GEOG 696 Readings
Seminar in Geographical Research Methods
Spring 2011
Readings, in order of discussion
Current Trends in Three Journals in General Geography (by 31 January)
- For each of the three general journals below, browse any five issues
(fifteen in total) of
tables of content dating from the year 2006 and later, taking notes on recent
trends in the kinds of research being reported in it, paying special attention
to trends in your area of geography: human, physical/environmental, or
technical (accessible online through our library):
- Annals of the Association of American Geographers
- The Professional Geographer
- Geografiska Annaler Series A and B
- In addition, please go through another five issues of your choice of ONE
of the following general subfield journals, whichever one you think is closest
to most of your interests at this point:
- Progress in Physical Geography
- Progress in Human Geography
- Journal of Geographical Systems
So, What Are You Doing in Geography Graduate School, Anyway? (by 7 February)
- Groening, Matt. 1987.
- Lesson 19: Grad school -- some people never learn. From Life in Hell: School Is Hell but It Beats Working. Available at: http://www.futurama-area.de/LiH/OComics/16.gif.
- Hornbeck, D. 1989.
- So ... you wanna go to graduate school? In On Becoming a Professional Geographer, ed. M.S. Kenzer, pp. 10-16. Columbus, OH, and other places: Merrill. BeachBoard, under Course Documents. Facilitator: Mr. Voorhees
- Harman, Jay R. 2003.
- Whither geography? The Professional Geographer 55, 4: 415-421. Library. Facilitator: Ms. Kentala
- We'll also spend some time discussing which parts of the discipline are of greatest interest to you at this point in your geographic career and what you think the subject of your thesis is likely to be. This discussion is meant to help you frame next week's assignment, the first draft of your thesis purpose statement. It will also help me tailor the topics of our subsequent readings to be helpful to you in framing your thesis ideas.
Environmental Geography and Remote Sensing Applications ... and the Thesis Purpose Sentence (14 February)
- Turner, B.L., II. 2002.
- Contested identities: Human-environment geography and disciplinary implications in a restructuring academy. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, 1 (March): 52-74. doi: 10.1111/1467-8306.00279.Library Facilitator: Ms. Tabag
- Grossinger, Robin M.; Striplin, Charles J.; Askevold, Ruth A.; Brewster, Elise; and Beller, Erin E. 2007.
- Historical landscape ecology of an urbanized California valley: wetlands and woodlands in the Santa Clara Valley. Landscape Ecology 22, Supplment 1: 103-120. doi: 10.1007/s10980-007-9122-6. Library Facilitator: Ms. Nguyen
- Coulter, Lloyd L., and Stow, Douglas A. 2009.
- Monitoring habitat preserves in southern California using high spatial resolution multispectral imagery. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 152, 1-4: 343-356. doi: 10.1007/s10661-008-0320-8. Facilitator: Ms. Choi
- This is the week you exchange copies of your initial thesis purpose sentence for critiques and then discussion on the 21st.
Qualitative Methods in Human Geography (21 February)
-
Please work on critiquing your colleagues' initial thesis purpose statements.
In your analysis of a sentence of purpose, evaluate the following:
- is the sentence clear and concise?
- does the verb imply methodology or is it some vague word along the lines of "explore" or "study"?
- is the subject clear and focussed (not cosmic or scattered)?
- while acknowledging differences in training and background, can you imagine your own self writing the implied thesis in no more than a year, realistically?
- what ideas do you have that you think might help your colleague improve this sentence?
Remember that you will be ranked by your "victims" in terms of how helpful your comments were in revising their sentence and moving on to the pre-proposal.
- Lane, K. Maria D. 2006
- Mapping the Mars canal mania: Cartographic projection and the creation of a popular icon. Imago Mundi 58, 2: 198-211. Available at author's web site: http://www.unm.edu/~mdlane/index_files/researchPDFs/2006- imagomundi.pdf. Facilitator: Ms. Kentala
- Collins, Timothy W. 2008.
- The political ecology of hazard vulnerability: marginalization, facilitation and the production of differential risk to urban wildfires in Arizona's White Mountains. Journal of Political Ecology 15: 21-43. http://jpe.library.arizona.edu/volume_15/Collins.pdf. Facilitator: Ms. Tabag
- Bring your colleagues' purpose statements back to class tonight, with your comments. You will be handing your notes and their statements back tonight.
Remote Sensing Applications and Community Based Organizations (28 February)
-
Please work on clarifying your thesis purpose sentence and expanding it into a
1-1.5 page pre-proposal that includes some background on the theoretical
context and importance of your project, hypotheses or research questions,
probable data sources, and probable methods.
- Laris, Paul, and Wardell, David Andrew. 2006.
- Good, bad, or 'necessary evil'? Reinterpreting the colonial burning experiments in the savanna landscapes of West Africa. The Geographical Journal 172, 4: 271-290. Library. Facilitator: Mr. Voorhees
- Lee, Stuart, and Roth, Wolff-Michael. 2003.
- Science and the "good citizen": Community-based scientific literacy. Science, Technology, and Human Values 28, 3: 403-424. doi: 10.1177/0162243903028003003. Library and preprint available on co- author's web site: http://education2.uvic.ca/Faculty/mroth/PREPRINTS/Goodcitizen.pdf. Facilitator: Ms. Nguyen
- De Laet, V.; Paulissen, E.; and Waelkens, M. 2007.
- Methods for the extraction of archaeological features from very high-resolution Ikonos-2 remote sensing imagery, Hisar (southwest Turkey). Journal of Archaeological Science 34, 5: 830-841. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2006.09.013. Library. Facilitator: Ms. Choi
Protection of Human Subjects in Research at CSULB (7 March)
- This is the week I'll be at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston and, so, the class won't meet in person.
- While I'm gone, I'd like you to become familiar with CSULB's Institutional Review Board's approach to meeting the Federal requirements for the protection of human subjects in research. IRB review is required for any research that winds up utilizing input from human beings, whether the research is a social science project completely focussed on data coming from individual people participating in surveys, interviews, focus groups, or participant observation, or whether a natural science, social science, or technology project happens, perhaps incidentally, to utilize interviews of elite decision-makers. The CSULB Office of University Research has put together an online training program, which I'd like you to take: http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/research/our/compliance/orientation/modules/human_subjects/index.html. It should take you approximately an hour to go through it. At the end, when you take your "final exam," it will walk you through the process of becoming "certified." Bring evidence to class on the 14th that you've been through this process, whether now or perhaps in GEOG 596 (though it wouldn't hurt to go back through it without certification).
- In the meanwhile, ...
- Use the two weeks away from class to work on your pre-proposal, which is
due on the 14th. The pre-proposal should be in the 1-2 pages (double-spaced)
range. It should have a paragraph alluding to the literature in which you are
creating a space for your work (a justification of your project's importance).
That should lead to a New and Improved thesis purpose sentence. The purpose
should then be broken out into a few objectives/hypotheses/questions, which,
if you take care of these in your thesis, automatically accomplish your
purpose. There should be a paragraph describing (potential) sources of data
and any problems they raise. There should also be a paragraph in which you
lay out your methods for collecting data, processing them, and then analyzing
them.
Remember that you are trying, not only to make the thesis a little more "real" to you, but to create a short document that you can then show to other faculty you think might like to be on your committee or chair it. You want it to make the case that you would be a good investment of faculty time!
Bring five copies to class on the 14th. I'll have each of you do a detailed critique of one or two of your peers' work that is closest to your work, but it would be helpful if you saw all of them and maybe made a few comments on others' if you see something of note, since this is such a small seminar.
Geography, Law, and Policy (4 April)
-
Please work on expanding your pre-proposal into a full-blown proposal draft,
elaborating on the theoretical context and importance of your project,
hypotheses or research questions, data sources, and methods for collecting,
processing, and analyzing your data. You should have an extensive reference
list by now: Work on getting them "worked" into the proposal and included in
the reference list. Start thinking through the process of actually DOING your
thesis (what needs to be done before a given stage? can different activities
go on simultaneously?): Create a timeline/project management diagram.
It's a good idea to revise the pre-proposal, too, so that you have a polished two page statement and initial bibliography (3-5 sources or so) that you can shop around to various faculty.
- Osofsky, Hari M. 2008.
- The geography of justice wormholes: Dilemmas from property and criminal law. Villanova Law Review 53, 1: 117-172. Library. A pre-print can be found at http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=hari_osofsky. Facilitators: Ms. Nguyen (Dann Sisters case), Ms. Kentala (Padilla case), and Ms. Tabag (remapping wormholes and conclusion). Yes, we have three moderators tonight and only one article. The article is long (> 50 pp.) but it's quite an interesting intersection between law and geography, sooo I'm dividing it among the three human geographers with interests in law/policy/planning/advocacy.
First Drafts (11 April)
Turn in first drafts of full proposals. Pick up your two "victims'" first drafts.
Critiques of First Drafts (18 April)
Ms. Choi's proposal will be discussed by Mr. Voorhees and Ms. Tabag
Ms. Kentala's proposal will be discussed by Ms. Choi and Ms. Tabag
Ms. Nguyen's proposal will be discussed by Ms. Kentala and Mr. Voorhees
Ms. Tabag's proposal will be discussed by Ms. Kentala and Ms. Nguyen
Mr. Voorhees' proposal will be discussed by Ms. Choi and Ms. Nguyen
Getting through (25 April)
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First placed on web: 01/15/99
Last revision: 04/18/11