SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 261-3

Arthur-Martins Aginam	Summer 2002
Telephone: 604-291-3687	Burnaby Day
Email: aaginam@sfu.ca

DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH IN COMMUNICATION

Prerequisites:

CMNS 110 or 130.

Overview:

The purpose of this course is to introduce communication students to the basics of documentary research. The course principally adopts a “learn by doing” approach where students are expected to apply basic documentary research methods to an assortment of organizations both in the pubolic and private sectors. Key components of the course include theories/paradigms of documentary research; basic forms of corporations (public-governmental, private-not-for-profit, etc.) and the types of information they produce; the print and electronic sources of such information (libraries, archives, computer databases, the Internet (websites), corporate promotional publications, etc.).
Since we will rely heavily on SFU Library’s print and electronic databases, you will need an SFU computing account to take this course. Most print documents will be found in the SFU Library’s Social Sciences and Government Documents section on the third floor.


Required Texts:

- Rubin, R.B., Rubin, A.M., & Piele, L.J. (2000) Communication Research: Strategies and Sources, 5th ed. Belmont CA: Wadsworth
- Other readings will be available on Library Reserve and/or in the course box in the Communication Photocopy Room
- We will also use the Library’s Communications web page http://www.lib.sfu.ca/kiosk/sroberts/comm.htm as a basic orientation/resource tool.


Course Organization:

A two-hour weekly lecture presents the background concepts and sources necessary to do the assignments. A one-hour weekly tutorial (held in the 5th floor seminar room in the library) is available to provide group and one-on-one help in undertaking assignments.

Grade Distribution:

(to be confirmed in the first class)

Corporate profile (due week 5) 30%
Research Proposal (due week 9) 10%
Research Project (due week 13) 40%
Final Exam 20%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see current Calendar, General Regulations section).