Publishing about Contemporary Challenges
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As Inger Mewburna and Pat Thomson argue (2010, p. 1), “Academics are increasingly being urged to blog in order to expand their audiences, create networks and to learn to write in more reader friendly style.” The rationale behind this new development has to do with the fact that blogs appear to hold enormous potential for the development of skills among scholars (improving writing, expanding the readership, protecting your ideas, etc.). That is why the main activity for you to carry out in the second period will be to write a blog. However, this time there will be one formal specificity: you will write the blog in teams of approx. 4 students. Although there is no general consensus on the definition of blog, for the purpose of this course, we will use Walker’s (2003): “a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first.” Furthermore, a typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs as well. Beyond these general characteristics, the present course does not want to provide a one catch-all definition. Instead, it wants to leave students some freedom, in the belief that ‘blogs are whatever we make them’ (Conniff, 2005). In terms of content, groups have a considerable deal of freedom, although we recommend you to use the different findings coming from the individual literature reviews and the research strategies you did in periods 1 and 2. In any case, you should be ready to present a question/problem and communicate its potential contribution to a wider audience that might be interested in the general topic. And that is what you are going to do in this course: write a series of entries across the blog contributing to the main societal debates within your field. For that process to be efficient, all the members of the team will have to first find elements in common, agree on a joint strategy, write the sections, and manage the different parts of the blog all together. As you can see, writing the blog will be an interactive and dynamic activity with a multitude of tasks. Carrying out these tasks which will require a combination of individual and teamwork.
Doelstellingen van dit vak
During the next weeks you will become competent researchers and writers in the context of new digital technologies. You should also learn the characteristics of writing academically in the context of a blog, different from classic texts in scholarly journals. As a skills training, this course lays the groundwork for later modules that will teach specific research methods. Successfully concluding this course will contribute to students acquiring the following building-blocks of their final ES qualifications:
- Will have acquired some research strategies in the domain of the selected challenge and have knowledge of its main scholars, debates, questions, manuals, series, reviews, websites and data collections. Students will become aware of the difficulties to establish a constructive dialogue with other scholars;
- Will have become familiar with basic principles of digital publishing and media codes of conduct;
- Will have developed competences in blog writing;
- The ability to work as part of a team; • Students will be able to develop societally relevant questions while also allowing for critical reflection on the discipline of 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
Frey, N., Fisher, D., and Everlove, S. (2009), Productive Group Work: How to Engage Students, Build Teamwork, and Promote Understanding, Alexandria: ASCD. Inger Mewburn & Pat Thomson (2013) Why do academics blog? An analysis of audiences, purposes and challenges, Studies in Higher Education, 38:8, 1105-1119.