Discussing Contemporary Challenges
Volledige vakbeschrijving
Now that you have identified the most important works in the field of your chosen challenge (having also positioned yourselves), you can take the next steps. Indeed, if you have carried out a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature, you should have been able to recognise the most prominent gaps, lacunae or heated points of debate. This means that you are also ready to advance a preliminary research proposal. And that is what you are going to do in this course: write a short paper identifying a research puzzle, explaining why it is relevant (both from a societal and an academic perspectives), ultimately to present the reader with a research question and the way you would go about to answer it. In this regard, we want you to become more familiar with the structure of academic reasoning. Please note that you can re-use parts of your literature review but always adapting it to the new format paper; this means you will have to always paraphrase your previous work to avoid self-plagiarism (forbidden at FASoS).
Doelstellingen van dit vak
During the next weeks you will learn how to write a “research proposal”, starting from the literature review you wrote in period 1. Successfully concluding this course will contribute to acquiring the following building-blocks of their final ES qualifications:
- Students will learn how to craft a research proposal in the domain of the selected challenge and have knowledge of its main scholars, manuals, series, reviews, websites and data collections;
- Students will be able to identify research puzzles from the analysis of the existing literature;
- Students will be able to explain the relevance of the selected topic (both societal and academic);
- Students will be able to formulate research questions;
- Students will be able to select a suitable explanation on how they plan to answer the selected research question;
- Students will be able to reflect critically on their own research choices for the coming years while also allowing for critical reflection on the discipline of European Studies;
- Communicate your findings in a style fitting to the academic audience in European Studies;
- Give constructive, useful feedback to peers;
- Revise, edit and proofread your written work building on (peer) feedback and on individual priorities developed on the basis of past writing tasks;
- Understand and apply conventions of academic writing, including the guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Aanbevolen literatuur
- FASoS Writing Guide
- The rest of the literature should be identified by students