Ideas in Writing

Analysis Essay

Methodology is often central to the whole business of knowing anything at all. In this assignment, we will be looking closely at some rather less formal methods for arriving at questions and constructing data to answer those questions. But the methods are no less important for being informal -- we use such methods every day to underwrite or confirm our impressions based on our own or others' personal experiences.

The essay you will write (or report, as Bazerman terms it) need only be 500-750 words (that's 2-3 typed pages). But you will also be responsible for writing an "addendum" (a set of notes attached to the end of the report). In the addendum you should explain in detail how you defined the "unit" of information which became your data. You do not need to do "library research" but you do need to do "observational research."

Choose one of the two topics below:

1. After you have read "Women Correspondents' Visibility on the Network Evening News" by Joe S. Foote (pp. 433-438 in Bazerman) and have carefully studied Bazerman's "Guidelines for Writing an Essay in the Observational Sciences" (pp. 439-445), tackle writing assignment #3 on p. 456.

   Since you do not have access to the same data Foote used, you will need to construct a different "unit of analysis," one that can be used to collect systematic data as you watch broadcasts. You might want to concentrate on a single national network's broadcasts over a period of time (you will still need at least 6 different broadcasts from which to derive your data) or you could switch your focus to so-called "news magazines" (again, don't try to work with fewer than 6 broadcasts).

   Whatever you choose as the kind of program and as the instances of the phenomenon you are interested in, you must account for your choices in your addendum. And you will obviously have to hone the question to suit the experiences you have decided to monitor. Thus, asking whether "the visibility of women has improved since Foote's article" was written makes sense only if you are sticking to the parameters for data Foote established. If you change the data set (a key feature of the method), then you will need to frame a question that you can answer with the type of data you will be collecting through your observations.

2. After you have read "Women Correspondents' Visibility on the Network Evening News" by Joe S. Foote (pp. 433-438 in Bazerman) and have carefully studied Bazerman's "Guidelines for Writing an Essay in the Observational Sciences" (pp. 439-445), tackle writing assignment #6 on p. 427.

The essay by Foote will provide you with a sense of how to define your method. For example, for topic 6a, you will need to consider just how you will define "violence" in a television show. Should you consider only what viewers see or should you also count events that are clearly part of the plot even if the murder or mayhem occurs "off screen"? Just what acts should count as violent ones?

You will also have to define what counts as an incident. Just where and when does one incident end and another begin?

For topics 6c or 6d, you will have to define "traditional roles" or "traditional configuration" carefully. And you will also have to determine just who counts as a character.

Does the designation "character" mean any person with a speaking part? Or should it include all those seen-but-not-heard folk, like waiters and waitresses, cabbies, store clerks and the like who populate the streets and neighborhoods of our imaginary TV worlds?

If you don't watch television or would just rather work on some other set of observations, let me know.