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WMST BC4325: Embodiment and Bodily Difference

Tools for your Research

  • Research Jam! (use this to help you to brainstorm!)
    • Pick something that interests you. Ask questions of your question: who/what/where/when/why/how? Find background information/refine your question.
  • Concept Map (use this to help you map ideas!)
    • Generating Keywords: Keywords are terms that describe your topic and will help you to search academic databases (like CLIO, ProQuest, Jstor). Unlike google, these databases use controlled vocabularies and specific terms rather than natural language.  It is never a perfect science. Brainstorm. Think of related terms and synonyms, imagine what language people may have used to write about a topic.
  • Research Log Use this to strategize where and how to search!
    • Choose a Database or search in CLIO
      • Academic Databases can feel clunky but there are also lots of tools you can use: Boolean operators, truncation, and all sorts of limiters to refine and filer. Google can feel much more intuitive but the search process is also obscured by opaque and shifting algorithms and filtering methods. Google can be a good place to start sometimes, as can wikipedia. If you do use google, there are ways to be savvy in your search.  So to Wikipedia! 
  • Synthesizing your Research (use this to help extract and synthesize major ideas from the articles you read)
    • Whether you are writing a Literature Review, reading just for  background knowledge, or utilizing source material in some totally other way, you are putting sources in conversation with one another. And you are joining that scholarly conversation yourself.
    • Throughout your research process, ask yourself whose voice is left out of this conversation. Why? How can you be attentive to erasure in your own research.   
  • Think about the importance of citational justice

 

 
 

Search Tips

Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT (known as Boolean operators) to limit, broaden, or define your search. A good researcher should know how to do a Boolean Search.

AND: Using AND narrows a search by combining terms.
OR: Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you're looking for.
NOT: Using NOT will narrow a search by exclusion. (Some search engines, like Google, recognize the minus (-) symbol, instead of the word NOT)

Asterix * For example, therap* will search for therapy, therapies, therapist, therapists, therapeutic, etc.

Quotations: Placing quotations around a specific phrase will help you narrow results in order to find information containing that exact wording.

Refining a Search

  • You can refine your results using facets, or categories, on the left of the search results.
    • Format – to find items by physical format, e.g. book, microfilm, online
    • Publication Date
    • Author
    • Acquisition Date
    • Location
    • Language
    • Subject – to find items about a topic
    • Subject (Region) – to find items about a place
    • Subject (Era) – to find items about a time period
    • Subject (Genre) – to find items by content type, e.g. correspondence, personal narratives, fiction
    • Call Number

(Some) Feminist Research Methodologies

Participatory Action Research (PAR) challenges the belief that only academics or trained professionals can produce accurate information, and instead recognizes information as POWER and puts that power in the hands of people seeking to overcome problems in their daily lives. The people most affected by the problems, sometimes with the help of “experts”, investigate and analyze the issues, and ultimately act together to bring about meaningful, long-term solutions.

Ethnography/Auto-ethnography

 Ethnography cuts a middle path between journalistic travel writing and traditional scientific
objectivity, blurring the distinction between the two. Oftentimes ethnographers choose to use a first-
person perspective in their writing to acknowledge their presence as both observer and active participants
in the culture they are studying." Autoethnography is a form of ethnographic research in which a researcher connects personal experiences to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings.

Zines as Feminist Praxis

A zine, short for fanzine or magazine, is a DIY* subculture self-publication, usually made on paper and reproduced with a photocopier or printer. Zine creators are often motivated by a desire to share knowledge or experience with people in marginalized or otherwise less-empowered communities. -- (Barnard Zine Library Home Page)

Affective Methodologies

Critical Technocultural  Discourse Analysis