Graduate Seminar in
Thursdays,
Professor Annie Gilbert Coleman Office: CA 503N
acolema2@iupui.edu 274-5817
Office hours: Tues/Thurs
Introduction:
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the history of sports, recreation, and leisure and to develop skills in research, conceptualization, and writing through original research in that field. Together we will explore why these topics are worthy of serious historical scholarship and we will also contribute to that scholarship. The final goal of the class is for each student to produce a scholarly article in publishable (or near publishable) form. In order to accomplish these goals, students should expect to read critically, explore primary sources deeply, present their own work both orally and in writing at different stages of research, review their colleague’s work thoughtfully, and revise their work in light of the constructive critiques they receive. My hope is that through this process we will create an intellectual community to support students’ future thesis work, and also a forum for introducing students to the crafts of publishing an article and presenting a conference paper.
Books:
Cindy S. Aron,
Working at Play: A History of Vacations
in the
Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (North Carolina, 1993)
Kate L. Turabian,
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses,
and Dissertations, sixth edition (
Articles will be available on ERROL (electronic course reserves) as well as from the appropriate books and journals in the library. To access ERROL you start from the IUPUI library home page and follow the links. You will need a password – it is HISTH750 – all caps.
Some Websites:
North American Society for Sport History – www.nassh.org
NCAA – www.ncaa.org
Women’s Sports Foundation – www.WomensSportsFoundation.org
Use Archives USA and
Also look for national associations and halls of fame for respective sports
Requirements:
The main requirement for this class is the final paper, about 30 pages in length, based on original primary source research and geared towards publication in a scholarly journal. In order to succeed with this requirement, students MUST hand in a total of three drafts of their paper, as well as preliminary written exercises including an essay on sources of about 4 pages and a precis of their proposed argument. All written exercises must be typed and handed in on time.
Another significant part of this course will be peer review, in which students critique each other’s work. Each student will write a total of 6 commentaries on colleague’s papers. (There will be more info on this later.)
Since a seminar centers upon an exchange of ideas among participants, attendance is mandatory (barring extraordinary circumstances) and the quality of student participation in class discussions will influence their final grade. In addition to discussion of the readings in the first part of the course, students should expect to report to the class regularly on their research projects and be willing to constructively critique each other’s work.
Note: plagiarism and other forms of intellectual dishonesty will result in a failing grade on the work in question and may lead to disciplinary action by the university.
Grading:
Preliminary written exercises and initial drafts 20%
Participation in class 20%
Peer reviews 20%
Final paper 40%
Schedule and Assignments:
Jan. 15 Introduction to H750
Jan. 22 Local Archival Sources: NCAA, IHS, State Library
*special meeting time and place – bring notebooks and photo IDs
Due: 1) read packet of introductory essays and take notes on them for next
week; 2) begin research notebook; browse NASSH website and others of
interest; search America History and Life with keywords of your choice
Jan. 29 The Significance of Sports History
Due: Oriard, Reading Football – be prepared to discuss his thesis and
argument, use of sources and method, and the book’s place in sports
history as set out by the readings from last week
Feb. 5 The Significance of Recreation and Leisure
Due: Aron, Working at Play – same as above
Feb. 12 Sports, Recreation, Leisure, and Power
Due:
Ellen Gruber Garvey, “Reframing the Bicycle: Advertising-Supported Magazines and Scorching Women,” American Quarterly 47, 1 (March 1995):66-101
Roy Rosenzweig,
“Immigrant Workers and the Fourth of July,” and “The Struggle over the Fourth,”
from Eight Hours for What We Will:
Workers and Leisure in an
Leah Dilworth, “Tourists and
Indians in Fred Harvey’s Southwest,” in Wrobel and
Long, Seeing and Being Seen: Tourism in
the American West (
George Lipsitz,
“The Silence of the Rams:
Jose Alamillo,
“Mexican American Baseball: Masculinity, Racial Struggle, and Labor Politics in
Feb. 19 From Topic to Research Question
Due: Use primary and secondary research to choose two possible topics;
bring a working bibliography to support your favorite one; develop three
potential research questions for that topic and one for your back-up topic
Feb. 26 No Class – Research primary and secondary sources
Due: A big chunk of your research and lots of notes
Mar. 4 Sources, Research Plan, Argument, and Writing
Due: Essay on secondary and primary sources
Bring your articles from Feb 12
Mar. 11 No Class – Individual Conferences
Due: Precis with different levels of argument (line, paragraph, page)
Outline
of paper that incorporates narrative and argument
Mar. 18 No Class – Spring Break
Mar. 25 Writing
Due: Draft of your introduction and outline of whole paper
Apr. 1 How to Critique and Revise
Due: First Drafts Due (copies for peers)
Apr. 8 Group Consultation
Due: Commentary on three papers
Apr. 15 Writing an MA thesis
Due: Second Drafts Due to peers and instructor
Apr. 22 Getting an Article Published; Giving a Conference Paper
Due: commentary on three papers
April 29 Final Drafts Due
PEER REVIEW GUIDELINES
A Note on Tone:
Be conscious of the tone of your review. A good critique opens up the possibilities and potential of the work under question rather than shutting them down. To accomplish this you will need to do more than identify weaknesses or problems you see—help the author address those issues by suggesting ways to overcome them or pointing out ideas and connections they might not have noticed. This review process gives you the chance to develop your own intellectual community, a set of colleagues you can count on to read your work and give you thoughtful and serious feedback on it. This is a valuable relationship you will take advantage of, hopefully, throughout your careers. Remember it’s much better to hear that your argument doesn’t work yet from your colleagues (who are, after all, in the same boat as you), than from a professor, a journal editor, or a review committee. So be a good colleague and critique each paper seriously and constructively. You will do your classmates a disservice if you think being “nice” means saying the paper is just fine as it is. Being nice means identifying and solving problems, and no paper is ever perfect. It also means identifying strengths, and be sure to point those out as well.
If you see lots of problems and worry you’ll sound too negative, decide which ones are the most important (stick to three or so), prioritize them for the author, and again, suggest ways to solve them. Fixing the main problems often winds up fixing the smaller ones, too.
Categories for Critique:
Keep these in mind when you read. I do not expect you to give each author a complete run-down on each category, but they should help you identify the paper’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Are the thesis and argument identifiable? Clear? Effective?
- Is the argument interesting? Appropriate in scope (too big/small)?
- Is the author’s use of theory/historiography effective?
i. Does it help them set out and make their argument?
ii. Other ideas of how they might develop this part?
- Does the intro do its job?
- Body:
i. Development of ideas
ii. Flow of ideas/transition
iii. Use of evidence, examples, quotes
- Conclusion – does it pull the argument together and speak somehow to its broader significance?
- Identify recurring grammatical problems
- An embarrassing number of typos/spelling mistakes?
- Evidence documented appropriately?
- Check footnote and bibliography form
How to write your review:
- see “a note on tone” above
- 1-2 pages single-spaced seems appropriate for length; half a page is not enough and more than two is too much
- bring two copies of your reviews to class – one for me and one for the author
- I will look at these to see 1) if the reviewer did a serious, thoughtful job and covered all the bases below, and 2) how the author incorporated the comments into their papers
- I’ll give reviewers a grade for feedback on #1 above. Hold on to the reviews your peers give you for your (and my) future reference.
You may structure your review how you like, but you must cover a few things. First, you must summarize the thesis and argument of the paper as you see it. This is a good way to begin, and it will help the author see what ideas came across and which ones didn’t. The bulk of your comments should speak to the categories of argument and structure (above). You may take them one at a time, or you may divide your review into sections for strengths and weaknesses. Either way, you must identify
strengths (or potential strengths), problem areas, AND make some suggestions about how to address the problem areas. Remember, authors rely on other smart people’s perspectives to point them in new directions. A good way to end is by showing how making a few key changes will help the author realize the paper’s potential.