Methods of Academic Presentation

August 2: Apologies again for not keeping this page up properly this term, and for the delay in getting the presentation evaluations up. Here they are, for Sakura, Yuko, and Keiichiro. Thank you again for making this a pleasant course.

July 5: Apologies for not updating this page for several weeks. The evaluation sheet you'll need for today is here.

June 7: In-class review of working bibliographies. Discussion of organizational and rhetorical patterns common to English-language academic presentation, including an opening establishment of context, a clearly-delineated thesis, two, three, or four sections of specific support, and, occasionally though not necessarily, a section of conclusion.

Homework: Continue the careful compilation of the working bibliography. Prepare a tentativesentence outline for your presentation. This should include an enumerative thesis and two, three, or four sentences of support, which of course will correspond to the major sections of the presentation. Typed and standard manuscript form, please.

Students are reminded that I will not be able to attend the class next week, June 14. Our next meeting will be June 21.

May 31: Discussion of the importance of bibliography in any research project, including a brief academic presentation. Instruction in several matters concerning bibliography.

Homework: Prepare a working bibliography for your project (typed, standard manuscript form), including at least eight sources, at least three of them primary. Any recognized style is acceptable so long as you remain consistent with its principles and practices.

May 24: More work on the one-sentence presentation proposals; preliminary discussion of the importance of bibliography in any research project.

Homework: Bring at least one of your major print sources to class in preparation for a workshop in bibliography.

May 17: Workshop in finessing the one-sentence topic proposals. Discussion of the relation of the topic proposals and the data sets they predict. Announcement that in two or three weeks we'll turn to bibliography style, in preparation for the full and perfect bibliography of sources that will accompany the presentation.

Homework: Rewrite the one-sentence topic proposals (if necessary) based on this May 17 discussion.

May 10: Discussion of the distinction between primary and secondary materials, and the nature of the primary materials that will be of assistance with the particular student research topics in the seminar.

Homework:

1) Write a one-sentence presentation proposal, beginning with either

I want to explain that . . . [or]
I want to discover whether . . . .

Follow this with a list of the particular kinds of primary sources that will help you explain what you want to explain or discover what you want to discover.

2) Experiment with your key terms in WebCat and LoC.

April 26: The materiality of texts and the consumption of knowledge. Presentation of the idea that the texts do not exist in isolation from the material circumstances of their construction. Students wrote a summary of the opening paragraphs of Salman Rushdie’s “Assassination of Indira Gandhi” and, as predicted, made a significant error: none mentioned Rushdie.

The point was made that the single most significant feature of the text is the fact of its composition by Rushdie. The point was not that this is true because Rushdie is famous, but rather because a singularly important feature of any text is the material circumstance of its composition. Rushdie’s text about the assassination of Indira Gandhi is not the same, and does not contain the same truth, as someone else’s, Sonia Gandhi’s, for instance, or that of a Sikh historian who lost a cousin at the Golden Temple. As we incorporate a text into our own text we must not treat the knowledge contained in the former as if it were transcendental, to be consumed like a generic cola.

Homework: make a list of key terms associated with your research interests, at least five key terms in Japanese and at least five in English. This is to be submitted to me in our next class meeting, May 10, and so should please be typed, with your typed name at the top of the page.

April 19: Introduction to the course, the central premise of which is that a successful academic presentation in English or any other language consists first of sound scholarship. Accordingly we shall focus on the methods and practices of English scholarship more than on facile advice about presentation demeanor (make eye contact!, keep your back straight!).

Discussion, following the introduction, of linguistic diversity and the role of English in the world.