Peer-Reviewed Journal Assignment Sheet

Peer-Reviewed Journal Review
Due: October 3, learn@uw dropbox

You will select a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that covers an LIS field of your interest. Read its most recent two years. In general this will mean 8 issues of a quarterly publication. 25-30 articles, on average. Please ask a librarian (Anjali, for example) to help you identify a peer reviewed journal in the field if necessary.

In about 5 double spaced pages, please summarize, based on your reading and insight, what the main currents of contemporary research in the field seem to be. Then, most importantly, synthesize the information you have gained into your own critical perspective on the field. This is not a book report of what happened in each article. You are developing your critical position as a second order observer of the field at large, and that’s where your “synthesis” of the field at large comes in.

 
Things to take note of while reading:
 
What are the spoken and unspoken assumptions of where the field is now? Who are the authors and what are the assumptions and hypotheses that these articles are debating and referring to? Whatseems to be common knowledge within this community and how are people trying to change or shape that?