Dr. Dana William’s Lecture
Research and Methodology: Inscription as Liberating Practice
Oct.7th,2010
Dr. Williams came and spoke to our Thursday class on Oct. 7th 2010 about the purpose of the Freshmen Seminar class at Howard University. It was the first of its kind, piloted by Dr. Carr and others, to foster the love of knowledge and good research in Howard Students. It is meant to teach us (if we haven’t already learned) the principle components of research and how to relate and apply what we learned to our everyday lives.
I learned that the basic components of research are; 1) to state the problem and consider a clear purpose, 2) assess current state of research on the problem at hand,3) come up with a clear methodology (i.e. how to go about collecting data), 4) Set up a framework of how to solve your problem 5) Develop a thesis with supporting detail and 6) present the data gathered in a logical manner and construct (from your findings) a conclusion.
These steps weren’t something that was foreign to me because they closely resemble the steps to writing an analytical essay (as I had to do often in highschool) but I was nice to see how exactly the professors of this course used these same ideas to built this course to fit our needs as well as have speakers come in to teach us about our history while doing it.
I can say that by taking this course, I have learned much more than any history course in my white highschool could teach me about being black.
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