Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer: 
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE WILLING TO DO ALL 5 STEPS as course goes on next 6 weeks.
Critical Inquiry Research Overview

Your Critical Inquiry Research will provide you with practice in choosing a topic that interests you, developing a single Critical Inquiry Research Question to guide your research, orchestrating a search process to gather resources, writing a personal narrative of the process including evaluation of the resources, and concluding with constructing an argumentative essay to present your findings. Your work will take place over the entire course term.

Your Critical Inquiry Research will explore why your topic is of interest. Your project will serve as the context to explore awareness of your own thinking and methods for critical inquiry.  

You will submit FIVE Documents. 

Please do 1 thru 3 for this assignment.

1.    Choice of Topic with a brief explanation of why it interests you - due end of Module 2
2.    Research sources for your paper – due end of Module 4
3.    Personal narrative and evaluation of resources -  due end of Module 5
4.    DRAFT essay – due end of Module 6
5.    Final essay – due end of Module 8

What you are being asked to do:
1 – Brainstorm topic ideas and narrow them down to create a Research Question.
You will start with a handful of ideas, think about what you hope to get out of your research for each of them, pick the best one, and then write a compelling Research Question.
2 – Gather information.
You will gather information from a variety of resources using your Critical Inquiry skills and Information Literacy skills. You will document how you found what you did. You must include a minimum  3 non-peer reviewed resources. 
3 – Write a personal narrative of your search process. 
You will use the personal narrative outline guide to write the story of your research. What did you know before your search? What did you want to know? What were the steps you took to find your answers? As part of this narrative, you will use the CARS model to evaluate your resources. 
4 – Develop a draft for your argumentative essay.
With the content you found in your information search, you will then write an essay that answers your research question. You will take a position on the issue that you have researched and provide evidence to support that position. Use the outline for an argumentative essay to structure your paper. 
5 – Revise your draft and present a final Critical Inquiry Research paper.
Your final paper should include an overview of your critical inquiry issue, information about multiple perspectives on the issue, a well-defined conclusion, and evidence to support your conclusion. 
Your final paper should be 4-6 pages using the standard APA format, with references.


First Step: Answer the questions....

FORM for Topic Submission
Your Critical Inquiry Research will provide you with practice in choosing a topic that interests you, developing a single Critical Inquiry Research Question to guide your research, orchestrating a search process to gather resources, writing a personal narrative of the process including evaluation of the resources, and concluding with constructing an argumentative essay to present your findings. Your work will take place over the entire course term.


1.    What is your topic?  How does it answer a “For or Against”  question?


2.    Why are you interested in this topic?


3.    What do you hope to learn from your research?


4.    What is your Research Question?



Step 2: 

Personal Narrative Overview,
This personal narrative should be a maximum of 2 pages.


For this portion of your Critical Inquiry Research you will write the story of your research. What did you know before your search? What did you want to know? What were the steps you took to find your answers? As part of this narrative, use the CARS model to evaluate your resources. Use the following outline as a guide for this assignment.

The story of my Critical Inquiry Research

Introduce your topic to your readers.
Why does this topic matter to you?
What did you know about your topic before your research?
What initial questions did you have about your topic?
Introduce your Research Question to your readers.
The story of your research

Introduce your readers to the environments where you found the richest information, and evaluate what you found there.
Peer-reviewed articles: What did you find in published research? Use the CARS model to evaluate what you found.
Non-peer reviewed resources: What did you find in the communities of practice? 

Use the CARS model to evaluate what you found.

CARS model: Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, Support. This series of questions is a very good representation of how information is evaluated during the process of any kind of critical inquiry.

Non-Peer Reviewed sources:
Non-peer reviewed sources are everything else that is not peer reviewed. These include books, information discovered online in blogs, news publications, corporate whitepapers, presentation videos, and so on. The value of non-peer reviewed sources is in doing an “environmental scan” to gather a sense of what people are talking about on a topic. Searching in these resources may lead you to find prominent authors or presenters on a topic.
Below is a list of starting points for your search. They are starting points mostly because they will lead you to try other ideas and resources.
Personal interaction:
•    Who do you know in your family, community, church, or employer that might be able to guide you in the right direction, or provide you with key terms you can use to lookup more information? Who in your in-person personal network can help you, or refer you to someone? Who in your online social network could provide the same help? Remember that you don’t necessarily need someone to provide you with the complete answer to your question. More than anything, you need insight into your topic that will help you to discover the environment where your information “lives”. If you can’t get the “big answer”, try to get “little answers” that will help you to continue moving forward.
•    Have you taken a class with an instructor who you think might be able to help you? Try contacting that instructor. 
Web tool strategies:
•    Twitter – Twitter searches are similar to Google searches, except they return results of information happening very recently. Many tweets include links to recent publications, events, and resources. The results will change everyday depending on the topic. Some industries have lists of hashtags for more refined searches. For example, first do a Google search on “hashtags project management”. The results will give you hashtag terms to try in Twitte searches.
•    Google / Google Scholar / Yahoo / Bing / Academic Index – Search engines will get you started. But don’t think that they will find everything you need! Look for patterns in the results, such as associated words or organizations.
•    Search for conference events in your major field, such as “project management conference”. Results will often lead to useful organizations and prominent presenters.
Audio:
•    NPR - National Public Radio: NPR includes content from a variety of radio programs, not just news, such as interviews and featured stories on specific topics or events. NPR hosts many different shows on a wide variety of topics.
•    PRI - Public Radio International: International perspectives on current issues and interests.
•    CBC - Canadian public radio.
•    WNYC-AM - New York public radio.
•    iTunes podcasts - Access through your own iTunes software on your computer per directions. Use the search box to narrow your search.
Video:
•    TED.com - Prominent speakers from around the world present ideas and research.
•    YouTube - YouTube is not monitored for quality or accuracy. However, you may discover certain authors and publishers that may lead you to other resources.
•    PBS - Public Broadcasting Service. Includes both documentary and news media. Like NPR, there are many different programs featuring a wide range of topics.
Online publications:
•    Wikipedia.org – Wikipedia is sometimes a good place to start to find other resources. Try to find as many primary resources* as possible and follow them.
•    The Atlantic / The New Yorker – The Atlantic and The New Yorker magazines publish in-depth articles on many subjects.
•    The New York Times / The Wall Street Journal – These are prominent newspapers covering national and international events on a wide variety of topics.
* Primary resources are accounts produced first-hand, and are considered better quality than secondary resources. Secondary resources are publications, articles, or media that refer to primary resources.


Evaluating your sources
How do you know if your findings are usable?
What good is a source of information if it turns out to be bogus, or unsubstantiated? The best way for your research and findings to be taken seriously is to provide background information on where you retrieved your information. Your job is to make sure that your sources are credible, accurate, reasonable, and are supported (the CARS Model).
The checklist guide below will help you to evaluate your findings before you use them as a basis for your Learning Quest.
CREDIBILITY
o    The author is clearly identified and has the credentials for writing about this topic.
o    The author is affiliated with an organization respected in the field.
o    There is a link or a way to contact the organization and verify its credibility.
o    The information has gone through a quality control process, such as peer-review, organization review, or publisher review.
o    The review process is explained and easily understood.
o    The primary purpose is to provide unbiased information.
o    You can verify the factual information.
o    There are no obvious typographical or spelling errors.
o    Data is visually presented in clearly understood charts, graphs, and other infographics.
ACCURACY
o    The information is current.
o    This information is presented as a comprehensive, or clearly focused on an aspect of a problem or issue.
o    The source of the information is consistent and stated clearly.
o    The information is presented in an unbiased manner with multiple viewpoints or approaches expressed.
o    If a page contains advertisements, are the ads clearly distinguishable from the content of the information.
o    The information is presented without vague generalizations or sweeping statements. 
REASONABLENESS
o    Based on what you already know or have just learned about this subject, the information seems credible.
o    Information presented is a balanced and well-reasoned argument.
o    The tone of the information is factual, thoughtful, and presented in a professional manner.
o    The information is consistently presented throughout the article, website, etc.
SUPPORT
o    The claims made in the article are supported by facts and/or figures.
o    When facts or statistics are quoted, look to see whether their source is provided.
o    There is a bibliography or other documentation to corroborate the information.


Getting help
What kind of help do you need in your search?
One of your greatest challenges in your search work will be trying to figure out what kind of help you need – because not all help is the same. Do you already have some experience with the topic, or is this a completely new area of interest for you? Do you feel confident about your work, or does this project feel monolithic and frightening? Do you even know where to start in your search? Each person’s help needs are different.
The following guide (Dervin, 1983) will help you to think about what kind of help you need at various stages of your search work. Consider these forms of help as you interact with people and ask for their assistance. It will help them to better understand what you need.

What kind of help do you need?    How will this help you to move forward?
Getting the “big picture”    Provides an understanding of the framework, organization, structures, arrangements, and interrelationships in your topic, from a broad view.
Getting directions    Provides a pathway or steps for accessing resources where more information can be discovered.
Getting methods, or “how-tos”    Provides techniques for doing something, or an approach that produces a desired outcome.
Getting connected    Provides introductions to people who can help you.
Getting centered    To become better aligned with what you are trying to achieve and to see other perspectives. Ex.: being reminded that the information you have been seeking does not necessarily answer your question.
Getting started or motivated    Provides a sense of confidence and energy to get going.
Getting support, reassurance    Provides encouragement to continue; recognition of your effort in-progress. Ex.: having a peer or instructor look at what you’ve done so far and letting you know you are on the right track.
Getting control    Organizes yourself or your work to be less chaotic. Ex.: you’ve found a lot of information but it feels scattered and incoherent.
Getting resources    Provides access to information, tools, power, and locations.
Getting ideas    Provides possibilities for a solution to a problem or situation.
Getting extricated    Provides assistance with getting out of bad situation. Ex.: resolving a catastrophic technical problem or an emergency.