ENG 225 8.M: Project 2 Research Update

Today’s Plan:

  • Calendar Update
  • Report Expectations
  • Group Check In
  • Homework

Calendar Update

Here’s what I wrote when we began the project:

You will work together in groups of 3 to analyze representations of gender, race, or sexuality in a specific genre of video games. You will develop a paper of around 2000 words and then transform the paper into a 10 minute video (similar to Sarkeesian’s). Papers will be due on March 4th. Videos will be due on March 22nd.

Here’s the update:

  • Monday, February 25th: That’s today! Report Expectations
  • Wednesday, February 27th: Work day in the lab
  • Friday, March 1st: Williams and Bizup on Characters
  • Monday, March 4th: Reports will be due in class for peer review.
  • Wednesday, March 6th: Crash Course on shooting video and recording audio
  • Friday, March 8th: What the hell is SuperBetter? Final Project 2 papers are due

The final videos will still be due on March 22nd.

Project Two Research Report Expectations

Your focus this week should be on finishing your games research. Different groups are at different stages of this process. But it has to get done.

The structure of the report will follow the standard research format:

  • Introduction
  • Methodology
    • How you developed your corpus
    • How you analyzed your corpus
  • Findings (tables are acceptable, but keep them clean)
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion

It is hard for me to predict the word count for a project like this. But I am guessing something like this:

  • Introduction: 300 words
  • Methodology: 500-800 words (depending on how complex each system is)
  • Findings: Who the hell knows
  • Discussion: Hopefully you can tell me 4 smart things about your research. Let’s say that each smart thing takes 400 words. So that’s about 1600 words.
  • Conclusion: These are tricky to write, but I am guessing around 200 words

So, altogether, that’s 2600 words. So that’s about 10 pages double-spaced.

What makes this incredibly tricky is that some of you are working alone. Some of you are writing in groups. I am a bit unsure how to negotiate this. I’m going to go group-by-group.

  • Cover Project: There’s four of you. So 1600 words for the discussion section feels right
  • Double Trouble: There’s only two of you. Let’s aim for 2-3 smart things, so somewhere around 800-1200 words in discussion section
  • Fight Club: Four people, 1600 words.
  • Rated G: There’s 6 of you. SIX. Rather than increase the number of findings, I’d rather see you develop them further. So 3-4 findings and 2000 words. When you’ve finished your data collection, do some brainstorming and figure out what you have to say. Divide into teams. Conquer.
  • The Absent Wonders: 3 people, 800-1200 words
  • The Lone Ranger. Let’s be realistic and say 600-800 words. My guess is that you can come up with two clear findings

This is a group project. There’s a lot of ways to divide and assign work. On Wednesday, I’m going to have groups develop a gantt chart that identifies the work that has to get done, when it has to get done by, and who is responsible for doing it. No worries Connor.

Homework

Analyze, analyze, analyze. Get your data done.

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