From Question to Defense: The Craft of Academic Research
Before the citations, before the methods, before the careful architecture of chapters, there is a single question waiting quietly in a curious mind — and the researcher, before anything else, is a person who has learned to notice what everyone else walks past.
A passage through the craft of academic research, from the awakening of curiosity and the discipline of finding a true problem, through the scholarly conversation of the literature and the conscience that keeps our work honest, into the choice of method and the clear prose that carries an argument, and at last to the giving of credit and the calm defence of what you have learned — closing, as a research course must, in a practicum where a question of your own becomes a proposal you can write and defend.
Course Overview
RES 388 is an eight-lesson course in the craft of academic research for final-year students preparing to write and defend a thesis. It moves through four modules — from the mindset and questions of the researcher, through the scholar's sources and ethics, to method, scholarly prose, and the architecture of a thesis, and finally to citation, the defence, and a capstone practicum. Along the way you learn to turn curiosity into a sharp research question, to conduct a critical literature review, to work with integrity, to choose a methodology that fits your question, to write clearly, and to stand and defend your work in a viva. The course closes with a practicum in which you draft a full thesis proposal and reflect on a mock defence.
Faculty & Resources
Recommended Books & Publications
All publications below are included with your course purchase at no additional cost.
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