This report is the first in a three part series of reports on academic writing you will do this semester. Essentially, it is a continuation and extension of the Journal Review Report you have just completed. That is, you have already begun to identify a source of professional literature in your academic field that informs, and is informed by, the construction of knowledge in that particular field. The syllabi, textbooks, course assignments and handouts, articles, books, and so forth are the kinds of academic reading you do as students, and are all influenced and shaped by the kinds of reading that your professors do/have done as academic professionals in their disciplines and fields of study (including syllabi, textbooks, course assignments, etc. that they read when they were students). For this next report, you will need to critically examine a range of sources of academic reading in your chosen field to explore the questions: What is academic reading in the field of (enter your major here)? What does it mean to read as a (enter your major here) in this field?
You will gather first-hand data consisting of the various kinds of texts that students and professionals in your academic field are reading, and write a 3-5 page analytical report on your findings.
Draw on methods that you have already been practicing in this course to help you find and gather data. Look at textbooks and other artifacts that you already hold. Interview/visit your professors to find out what academic sources they read and why they read them. Browse the library collections, both books and periodicals to examine the holdings in your field. Visit the campus bookstore to examine required undergraduate and graduate texts. Browse online academic sources to examine electronic texts that are read in your field (consult your professors for advice).
Use the research questions for this assignment (What is academic reading? What does it mean to read in your academic field?) to help you devise questions that will allow you to analyze your data effectively. Use the textbook chapters on reading and writing in the disciplines to help you construct your analysis questions.
Note that reading sources that for you are typically secondary sources to aid your studies are now serving as primary sources of data for this assignment. Consider how this affects the way you look at and understand these sources of academic reading.
Further, note that you will need to also consult secondary sources that focus on academic/disciplinary reading and knowledge construction to help support and inform your research and findings.
Provide parenthetical citations of published reference and data sources
in the text of your final draft (you don't need to cite handouts or syllabi,
but you should identify them clearly in your report) and a list of references
or works cited (depending on the citation format you use).