I've been commenting on your 390 project descriptions and how to turn them into 490 introductions, and I find myself writing one particular idea to all of you. It seems that both the audience and the purpose for this first section need to change. Formerly the audience was your faculty advisor and BIS teacher, and your purpose was to convince them that the project was viable and you had your act together. Now the audience is whoever you imagine to be reading your project when it's finished, which could be academics, professionals, or various stakeholders affected directly or indirectly by your intervention. That is quite, quite different. You basically have to imagine that the research has already been completed and that you are introducing it; formerly you said "this project will do XYZ" as a way to talk about your future. But now you are saying "this project will do XYZ" as a way to talk about the future of a reader, and that future is to continue reading through the rest of the project essay.
Now obviously it's hard to speak of a project that you just recently proposed as being already completed, but that's why this is a first draft. The truth is that in real academic and professional writing, the introduction is almost always the last part that you finish writing, even though it comes first for the reader. It is the most difficult and the most important. For now it's something of a placeholder and a way for you to conceptualize everything else that follows as best as you presently can. So there is a bit of fakery on your part in talking as if everything is completed and all there for the reader to proceed, but that's what you need to do for now. You might even convince yourself... so don't look down.
I met with my faculty advisor on Friday, Sept. 3, 2010. We discussed everything you mentioned above. I realize now that I must change the purpose and the thesis statement to the research paper. The topic need to be expanded to include interdisciplinarity. I should remove business word processing part of the topic, and to only use business word processing as an example in the research paper itself.
ReplyDeleteIn order to meet the interdisciplinary rationale requirement of the introduction, we decided to explain how IT can improve managerial goals in the introduction. The introduction will define management and information technology disciplines. Dr. Winter, do I need additional discipline, or can the two disciplines suffice? Remember that management is a broad discipline (for example, organizational behavior, business law, human resources are all distinct segment of management).
Thanks, Dayo Bennett
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ReplyDeleteDayo, first of all I do think that "two" could be sufficient for some projects. And as you point out, defining a discipline as a unified or single "one" is not quite possible to begin with, since disciplines themselves can be interdisciplinary (!). At that point, it would just be a judgment call as to whether the project had appropriate scope and complexity. Whatever it is you're attempting in terms of defining (inter-)disciplinarity, you need to carefully state your rationale for it. There are a lot of things that could work.
ReplyDeleteI won't be able to turn in my mentor sheet today. I am meeting with my mentor on Wed. I talked to her about it last Wed and said I needed it today, but then just got an email from her this morning saying she won't be on campus today and will meet me on Wed as we discussed last Wed. So looks like I will have to place it in your box or something on Wed after my class or maybe make other arrangements to get it to you.
ReplyDeleteLeanna