pick up where you left off and continue research (you leave the conversation).
Hopefully by the end of this semester you will have some sense of scholarship as conversation in progress and some tips on how to figure out who’s talking and how to pick up the threads without getting completely lost.