Course Descriptions

HON 295 - Research Methods and Academic Writing

3 Credits

In this interdisciplinary seminar course, students will examine a selected topic/theme and will develop written analysis, textual evaluation, and oral discourse. Students will utilize heuristics and techniques for applications of advanced argument and research. Students will conduct complex and rhetorically sophisticated research on the selected topic/theme and are urged to present their work at area undergraduate research conferences like MCC’s Scholars’ Day. Advanced composition skills are assumed.

Learning Attributes: WR

New SUNY General Education: SUNY - Communication - Written and Oral, SUNY - Information Literacy Competency

Retiring SUNY General Education: SUNY-H - Humanities (SHUM)

MCC General Education: MCC-AH - Arts and Humanities (MAH), MCC-BCW - Writing (MBCW), MCC-IL - Information Literacy (MIL)

Course Learning Outcomes
1. Employ advanced critical reading strategies to analyze the context, rhetorical techniques, substance, potential bias, and intended effects of information and ideas, especially with advanced scholarly sources.
2. Apply advanced rhetorical strategies in written and oral texts to inform, persuade, or otherwise engage diverse audiences, especially those in a research conference setting.
3. Develop advanced composition processes (generating ideas, drafting, revising, and editing) to improve sophisticated written texts and oral communication recursively.
4. Apply advanced heuristics, research methods, and inquiry-based techniques, including the evaluation of higher-level secondary source material, towards the composition of both a thesis-driven, source-based essay and oral presentation.
5. Demonstrate a nuanced, in-depth understanding of the ethical treatment of information.
6. Develop valid arguments using methods such as the Aristotelian, Rogerian, and Toulmin paradigms.
7. Apply and adopt audience-appropriate sentence and paragraph-level conventions, such as grammar, mechanics, and structure, while developing more advanced considerations of style and tone.

Use links below to see if this course is offered:
Fall Semester 2024
Intersession 2025
Spring Semester 2025