Pragmatic Foundations for Information Studies

3 Credits

Information Studies' paradigmatic richness places particular burdens on the individual researcher. Framing research agendas, motivating research questions, conducting literature reviews, selecting methods, and even arguing for particular conclusions is complicated by the number of alternative approaches available to the Information Studies scholar. Faced with this complexity, it is tempting to select a single paradigm and "be done with it" - and in doing so forego a primary strength of the interdisciplinary field. The purpose of this seminar is to help you develop the pragmatic skills and techniques needed to navigate the complexity of a multi-paradigm field such as Information Studies, so that you can draw on its paradigmatic richness to develop your research interests into valuable new insights (or at least determine whether you want to).