WRDS 370 Research Writing and Marginalization

Course overview

All knowledge, including research knowledge, is created from particular subject positions. In Western research traditions, such positionality has been and predominantly continues to be rooted in values which favour whiteness and colonialism, heterosexuality and cisnormativity, ability and individualism. Further, such subject positions shape how researchers design their research, what kinds of questions they ask, and how they report their results. Such research reporting occurs in peer-reviewed publications, public media, and informal discussion. This course raises critical questions about the social, political, historical, and ethical contexts of research writing by focusing on marginalized groups and intersections between marginalized identities.

Approaching this work from a writing studies perspective, we will be particularly interested in how the shifting values and ethics informing research practice are mirrored in the language features, rhetorical choices, and textual structures of research writing. To investigate these discourse features, we will consider the history of how these groups have been conceptualized and treated in research practice, and investigate how recent incursions into this history, particularly by members of these groups, “speak back” to Western research traditions. We will consider how this speaking back happens in research publications as well as in more public arenas, and you will explore how your work can contribute in a potentially public way.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Link questions of research ethics to language practices within research publications by tracing ethical attitudes via discourse analysis.
Place research practices related to marginalized populations in the context of the history of research ethics by identifying paternalistic, colonial, supremacist, and antagonistic ways of thinking in relationship to marginalized populations and recognizing contemporary changes to conceptualizing and positioning marginalized populations within research.
Analyze the discursive constructions of researcher positions by describing language features that signal and construct research positionality and relating researcher positionality to social, ethical, and disciplinary purposes.
Analyze the discursive construction of research participants via discursive elements and language features.
Analyze research writing critically by synthesizing history of research writing and formulating questions that contribute to the research community.

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WRDS 360 Knowledge popularization: Research Writing in New Media

Course overview

In this course, we will survey the rhetorical purposes, moves, and features of new media that use research writing. The presentation of research writing in public genres falls under the scope of public scholarship. While the idea of public scholarship covers a wide range of topics—from knowledge creation to evaluation and popularization — we will focus on how scholarship, i.e., research writing of the sort one finds in peer-reviewed research articles, is popularized or recontextualized in and for new media and new media audiences. In particular, this course examines the purposes, moves, rhetorical structures, and linguistic features of research writing in blogs, social media (e.g. Twitter), TED talks, Youtube, the three-minute thesis, and on newspaper websites. Given that text generation using artificial intelligence (AI) is the new trend in new media, you will also be given opportunities to explore how research writing can be manipulated in new media with AI-generated text. This course will be useful for students who want to know more about the research writing embedded in the new media genres they read and might produce themselves in professional contexts.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, engaged learners will be able to:

- Identify the rhetorical moves and stylistic features that are commonly employed to present research foci and findings to the general public;
- Apply rhetorical genre studies methods of analysis to various new media genres that rely on research writing;
- Appraise how research is being presented in new media genres to achieve the goals of these genres; and
- Plan and produce a variety of genres in new media with research writing.

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WRDS 350 Knowledge-Making in the Disciplines

Students in the Faculty of Arts can take WRDS 350 to satisfy the writing component of the Writing and Research Requirement in the Faculty of Arts.

WRDS 350 Knowledge-Making in the Disciplines is an advanced scholarly research and writing course. WRDS 350 allows students to build on what they already know about academic research and writing, specifically by studying specific features of scholarly writing that are relevant to their own research interests or academic disciplines.

This course is an advanced writing course ideal for upper-level transfer students in the Faculty of Arts who need to complete the writing component of the Arts Writing and Research Requirement.

Course overview

Welcome to WRDS 350. This course provides you with a unique opportunity to engage in the study of your discipline’s knowledge-making practices and the uses of language that both represent and enact these practices. What does this mean? First and foremost, this is an advanced scholarly writing course. In it, you will learn about and produce a range of research genres that represent the university’s ways of using language (e.g. research proposal, research paper). So, yes, you will learn how to produce scholarly texts. But, more importantly and perhaps more interestingly, this course invites you to consider why we produce texts in the ways that we do, to consider questions about the contexts that shape researchers’ motives for communicating and for communicating in specific ways. Why do philosophers write the way they do, and why is this writing so different from the way political scientists and anthropologists write? Why does ‘argument’ seem to mean different things in art history and economics? Why do writers in psychology use fewer integral citations than writers in sociology?

This course recognizes that, while you are not a newcomer to scholarly practice, you may not be familiar with your discipline’s practices as discursive practices, as ways of knowing, thinking, speaking, writing, and of being. So, to answer questions such as the ones posed above, we will draw on current theories of and methods for analyzing scholarly communication: discourse theory, new rhetorical genre theory, and corpus-supported applied linguistics. The aim of this course is to introduce you to the analytic frameworks that researchers, interested in the examination of disciplinary discourses, use.

In short, this course invites you to see yourself as an anthropologist of sorts, one who examines scholarly texts as cultural artifacts that can tell you something about the contexts that inform textual production in the disciplines.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, engaged learners will be able to:

Analyze the roles that disciplinary cultures, identities, and politics play in how knowledge is made and research genres are written and circulate.
Distinguish between and critically compare different disciplinary discourses and practices.
Design and carry out a theoretically-informed research project on the research writing that exists in your discipline(s).
Write and present in a variety of research genres, including a research proposal, research presentation, and research paper.
Engage in scholarly practices with integrity and in the spirit of fostering a community, one defined by principles of inclusion and scholarly collaboration.

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WRDS 250 Evaluating Knowledge Production and Mobilization

Course overview

Ignorance is commonly considered to be the opposite of knowledge and as hindering new or better ways of thinking. However, the process of generating new knowledge relies on the recognition of knowledge deficits: knowledge is always in productive tension with ignorance. But this relationship between ignorance and knowledge also means that ignorance can be mobilized—just as knowledge can be mobilized—for rhetorical and political purposes and goals. What is ‘knowledge’? What constitutes valid or invalid ‘information’? Who gets to decide, and how are those decisions made? This course investigates the rhetorical problem of how discourse communities produce and use information to build and justify claims of knowledge and ignorance.

The critical skills the course offers will provide you with tools to better evaluate the uses (and mis-uses) of information. When considering the political dynamics within which claims of valid and invalid knowledge can be wielded, we will consider questions of historical inequality and social hierarchy as they relate to the production, mobilisation, and evaluation of information. You will design, complete, and present a research project that analyzes and evaluates rhetorical patterns of knowledge-making and the (mis/dis/mal-) information dissemination practices of a specific discourse community of your own choosing, which might include, for example, the work of scholarly disciplines, political movements, civic organizations, and advocacy groups.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Identify and discuss basic theoretical foundations of knowledge production including:
1. concepts such as rhetoric, discourse, knowledge, information, ignorance, and communication ethics, and
2. common biases and patterns of thinking that interfere with the assessment and evaluation of information, including a capacity to recognize such biases and patterns in the rhetoric of discourse communities.
Evaluate and assess information in/from different discourse communities and contexts, demonstrated as the ability to:
1. identify the mobilisation of knowledge and ignorance in a variety of forms and genres,
2. recognize and identify the rhetorical purposes and functions of mis/dis/mal/information dissemination in a variety of forms and genres (e.g. rhetorical framing, social construction of knowledge, data manipulation), and
3. recognize and identify the interconnected character of discourse structures (e.g., of mis/dis/malinformation).
Engage in the ethical production and mobilisation of information by:
1. identifying, assessing, and distinguishing relevant and credible information practices from mis/dis/malinformation practices, and engaging in constructive, collaborative, and ethical practices of information and knowledge production (including peer review).

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WRDS 200 Writing and Communication Foundations

Course overview

This course invites students to explore key approaches to writing and communication by critically examining an array of texts—from podcasts to policy briefs, from memes to news articles, from Reddit posts to research articles, from Tik Tok videos to testimonials—and how these are used in context to produce knowledge, build worlds, construct identities, and exercise power. The course introduces students to writing and communication as a field of study: It introduces students to key principles that underpin the field, to enduring and pressing issues that are transforming the field, and to methods of analysis widely used in the field to make sense of how writing and communication are produced, circulated, and used in different cultural, academic, and professional contexts.

Throughout the course we explore knowledge about writing and communication and a range of issues related to writing, multi-modal communication, audience and situation, social (inter-)action, knowledge-making, identity construction, ideology and power, colonization and Indigenization, and disciplinary and professional practice. We move between different levels of analysis—from close attention to detailed choices of language and visual presentation, to community-shaped genres and their social functions, to pragmatic (real-world) effects across texts and situations — to analyze a variety of writing and communication case studies. Students learn about writing and communication using active and blended learning activities and by completing individual and team-based assignments along the way; these involve writing but are not writing intensive.

Course Structure

The course is organized into 5 modules. Each module focuses on 1 key principle in writing and communication and a set of related ideas and claims. Through instructor-led and student-led workshops, presentations, and reflections that accompany each module, students learn about writing and communication principles, processes, and issues and critically examine writing- and communication-related case studies associated with them.

Students will learn in the first week of each module through a series of instructor-led activities: curated readings, interactive quizzes, lectures, and a writing- and communication-related case study (consisting of one or several texts and their context), including an analysis of the case study modeled by the instructor. In the second week of each module, students will learn by working with each other and with the instructor to select further case studies — that speak to key principles explored in the course and to student experiences within and outside the course — and by sharing them with the class, facilitating short analysis workshops, and summarizing and synthesizing key lessons learned and issues raised.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, engaged learners will be able to:

[LO1] Identify and explain key principles about writing and communication, including but not limited to the following: writing and communication

are social and rhetorical activities;
are knowledge- and meaning-making activities;
are implicated in processes of colonization, decolonization, Indigenization, and reconciliation;
enact and create ideologies and (embodied) identities;
act through recognizable forms and multiple modes.

[LO2] Recognize how these key principles apply to a range of writing and communication case studies curated by the course instructor and the learners themselves.
[LO3] Analyze these case studies using analytic methods commonly used in writing and communication: e.g., content analysis, multimodal analysis, rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, genre analysis.
[LO4] Engage in constructive and collaborative dialogue and inquiry about course concepts via peer discussions, workshops, writing, and reviewing.

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WRDS 150B Writing and Research in the Disciplines

Students studying outside of the Faculty of Arts at UBC can take WRDS 150B in order to meet three credits of the communication requirement for their faculties.

Course overview

WRDS 150B is designed to introduce you to many aspects of research and writing in university, including how to:

Conduct research
Write about research
Recognize, analyze, and employ specific features of discourse in academic writing (i.e. contextualized language use)

WRDS 150B is a foundational research and writing course at UBC where you receive an apprenticeship into academic research and writing while learning fundamental concepts and practices from active and experienced scholars. Additionally, WRDS 150B uses research areas that can be approached from at least three disciplinary perspectives, including non-Arts disciplines.

Learning Objectives

WRDS 150B aims to teach students two main objectives: read and work with academic sources in context, and to engage in apprentice scholarly research.

Reading and working with academic sources in context

In order to read and work with academic sources, our students will:

Read, summarize, compare, and critically evaluate scholarly articles, to retain the key arguments/findings and emphases of the originals.
Recognize forms of argumentation and identify the rhetorical practices made by members of specific academic research disciplines, including positioning, definition, attribution, hedging, and presupposition/assertion.
Recognize the goals, methods, and citation practices of specific academic research disciplines.

Engaging in apprentice scholarly research

Those who can engage in scholarly research will:

Develop a research project that addresses a gap in knowledge within a particular research community, and which implements relevant language and rhetorical practices in a variety of genres, including a research proposal and working bibliography, a presentation (oral or poster), and a final paper.
Gather relevant and credible primary and secondary sources, using appropriate tools and methods, including UBC Library resources. - Engage responsibly with and within research communities, using appropriate citation practices that meet the expectations of academic integrity and adhering to ethical standards of data collection with research collaborators.
Engage in constructive and collaborative practices of knowledge production, including performing peer review and integrating feedback.

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WRDS 150A Writing and Research in the Disciplines

Students in the Faculty of Arts can take WRDS 150A in order to meet the Writing Requirement in the Faculty of Arts.

Course overview

WRDS 150A is designed to introduce you to many aspects of research and writing in university, including how to:

Conduct research
Write about research
Recognize, analyze, and employ specific features of discourse in academic writing (i.e. contextualized language use)

WRDS 150A is a foundational research and writing course at UBC where you receive an apprenticeship into academic research and writing while learning fundamental concepts and practices from active and experienced scholars. To illustrate how different types of knowledge about a single issue can be made by research in different disciplines, each section of WRDS 150 has a “research area” chosen by the instructor.

Learning Outcomes

WRDS 150A aims to teach students two main objectives: read and work with academic sources in context, and to engage in apprentice scholarly research.

Reading and working with academic sources in context

In order to read and work with academic sources, our students will:

Read, summarize, compare, and critically evaluate scholarly articles, to retain the key arguments/findings and emphases of the originals.
Recognize forms of argumentation and identify the rhetorical practices made by members of specific academic research disciplines, including positioning, definition, attribution, hedging, and presupposition/assertion.
Recognize the goals, methods, and citation practices of specific academic research disciplines.

Engaging in apprentice scholarly research

Those who can engage in scholarly research will:

Develop a research project that addresses a gap in knowledge within a particular research community, and which implements relevant language and rhetorical practices in a variety of genres, including a research proposal and working bibliography, a presentation (oral or poster), and a final paper.
Gather relevant and credible primary and secondary sources, using appropriate tools and methods, including UBC Library resources.
Engage responsibly with and within research communities, using appropriate citation practices that meet the expectations of academic integrity and adhering to ethical standards of data collection with research collaborators.
Engage in constructive and collaborative practices of knowledge production, including performing peer review and integrating feedback.

WRDS150A for Music

In conjunction with the Department of Music, we offer a specialized section of WRDS 150 to coordinate with first-year Bachelor of Music students’ schedules and address their particular interests. This specialized section of WRDS 150 will explore differences and intersections between scholarly and musical discourses. Most importantly, Bachelor of Music students will engage with and produce knowledge that will strengthen their development as musicians and members of UBC’s scholarly community.

WRDS150A for Bachelor of International Economics (BIE)

In consultation with the Vancouver School of Economics, we have designed a special version of WRDS 150A for students registered in the Bachelor of International Economics (BIE) program. As members of the BIE program, you will begin to participate and produce work within the discipline of economics. Therefore the topics explored in the class relate to economics, development studies, geography, education, sociology, health policy, women’s studies, marketing, media and cultural studies, environmental science, and sociology.

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WRDS 370 Research Writing and Marginalization