COMD 40100. JUNIOR INDEPENDENT STUDY The course examines how scholars conduct communication research and culminates with students writing a Junior Independent Study thesis under the direction of a faculty advisor. Topics include the selection of a research question or purpose; the use of the library for scholarly communication research; a broad overview of humanistic and social scientific methods; the evaluation of scholarly research; and guidelines for scholarly writing. The course involves a number of writing assignments as well as the drafting and revision of thesis chapters, in order to help students clarify their goals and articulate their research findings in a coherent way.