Product Design History (AHCS 225) is a sophomore-level Liberal Arts and Sciences course.
An I-Search Paper helps you learn the nature of searching and discovery on a chosen topic. Your goal is to pay attention, track this exploration, and LEARN HOW YOU LEARN so that you can repeat the process in other courses.
The I-Search Paper should be the story of your search process, including chronological reflections on the phases of research in a narrative form. The I is for YOU. It's the story of YOUR search and what you learned.
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Keep track of the actual search terms and specific databases you used and how you modified your strategy as you went along. You will include those details in your paper. Analyze the results. How many hits did you get? Say how and why you modified your search strategy to get more or less. What did you learn about each database that you tried? What kind of information did you find. Why were the names of the journals or magazines articles were in.
In all your research, include actual facts and theories that you discover about your topic as well as idiosyncratic information such as what surprised you. You could say what you already knew about the topic before beginning the research and how what you knew about that topic may have changed during the research process.
If you have trouble finding relevant materials in the Library, ask a librarian. They have Master's Degrees in research, are more discerning than search engines. Plus, they are happy to assist!
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You are going to produce an I Search paper that focuses on an issue in product design that you think is important to investigate as a future designer or because it impacts the design field.
We are encouraging questions that address:
This can be a critical question about a designer, product, or an issue.
This cannot be a report on a designer, product, or an issue. There are lots of books and articles that already cover that information.
Your I Search paper should include:
Signature Assignment Template [Word]
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