English 215 Project Two:
Examining the Disciplines

Composing Schedule:
Drafts: T 10/5, Th 10/7
Polished Draft Due: T 10/12

Project Links

The Assignment:
For the previous project you were asked to summarize and to analyze the discipline-specific features of a publication in the social sciences; for this project, you will write an overview of the three broad disciplines in the university: the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences and a synthesis essay of four to seven pages that analyzes the similarities and differences you've discovered about how the three major these disciplines in the university work with and write about the issue of gender difference. In other words, you are to analyze how 3 different disciplines examine a topic to discover key differences in discipline-specific inquiry (knowledge-making and interpretation) and writing. To write this essay, you will need to consider the following questions:

• What perspectives do professionals in these disciplines take when examining this issue?
• How they make knowledge in that discipline (what kinds of things they research with regard to this issue)?
• How do they go about researching the issue?
• How do they present their findings to other professionals and/or to the public?
• What are the interpretive features of that discipline (how do they interpret the research)?
• What are the stylistic features of the writing that is done in that discipline?

Remember that a clear, succinct and nicely detailed paper is your goal

Goals:

1. First, you will learn how and what professionals in various academic disciplines research and write about a particular issue or concern.
2. You will engage the steps of creating a researched essay, this time using articles from various academic journals as sources.
3. You will develop your skills of writing an informative argument and working in groups
4. You will learn to synthesize multiple texts
5. You will learn what makes a text discipline-specific
6. You will be able to draw some conclusions about the different disciplines.

Audience:
Your audience is students who are taking a fisrt-year course that is focused on writing in the disciplines. Since they are beginners, they will know very little about the subject of the articles, nor will they know much about the specific disciplines. Nor will they have read the original articles. Therefore, you will have to explain carefully unfamiliar terms and you will have to use specific examples from the various articles to explain your claims.

Your response to the assignment should, at minimum:

• Compare the three texts in terms of methods of inquiry (what and how they research) and how knowledge is made in this discipline (how they interpret that research)
• Compare the three texts in terms of interpretive conventions
• Compare the three texts in terms of stylistic conventions
• Use concrete examples from the texts to back up your claims
• Have a clear thesis and organizational pattern
• Have a reference page--this time we will use APA as our style manual

Heuristics for Project #2

Background to the Issue of Nature versus Nurture
Are we shaped by biology or by the society in which we live? Most scholars would argue that both play a part in who we are and how we behave. However, in the 1980s, Marie-Christine de Lacoste autopsied 14 brains and discovered a size difference between males and females in one specific area of the brain. The splenium, which composes the back fifth of the corpus callosum, is a pathway connecting the visual areas of both hemispheres as well as associational areas that serve complex cognitive functions. De Lacoste discovered that the splenium's surface area and width were greater in women than men relative to brain weight. Therefore she speculated that the larger splenium probably meant women and men have different interhemispheric connections. Male brains with fewer connections across the corpus callosum are more lateralized than those of females. The increased lateralization allows for greater Visio spatial skills. Women with increased bilateralization excel at verbal skills. Her discovery lent credence to the theory that women were more biologically predisposed towards communication compared to males. The popular press quickly seized on this information, leading to a series of articles in newsmagazines such as Time and Newsweek. The popular press interpreted these findings to mean that biology determines the differences between men and women, and some went so far as to suggest that biology explains why men are better at math and other visual/spatial subjects and women are better at language and communications subjects. Other disciplines have also explored the differences between men and women, specifically looking at how society creates differences between men and women and how they behave.

1. Working in groups, discuss what you have discovered about the kinds of writing and research in the disciplines represented by the articles you have been assigned. Make a list of the features you've discovered. Your beginning research questions for this assignment will be:
   
   What perspectives do professionals in these disciplines take when examining this issue?
   How do they go about researching the issue?
   How do they present their findings to other professionals and/or to the public?
   
   Try to address these questions as you work in groups.
   
   
2. Your next task is to write a four-seven page paper that analyzes the similarities and differences you've discovered about how these disciplines work with and write about the issue under discussion. In other words, you are to examine how 3 different disciplines examine a topic to discover key differences in discipline-specific writing and inquiry. Remember that a clear, succinct and nicely detailed paper is your goal.
   
   
3. Compose a References page on a separate page that adheres to the documentation guidelines of APA style manuals.