National University Week 4 Fitness Trackers & Healthier Lifestyle Discussion

Week Three Draft AssignmentLength700 words (minimum length requirement)DueEnd of Week 3 (Sunday). Submit your work through the “Week Three Draft” submissionlink.OverviewThis is the assignment that is going to take you from a collection of write-ups onindividual sources to an actual draft. It might be helpful to think of thewriting you’ve done thus far in the class as a set of research-project constructionmaterials. For example:Week 1 introduction = foundationWeek 2 source write-ups= building materialsNow you are going to prepare some binding agents (transitions! synthesis! see below…)to bring everything together in the form of an actual draft of your research essay.Be aware, though, that you are likely to find you also need more, or different, materials.It is at the drafting stage that we often notice significant gaps or unanswered questionsin our research. We realize that more research is required–and possibly also refinementof the original research question.This kind of looping back is not a sign of trouble. Rather, it is a natural part of theresearch writing process, which almost never follows a tidy straight line from ideaformation to source gathering to drafting.Two of our Week 3 readings are of particular importance for the draft. One is the Week3 assigned reading on Synthesis (https://info260.hcommons.org/synthesizing/), and theother is the Week 3 Lecture on Transitions (http://info260.hcommons.org/?p=112 ). TheSynthesis lecture will help you begin thinking about how your ideas fit together, and howbest to arrange them. The Transitions lecture will help you think about how to signalthese relationships to readers.For a reminder of what the finished product will look like, see the Final Research Projectspecifications document on this assignment. Note, though, that no concludingparagraph is required in the Week 3 draft (we will work on conclusions next week).How to develop your work into a Week 3 draftAs the old saying goes, “there is more than one road to Rome.” Below, however, is anapproach that you will likely find helpful for transforming your week-one introduction,week-two library report into the Week 3 Draft. If you are having trouble getting started orare short on time, try tackling the items below one at a time. Also, if the order of tasksbelow isn’t working for you, go ahead and jump around—whatever gets you started intransforming the pieces you’ve been developing to this point in the class into a draft thatyou can submit at the end of week 3.“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs” –Henry Ford? Join all of your project-related work into a single document: the Week 1 Introduction,and the Week 2 Library Research Report.? Carefully review any revision recommendations you’ve received on your earlier work.If substantive changes are needed (especially changes to the research question itself!),you will want to attend to those first. If you are confused about any feedbackyou’ve received from your instructor or classmates, get that confusion cleared up.? Read/Re-read the assigned page on Synthesis and begin arranging your sourcewrite-ups. You began the process of synthesis in week-two when you analyzed sourcesin terms of how they spoke to your research question. Now return to these week-twosource write-ups and examine them carefully. What are the different components ofyour inquiry that they help address? Which of the sources develop similar claims?Which represent areas of debate within your inquiry? What are some similar or differentmethodologies you see being employed to study issues related to your researchquestion? What similar or different values or priorities seem to be motivating theresearch? Are there areas of strong consensus? Are there questions or sub-questionsthat your sources downplay or ignore?The idea here is to think about all of the different things you might say about yoursources in relation to one another. Jot down some notes (you might want to do thisdirectly on your document in a different colored font), and move paragraphs around sothat related ideas appear together. In some instances you may want to merge twosource write-ups into a single paragraph, or divide one write-up into two paragraphs.? Are there gaps in the skeletal draft you’ve constructed that point to the need for moreresearch? If so, now is the time! Re-visit the strategies you practiced in Unit 2 (usingdifferent databases, using one source to find others, etc.), and, as always, don’t hesitateto contact a librarian if you are in need of research assistance (refdesk@nu.edu).? Read/Re-read the unit-3 lecture on Transitions. Do you see how transitional phrasingcan be used to express the kinds of relationships among ideas that you’ve beenreflecting on? Take a look at the sample Final Research Project as well. Notice how theauthor uses transitions to show his readers relationships between the sources he foundthrough his research. Note that he has synthesized his sources (he has identifiedrelationships, contradictions, gaps, etc.) and that each paragraph begins with asentence or two that make these relationships explicit for readers.Again, synthesis—and the expression of synthesized ideas through carefullycrafted transitions—is the glue that holds the individual paragraph together and helpsthem cohere as a single research project. Try writing some transitions that express therelationships you’ve identified among your sources.?You attended to substantive revisions earlier in this process. Now is the time to attendto any more localized matters your instructor or peers commented on at an earlierstage, or that you’ve become aware of yourself upon reviewing your work. Take a lookat the minimum requirements for the rough draft. Is your draft on track to meet theserequirements? Revise as necessary. To get even more mileage out of this draft, checkwhat you have against the Final Research Project specifications and the gradingcriteria. Strive to submit your best effort at this stage as a means of ensuring that thefeedback you receive from peers and your instructor will be feedback that you can use(rather than a recitation of things you already know about and had intended to get tolater).?Check your work against the list of “Presentation Norms in academic papers” thatappears in the class lecture on DocumentDesign: https://info260.hcommons.org/document-design/ExampleThe following annotated example calls attention to specific draft requirements:https://info260.hcommons.org/annotated-sample-draf…*Note that this example contains a chart. You may include visualizations, but they arenot required in a paper.Grading of the Week 3 draftEvaluation of the draft will be based on demonstrated draft-stage effort to fulfill projectspecifications. Drafts that demonstrate an attempt to meet all of the specifications belowcan potentially receive full credit (100%/A+) even if they do not yet meet thespecifications at the level required for the final version of the research project.SpecificationsIntroduction communicates the research question, and this question matches the actualcontent of the essay.Essay emphasizes high-quality, relevant, scholarly sourcesAll body paragraphs focus on discussion of research findings and explain thesignificance of these findings in relation to the research question.Source identification* is correct, clear, and concise.*Remember that, in ILR260, “source identification” means doing what journalists doand explaining—briefly—who our sources are.Sources are synthesized and paragraph transitions are used to signal relationshipsbetween ideas.Writing is clear and accessible to non-specialist readers.Citation follows APA style (unless you’re a humanities major and have arranged to useMLA).Essay adheres to presentation norms of academic papersNote: no conclusion is required at this stage. We’ll tackle the conclusion during Week 4.Work that substantially deviates from the assignment requirements (for example, thedraft offers something other than analytical research writing, or it relies on sourcesinappropriate to an academic research project, or it contains sentence-level problemsso serious as to prevent assessment of other aspects of the work) will receive partial orno credit.If you run into problems while working on your Draft during week 3, please ask for help!