York Faculty and Librarians Team-Teaching in the Professional Writing Program

In the fall term of 2003 Janet Webber (Special Assistant Professor, Division of Humanities and Centre for Academic Writing) and Scott McLaren (Humanities and Religious Studies Librarian) began team-teaching the newly minted course AS/WRIT2300 A Writer's Introduction to Research. Co-designed by Scott and Janet during the previous academic year, this is one of several required core courses for students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts' new Professional Writing Program. The educational value of this faculty/librarian collaboration is apparent both in the course's comprehensive learning outcomes and in its seamless integration into the wider professional writing curriculum.

A practical introduction to strategies for using library, online and other resources, this course is intended to develop students' abilities to formulate research plans, to evaluate and organize information, and to present it effectively and responsibly. The course focuses on developing the research skills needed by professional writers working in non-academic settings. It approaches both research and writing as recursive, problem-solving processes, seeing research as part of the writing process. Thus it places the formulation of research plans and research questions within the context of overall rhetorical planning for a piece of writing.

Students are taught how to develop search strategies and techniques for using libraries, the Internet and other sources, such as archives and people, to find answers to their questions. As students learn to integrate what they have found in their sources into their own writing, special emphasis is placed on the need to evaluate sources critically and methods for doing so, as well as on the ethical and legal issues involved. This process culminates in the writing of an article based on research for which students must first submit an extensive annotated bibliography.

The course operates through a combination of formal lectures and lab tutorials in alternate weeks. Each pairing of lecture and lab is used first to introduce students to the literature of a different academic discipline and the formats of literature available through specialized sources and then give hands-on experience with this material in the lab. Disciplines and formats covered include the humanities, social sciences, science and medicine, business and industry, Canadian and international government documents, statistical resources, and archival materials. In order to cover this very broad range of disciplines the instructors have been fortunate to be able to call on the expertise of a number of librarians for guest lectures, assignment design consultation, and hands-on assistance in labs. Librarians who contributed to the course in this way include John Dupuis (Science), Elizabeth Watson (Business), Sophie Bury (Business), Amanda Wakaruk (Government Documents), Walter Giesbrecht (Data and Statistics), and Suzanne Dubeau (Archives and Special Collections).

Informal feedback from students has been very positive; one recently remarked that this course was her favourite because what she learned in it could be applied to every other course that she was currently taking. The instructors have observed both the growing sophistication of critical research skills in student assignments and the students' own sense of their increasing competence. Projected enrollment for the 2004/2005 academic year is more than 100 students.

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