Recipe for a Paper

• A group of primary sources with clearly defined boundaries (chronological, authorial, thematic)

• A group of scholarly secondary sources that can shed light on your primary sources – Note: For this assignment, I’m going to require that

these be scholarly articles or books, rather than web pages

• Examination of a class theme • A Set of Productive Questions

Class Themes• 1-2 PM Section

• Consumerism• •Moral panics• •Parenting styles• •Censorship• •Discrimination (race or gender)• •Change over time• •Agency in children• •Labor / leisure/ fun• •Technology• •Stereotypes• •Advertising• •Income inequality/class/privilege• •Innocence• •Adult nostalgia• •War and violence• •Propaganda/indoctrination

• 2-3 PM Section

• Moral panics• •Children and advertising• •Consumer inequality• •Consumption• •Propaganda and war• •Innocence• •Parenting styles• •Agency• •Place of the child in the family• •Gender roles• •Race/ethnicity• •Child labor – play – leisure – education• •Emotional labor – child performers – beauty pageants• •Play• •Separation of children’s culture from adult• •Religion• •Technology gap• •Adult nostalgia• •Class/privilege/money• •Generational gap• •Sports• •Entertainment produced by adults for kids vs. kids’ self-

entertainment

Starting Points

• Group 1: “Wall-E” • Group 2: Pokemon • Group 3: “The Cosby Show” • Group 4: Dr. James Dobson, Dare to Discipline • Group 5: Baby Einstein • Group 6: The Case of Trayvon Martin

Keeping a Research Log

• Web searches: – Bookmark pages– Keep lists of leads – PDF or print key articles, in case they disappear

• Library Databases: – Write down search terms you’ve exhausted – Copy and paste names and call numbers of books

you might want

Initial Research Phase: The Wider Web

• Find out basic facts about your starting point: Who? What? When? Where?

• Is the source that is your starting point part of a bigger group of similar sources? Could any of these form a good basis for a comparative examination?

• Note sources of information (ex: books listed in Wikipedia “citations” section) that are more credible; keep track of these, and try to find them later in the library

• Use “snowball method”: as you find out more, use your new knowledge to fuel your search

Research Phase 2: Finding Context in Verified Places

• Secondary sources give you verified history, tell you what other people think about your primaries

• Look for secondaries that are directly about your primaries, but also ones that might give you historical context or a theory to work with

• Use UTNetCat subject headings to “snowball”• Databases: ProQuest, LexisNexis, JStor, Project

Muse