BF290
Academic Literacy: Social Sciences
0.5 Credit

This skills-based course provides students with a broad introduction to the social sciences as a scholarly enterprise. Students will learn the basic skills necessary to find, understand, and critically evaluate research in the social sciences. Through lectures and small-group classes students will learn: how social scientists conduct research and report their results, including the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research; how to use databases and other research tools to effectively gather scholarly information; how to critically evaluate social science research; how to frame social science research questions; how to synthesize and clearly articulate their findings in both oral and written formats; and how to be ethical scholars by practicing research and academic integrity. By the end of the course students will have experience using APA style, writing an annotated bibliography and a literature review, and making an oral presentation.