Call for Vignettes: We’re soliciting vignettes (100 to 500 word written answers) to questions as listed for each chapter of Highest Honors: A Guide to Undergraduate Research. If your vignette is selected for publication in the book, you will receive $100.00 and will be required to sign a release form from Teachers College Press. Your vignette may be edited. You will be able to review the vignette and the chapter that it appears in several times before it goes to press.
Vignettes are due by July 1st 2017.
Send questions and completed vignettes to ahchar@wm.edu
Chapter 1: Why This Book is Important
What does it mean to you to transition from being a student to being a scholar/undergraduate researcher?
What do you wish you’d known about college academics, especially undergraduate research, in your first year or two of college or when you were still in high school?
How did your definition of research change throughout your first year? For example, When did you understand what research was?
How is high school research different from research you do in college?
What questions should first-year students ask their professors at the beginning of the semester? What did you wish you had asked at that time?
What successes and challenges did you have your first year of college?
Chapter 2: Get Started with Undergraduate Research: What, Why, and How
What do you see as the benefits of doing undergraduate research, both long-term and short-term?
How has research helped you become the person that you are?
How has research helped you to reach across traditional disciplinary boundaries?
How did you get started with research?
How did you find a research mentor?
What skills/tools did you need to be successful at your research?
How has your undergrad research advisor helped you? In your research? In your personal life?
Describe the single best thing about conducting research as an undergraduate student.
Did conducting research change your academic or career path? How so?
Chapter 3: How to Fit in Research with Everything Else: Time and Energy in College
How is your daily schedule different in college than it was in high school?
How did you make the transition to college, particularly research, time and energy management? What were some of your triumphs? Some of your challenges? What are you still working on?
How has learning how to create a calendar and schedule time for classes, research, and personal life make you a better student?
What strategies for time management have worked for you?
In what ways have perfectionism and procrastination intersected for you in the research context?
Chapter 4: Research with Professors and Mentors
How has a research mentor helped you navigate your research as well as aspects of your life at college or beyond?
How did you build a relationship with a research mentor?
How did you pick a research topic to explore?
How did you and your advisor work together to choose a research project for you?
How did you effectively deal with frustrations that you had with your professors, such as faculty not being responsive or available?
Chapter 5. Writing and Presenting Research
Share an experience presenting or publishing your work! What went well? What were the tough parts?
How does writing in college differ from the writing you did in high school?
What strategies were effective in writing strong research papers for class or in your own independent research?
Chapter 6. Challenges for Underrepresented Scholars: Making a Way
Have you faced discrimination in a research context? What did you do about it, if anything? If not, what might you do next time?
How has research been at the center of a social or cultural change for you?
Chapter 7: In Conclusion
Share an experience about how a community experience, service learning experience, or volunteer experience led to a research topic or project.
Describe the outcomes of a community based research experience. What were some of your greatest successes? What were some of the challenges and limitations?
Who has benefited from your participation in research? In what ways?
Describe a faculty research mentor who has made a positive difference in your life.
Describe a peer researcher who has made a positive difference in your life, such as a senior honors student.
What are some challenges you have had with helping others (e.g., family members, friends) understand your research, your major choice, or your intended career path?
