Grant Project

Grant Ideas:
Peer Review: Monday, September 26th (in class)
Project Ideas Due: Tuesday, September 27th by 11:59 pm
Percentage: 5%

Annotated Bibliography:
Peer Review: Wednesday, October 5th (in class)
Annotated Bibliography Due: Friday, October 7th by 5:00 pm
Percentage: 10%

Lean Canvas/Ideation:
Class Discussion of Drafted Worksheets: Week 10
Lean Canvas/Ideation Worksheets Due: Sunday, October 30th by 11:59 pm
Meetings with Me about Your Project: Week 11 (Monday - Wednesday)
Percentage: 5%

First Draft - Grant:
Peer Review: Friday, November 11th (in class)
First Draft Due: Sunday, November 13th by 11:59 pm
Percentage: 10%

Final Draft - Grant:
Peer Review: Wednesday, November 30th (in class)
Final Draft Due: Friday, December 2nd by 11:59 pm
Percentage: 20%

Total Percentage: 50%

General Overview

Over the next several weeks, we will be working on writing a grant that proposes a digital humanities project. You are not responsible for completing the actual project (that’s what you’re asking for money for, after all), but you are responsible for several components that flesh out the project you imagine. If you choose, you can work in teams of two for this project.

Remember, however, that you want to imagine a project that you can actually complete within the span of a semester or summer. In fact, this project is loosely based on CNU’s Independent Research Grants. The thought here is that if you get really excited about your project, you can apply for this program and potentially get paid to create your own DH project (it comes with a $1,500 stipend!). So, this isn’t about imagining a BIG project, it’s about thinking about something small and feasible within the field of DH.

Grants are a huge part of the digital humanities field, and being able to know what goes into a grant will be helpful in many other fields as well. Plus, this is a time for creativity! This is about what you want to develop within the field of DH.

Grant Ideas

For the first part of this assignment, you’re not just pitching one idea–you’ll be pitching three ideas. When I give you feedback on this portion, I’ll be trying to help you pick the best and most feasible idea. I will not accept other portions of this grant until your grant idea has been approved.

So, essentially, you’ll brainstorm a few ideas for (small!) DH projects and then pitch them to me. These ideas can incorporate your area of study and/or be inspired by communities you are a part of as long as they have humanistic (and digital!) elements. So, this can’t just be a pitch for a research paper–there needs to be some sort of digital component planned (again, not executed, but planned).

Some ideas (note that this list is not exhaustive). I’ll also be sharing a list of digital resources in the Shared Google Drive:

A mapping project
A virtual museum exhibition – think about copyright here
A scholarly digital edition of a text (not just an electronic text) – and remember, editions should deal with something out of copyright and in the public domain, and you’ll want to focus on something small to start, such as a short story or a small collection of poems
A 3D modeling or printing project
Some sort of network analysis or data visualization(s) (looking at how actors are connected in old films, for instance, or, as another example, visualizing some aspect of social media)
A podcast about an aspect of DH
A born digital creative project (this could be interactive fiction, for instance)

When you pitch your three ideas, you’ll be writing a short (~100 word) description of each idea. You don’t have to know exactly what software you’re going to use to create your project yet (although thinking about this would be good, and sometimes technology can inspire the project as much as the project can decide what technology to use!), but try and come up with three ideas you are passionate and excited about. After all, we’ll be spending about ten weeks on this assignment. Please order your ideas in order of preference, the first one being the one you’d prefer to work on the most.

Evaluation Criteria

Pitches three digital humanities projects, not scholarly papers or something to do with another field
Follows the appropriate instructions (three ideas, ~100 word description for each idea)
Works hard to be concise and avoids unnecessary jargon
Utilizes proper mechanics; style, sentence structure, and spelling promote coherence, clarity, and credibility

Annotated Bibliography

For the Annotated Bibliography, you’ll be responsible for finding at least seven sources and writing 100-150 words per entry explaining the central argument of the source and its relevance to your project (i.e. how you plan to use it). At least four of these sources should be peer-reviewed articles or scholarly book chapters either about the topic you’ve chosen or about the kind of method you’ll be using. Your other sources can include similar DH projects.

For example, say you pitched making a scholarly digital edition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (but don’t do this exactly, since I’ve already done it!). Some of your sources would be about best practices for creating scholarly digital editions, other sources would be scholarship on Gilman and “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” and still more would be examples of inspirational digital editions and/or DH projects that already deal with Gilman and/or “The Yellow Wall-Paper” in some way.

The Annotated Bibliography should be formatted according to MLA guidelines. This means it should be double-spaced, alphabatized by the last name of the authors, and formatted with a hanging indent.

To make my life easier, I’m asking you to split the Annotated Bibliography into two parts: “scholarly articles/chapters” and “other resources” (this will include DH projects and other sites/resources you find). We’ll go over an example in class.

Finally, you should also remind me (briefly!) what your project is about before the actual entries. Again, we’ll go over an example in class.

Evaluation Criteria

Follows the appropriate instructions (7 sources, at least 4 of which are peer-reviewed; 100-150 words per entry; formatted according to MLA and split into two parts)
Shows critical thinking in both the sources chosen and the description of them/their importance to your project
Works hard to be concise and avoids unnecessary jargon
Utilizes proper mechanics; style, sentence structure, and spelling promote coherence, clarity, and credibility

Lean Canvas and Ideation

You’ll be filling out both the Lean Canvas Worksheet and the Ideation Worksheet (both resources are from the Yale DH Lab) during Week 10. You’ll be revising both worksheets in- and out-of-class that week and turning in a more polished version of both forms on Sunday, October 30th.

Lean Canvas

First, you’ll want to fill out this form by Monday, October 24th. We’ll talk about your responses in class that day, and then make plans for revision. Essentially, though, this document is meant to help you think more critically about your project goals now that you have some research under your belt.

Ideation

For the Ideation Worksheet–which you should have started drafting by Friday, October 28th–you’ll be starting to design what your project would look like. In other words, you’ll be creating a few mock-ups of different site views you imagine for your project.

The first page of this worksheet asks you to demonstrate a 4-part “User Flow,” meaning that you’ll want to sketch the home page of your project and then show how a user would get to other portions of your project (for instance, the map(s) you envision and/or the contextual material for those maps).

The second page asks you to do a more complex and complete sketch of one page of your imagined site.

If you feel more comfortable working with a graphic design software such as Canva or any Adobe products instead of sketching your project mock-ups by hand, I actively encourage this! However, you should still be following the Ideation Worksheet’s guidelines: that is, you must still create a “User Flow” and a more detailed view of one page on the site. You can also sketch the “User Flow” by hand and then use Canva or another software just for that more detailed view.

Note: If your project is not web-based (for example, you are doing something with 3D printing that won’t be hosted online), we’ll talk about your options for the Ideation portion of this assignment one-on-one.

Evaluation Criteria - Lean Canvas and Ideation

Forms are filled out thoroughly and completely
Thinks critically about both the written content in the Lean Canvas worksheet and the design content in the Ideation worksheet
Follows the appropriate instructions

First Draft

Although this is called a “First Draft,” it should be a polished first draft, not a “Shitty First Draft.”

For this draft, you’re going to write a 1500-word Project Description, a 250-word Abstract, and a one-page Resume OR a one- to two-page CV.

Project Description

The first draft of your Project Description should be 1500 words and follow MLA guidelines. We’ll talk about this more in class, but keep in mind the guidelines for the Independent Research Grant here at CNU:

State the primary objective(s) of your research or creative project.
Briefly describe the foundational themes that inform your subject and elaborate on how your own work builds on these themes and/or forges new ones.
Describe the processes, methods, and materials you will use to conduct your work.
Outline any anticipated results and their significance.
Orient your work within your broader course of scholarship: Does it build on work you’ve done in the past? Do you intend to develop it in the future?
Explain the relevance and implications of your research or project: Why is this work important?
This description should be written with a general reader in mind, a reader who may not necessarily be familiar with your discipline (and certainly not with the jargon of that discipline).

Evalution Criteria - Project Description

Thinks critically about the project as a whole and answers the guidelines listed above
Persuades the reader that the project is of scholarly importance
Explains the technology needed for the project in a succinct but informative way
Presents information in an organized and coherent way
Works hard to be concise and avoids unnecessary jargon
Utilizes proper mechanics; style, sentence structure, and spelling promote coherence, clarity, and credibility
Follows the appropriate instructions

Final Draft

Taking the feedback from me and your peers, you will revise your project description and write the rest of your grant packet (Abstract and Resume or CV) for the Final Draft. Interestingly enough, your Project Description is going to be shorter than your First Draft; you’ll be working on being more concise.

For this Final Draft, you’re going to submit a 1000-word Project Description, a 250-word Abstract, and a one-page Resume OR a one- to two-page CV.

You’ll still be following the guidelines listed under the First Draft section of this prompt (and anything we go over in class), but now you’ll be polishing and refining your grant as a whole and making the Project Description the appropriate length. Something to keep in mind: the word count for each part of this grant is the maximum (unlike in many of our other assignments), but you shouldn’t go much under the word count either.

Evaluation Criteria - Project Description

See evaluation criteria under the First Draft section of the prompt above.

Abstract

An Abstract should effectively summarize the contents of your Project Description (which is why I urge you to write it after you’ve finished the Project Description). Remember, this will be the first thing someone reads, so make it engaging, thoughtful, and complete–and don’t just repeat the introduction of your Project Description. Again, we’ll talk about this more in class.

Evaluation Criteria - Abstract

Summarizes the contents of your Project Description in a thoughtful and engaging way
Works hard to be concise and avoids unnecessary jargon
Utilizes proper mechanics; style, sentence structure, and spelling promote coherence, clarity, and credibility
Follows the appropriate instructions

Resume or CV

You get to choose: do you want to write a 1-2 page Curriculum Vitae (CV) OR a 1-page Resume?

A CV is more common for grants because this document describes your academic achievements as opposed to emphasizing the skills you learned at certain positions.

I’m giving you the choice because a Resume might be more helpful for you at the moment as you get ready for your career, but if you are interested in writing a CV, already have one, or are thinking about graduate school, then by all means, write a CV!

We’ll be talking about both in class, but the point of both of these documents is to emphasize your preparedness for this project. Part of this is presenting a professional document, meaning it should be well designed. This does not mean you need to have color or anything especially clever–it just means you need to be consistent in formatting and presentation while also listing all of the relevant information about you.

Evaluation Criteria - Resume or CV

Formatted professionally
Presents information in an organized and coherent way
Thinks critically about the necessary content
Utilizes proper mechanics; style, sentence structure, and spelling promote coherence, clarity, and credibility
Follows the appropriate instructions (1-2 page for the CV, 1 page for the Resume)

Late Work

Unless we’ve talked, I will deduct 5 points for every day each assignment is late.

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