Item 1 of the Portfolio: Report on the the Resources in My Field of Study

Item 1 of the Portfolio: Report on the the Resources in My Field of Study

For this assignment you will complete a form, providing information about 3-4 things:

1. The program (discipline) you are studying
2. The program guide you are using and things in it
3. Analysis of one organization or website from your discipline
4. Tips for communicating with folks in your discipline (optional)

The complete form shouldn’t be longer than three pages. Less than two full pages will be considered under-developed. Read the information below for a broad understanding of the purpose of this assignment. Refer to the attached template for more specific details on what to do.

Goal: This is a no-stress scavenger hunt to help you collect resources about your field of study. Ideally, these resources will help save you time and effort for the remainder of the semester (and beyond) since you can focus all your research on these resources. The name of the game is to dig around and search for resources related to your field of study, such as organizations and associations within that field, podcasts, YouTube channels, books, scholarly databases, etc.

Example: If I’m majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving, I may find in my digging that there’s an Association of Underwater Basket Weavers which offers articles, podcasts, blogs, career posts, conferences, and more. I may also find a YouTube channel that posts weekly tips and tricks related to the field. I could find a ton of books I may want to read later on, such as Underwater Weavers Weave Best by Jane Weaverton and My Life as a Basket Weaver by John Undersea. I might also discover there’s a database in the library that specializes on this field of study. As someone majoring in this field, I may have no idea where to find resources or what’s out there, and so this assignment is intended to help me explore. It’s a scavenger hunt, and it’s meant to be stress free, so have fun with it, and don’t think too hard about it.

What is a discourse community?

You learned earlier that writing does not exist in a vacuum, that it is a conversation between writer and reader. One scholar, Erik Borg, says that “We do not generally use language to communicate with the world at large, but with individuals or groups of individuals…these groups are gathered into communities.”

Each of us belongs to a number of these groups (called discourse communities). If you stop at a coffee shop routinely, you are a member of that community. Members know what the “rules” are for communicating with each other, what kind of greeting is used, what the standard length of comments is, what kind of comments are acceptable, and what kind are not. Other discourse communities might be related to activities with children, fitness, or church. You can probably think of examples of a conversation topic or a greeting that would be acceptable at the gym but not at church.

Where do I begin?

You will start by looking at the information linked below, first the course catalog and then in guides designed by the APUS Library staff to help researchers in the field. If your program is not listed in the 10 programs shown below, then go to this link to find your program (or one that interests you if you haven’t selected a program yet): Research Guides by Program. The university catalog has info on all programs, in case yours isn’t listed below.

Click the first link to go to the university’s catalog. This gives general information about the program. Then move to the research guide for your program. Be sure to look at all the links in the guide. Scroll down the page at each tab.

• Criminal Justice Here’s the link to the Criminal Justice Research Guide.
• Business Administration Here’s the link to the Business Administration Research Guide.
• General Studies Here’s the link to the General Studies Research Guide.
• Management Here’s the link to the Management Research Guide.
• Intelligence Studies Here’s the link to the Intelligence Studies Research Guide.
• Sports & Health Sciences Here’s the link to the Sports & Health Sciences Research Guide.
• Psychology: Here’s the link to the Psychology Research Guide.
• Homeland Security Here’s the link to the Homeland Security Research Guide.
• Transportation & Logistics Management Here’s the link to the Transportation & Logistics Management Research Guide.
• Environmental Science: Here’s the link to the Environmental Science Research Guide.

The Form:

After you’ve finished the scavenger hunt and found some useful resources for your field of study, complete the attached report. A template of this report is provided, so just fill in the sections. Replace the sample answers with your own words. Save it with a title like this: Smith Robert Report on Resources. Then submit the completed form as an attachment in the assignment link.