Your supervisor has approved your research question and plan for studying some aspect of diversity and/or collaboration in a community group. Now it is time to conduct your liter

Notecard

Component

Complete?

Introduction

Your introduction notecard should introduce your audience to the community group being studied.

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Research question

Your second notecard should state your research question.

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Literature Review (4-6 cards)

Each source should have one notecard. The notecard should describe the information and analysis you performed in Step 2.

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Hypothesis

Your hypothesis notecard should describe your hypothesis.

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Operational definitions

Your operational definitions notecard should include and explain any operational definitions you developed for your study. You may skip this card if you have none.

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Research method

Your research method notecard should introduce your proposed research method and explain how you propose to conduct your research.

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NOTECARD 1, Introduction: Your introduction card should introduce your audience to the community group being studied. Remember, it should be a group in which membership is voluntary and recreational.

In particular, be sure to answer the following questions:

· What is the community group?

· What are the attributes or characteristics of this community group? (e.g. What activities does this group do together? What element of the members' interests or identities brings them together? How is membership in the group defined, if at all?)

· Is there anything else listeners should know about this group that is relevant for your research proposal?

I propose to study the Teen Reading Club at the Springfield Public Library. Teen Reading Club is a book club led by an SPL librarian. The group meets once per month to discuss a book that everyone has read. It's an open group, so the teens who participate can vary from month to month. Prior to January 2020, each month's reading selection was chosen by the librarian. Beginning in January 2020, the reading selection for each month was chosen by attendees at the previous month's meeting, voting among five options pre-selected by the librarian.

NOTECARD 2, Research Question: This card will state your research question.

Does the method of selecting a reading for the Teen Reading Club have a measurable impact on the diversity of the readings selected?

NOTECARD 3, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?

· How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?

· What methods did they use to study their question?

· What conclusions did they draw from their results?

· How do their conclusions relate to my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

Sofya Aptekar, 2019

The Public Library as Resistive Space in the Neoliberal City

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cico.12417

Sofya Aptekar is a sociology professor at UMass Boston. She did ethnographic research in a public library in Queens, New York City. She was interested in studying how people of different classes and backgrounds interacted in a library space within a diverse neighborhood. She found that the library is a place where middle class people and lower class people have authentic interactions and where middle class people try to bend the rules in order to help lower class people. This is relevant to my proposed study because Aptekar discusses how diversity — in this case, economic diversity — impacts relationships and programming at an urban public library.

NOTECARD 4, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?

· How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?

· What methods did they use to study their question?

· What conclusions did they draw from their results?

· How do their conclusions relate to my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

Jil'lana Heard. Knowledge Quest, 2015. "Engaging Teens in Recreational Reading Through Book Clubs." https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1064149

Jil'lana Heard is a media specialist at a junior high school in Arkansas. In this article, she describes a lunchtime book club that she began with her students. She describes why she started the book club, how she runs the book club, and what the impacts of the book club have been. The article was published in a journal for librarians. It was published in 2015 and Heard ran the book club for eight years at that point. It is relevant for my research because Heard describes how a youth book club can be run by librarians and details like book selection and how students respond to the books.

NOTECARD 5, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?

· How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?

· What methods did they use to study their question?

· What conclusions did they draw from their results?

· How do their conclusions relate to my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

Jamie Campbell Naidoo. ALSC, 2014. The Importance of Diversity in Library Programs and Material. https://www.scoe.org/files/Importance_of_Diversity_in_Library_Programs_and_Material_(1).pdf

Naidoo is a professor at the University of Alabama and a member of the board of directors of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). He wrote this paper for the ALSC publication in 2014. He reviews studies and other research about how children are exposed to diversity through the library and its collections. He emphasizes the importance of reading selections that introduce young people to cultures different from their own, frequently.

NOTECARD 6, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?

· How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?

· What methods did they use to study their question?

· What conclusions did they draw from their results?

· How do their conclusions relate to my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

Linda Terran Strommen and Barbara Fowles Mates. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 2011. "Learning To Love Reading: Interviews With Older Children and Teens." https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1598/JAAL.48.3.1

Strommen and Mates interviewed children and teens who like to read and children and teens who don't like to read. They analyzed the interview results and found that children who see themselves as part of a community of readers (such as those who have at least one family member who is a reader) are more likely to enjoy reading. This research was completed in 2011.

NOTECARD 9, Hypothesis: State your hypothesis. Remember, a formal hypothesis states the relationship between two variables—one is independent and one is dependent. It must also be formatted as an If/Then statement.

If the attendees select the books, then the readings selected will exhibit a decrease in diversity of the writers, compared to when the librarian selects the books.

NOTECARD 10, Operational definitions: Include and explain any operational definitions you developed for your study. Remember, operational definitions identify important concepts related to the research. You may skip this card if you have none.

Attendees = the teens who attended the previous month's reading group and who voted on the next month's reading.

Librarian = the professional SPL librarian leading the reading group any given month. Note that multiple librarians have led the reading group in the period of time included in my study.

Writer diversity = the diversity of the identities of the authors of the selected readings will be assessed based on the writers' Wikipedia pages. Diversity will be measured based on race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.

NOTECARD 11, Proposed Research Method: Introduce your proposed research method and explain how you propose to conduct your research. Some questions about your research method you might want to answer include:

· Will you use qualitative or quantitative research or a combination?

· How will you engage subjects or find your data?

· What kinds of tools and assessments will be used to gather the data?

I will ask the librarian for a list of the readings for the teen reading group from January 2017 up until the most recent month available. I will analyze this data to determine whether the diversity of the writers represented increased or decreased since the change to the book selection process in January 2020. I will assign a score to each writer based on publicly available information about their identities, according to the following criteria:

Race and ethnicity:

If the writer is a person of color and/or Hispanic, +1

If race and ethnicity are unknown, 0

If the writer is non-Hispanic white, -1

Gender:

If the writer is a woman, non-binary, transgender, or another gender minority, +1

If the writer's gender is unknown, 0

If the writer is a cisgendered man, -1

Sexual orientation:

If the writer is openly queer (or, for writers from prior generations who are deceased, if historians largely consider them to have been queer), +1

If the writer's sexual orientation is unknown, 0

If the writer is heterosexual, -1

Religion:

If the writer practices a minority religion in the USA or is strongly connected to a minority religion heritage, +1

If the writer's religion is unknown or if they have no religious affiliation, 0

If the writer is Protestant or Catholic, 0

For instance, J.K Rowling would receive a total score of -2, because she is a straight, white, Christian woman. Angie Thomas would receive a total score of 1, because she is a Black Christian woman of unknown sexual orientation.

After assigning scores, I will find the average score for all writers selected between January 2017 and December 2019, and the average score for all writers selected between January 2020 and the latest available data. Comparing the average scores for the two time periods will show whether my hypothesis is correct.

NOTECARD 1, Introduction: Your introduction card should introduce your audience to the community group being studied. Remember, it should be a group in which membership is voluntary and recreational.

In particular, be sure to answer the following questions:

· What is the community group?

· What are the attributes or characteristics of this community group? (e.g. What activities does this group do together? What element of the members' interests or identities brings them together? How is membership in the group defined, if at all?)

· Is there anything else listeners should know about this group that is relevant for your research proposal?

· Name and description of your community group.

NOTECARD 2, Research Question:

· State your research question.

NOTECARD 3, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?

· How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?

· What methods did they use to study their question?

· What conclusions did they draw from their results?

· How do their conclusions relate to my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

· Bibliography information for your first source

· Description and analysis

NOTECARD 4, Literature Review: Describe and analyze your source. Include the bibliography information of author’s name(s); publisher and publication date; title of the source, in quotation marks; page numbers (if applicable); and source's location for web-based texts (URL).

Describe the source and how it is relevant to your research proposal. Questions you could answer about your source include:

· Who wrote this article? Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?

· Where was this article published?

· When was the research conducted?

· What question were the researchers attempting to answer?