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Assignment motivation

The main assignment for this course is the ‘term knowledge quest’ (or TKQ). The goal of this assignment is the straight-forward pursuit of knowledge, and the effective transmission of that knowledge. The primary activity associated with the TKQ is research, much of which will consist of library searches, reading relevant peer-reviewed papers or books, and playing and analyzing games. Your research will help you answer a question that you’ve posed about something that deeply interests you in the field of game studies. On completion of your TKQ assignment you will have developed an artefact that represents the knowledge you have produced throughout the course.

Assignment description

Much like the Creative Expression assignment, the particular format your purse for this project is open. Again, I suggest you work to your strengths by producing something that you know you have a knack for, or at the very least that you’ve done before. The specific domain of knowledge you study is also open, and once again, I suggest sticking to areas of strength: Game studies draws on knowledge from many academic disciplines (e.g. Media Studies, Cultural Studies, English, Computer Science, Sociology, Economics, etc.) so there is plenty of opportunity to find a fit to your personal interests, or possibly to your own academic discipline.

To be more concrete, here are some examples of acceptable project formats:

*A standard research/term paper.

Other formats are possible, but you must come to me with a proposal first to tell me what you want to do. Keep in mind that time is very tight in this seven-week summer course, and you have a lot of other reading, playing and discussions to contribute to. So don’t go overboard with this. If you are uncertain which way to go then a research paper is always a good choice.

Completion criteria

Again, much like the Creative Expression assignment, there is no one metric that will suit everyone, since different media and different levels of experience will affect the ‘quantity’ that you produce. However, to give you some ballpark ideas, I expect you to spend on the order of 20 hours completing this project – including the proposal (see below).

For example, if we were to talk specifically about a research paper, I would expect a paper of around 2500 words that uses at least five different academic sources, and either deeply critiques a single game, or discusses concepts that draws examples from multiple games. Thus, you will need time to read relevant papers, play relevant games, and actually write the research paper. As you can imagine, that 20 hours will disappear quickly.

No matter what you do, your TKQ project must make use of proper academic sources to support your arguments/ideas. You are permitted to use papers that are assigned in class, but in many cases you will need to go out of your way to find additional critical writing that discusses your topic.

Here’s a checklist to help ensure you have the things you need to complete your TKQ project:

A clear research question (see below);

At least five academic sources (e.g. from the assigned reading list, or from your own research);

At least one game to use in critique, or as an example – depending on your topic you may need to discuss more than one game;

The necessary software to produce your final product (e.g. Word, Game Maker, iMovie, etc.);

The necessary skills to produce your final product (i.e. don’t decide to make a game if you’ve never made one before; conversely, if you produce your own podcast, it would be a good idea to make use of those skills).

Proposal

To ensure that you’re on the right track with your research question you should submit a proposal to me by Friday, May. 25th at 11:30pm (you may submit earlier, if you like!) The proposal is worth 150 points, and I will commit to providing you with timely and useful feedback to help you produce your final TKQ if you submit by this deadline. Your TKQ proposal must include:

Your name;

A title for your TKQ (make it interesting! “TKQ Assignment” is not interesting);

The research question you intend to pursue (see below);

A description of the format of the TKQ (e.g. research paper, podcast, game, etc.);

MLA citations for the five academic sources you intend to use;

A list of the games you intend to use;

A descriptive paragraph discussing what you expect to learn during your research. In short, try to answer your question (posed above) as best you can.

I will evaluate your proposal based on completion (does it include everything I’ve asked for?) and professionalism (is it well-written and clear?). I reserve the right to deduct points from your submission if it appears that you have not presented a sufficiently well-considered question.

Research questions

This is the most critical part of your TKQ project. In order to create knowledge and produce something of value, you need to have a strong research question to guide your work. As with the format of your project, the field is wide open, but you should stick to something that is related to your declared major, or to something that deeply interests you about game studies.

A good place to start is to think about the games that you’ve played and enjoyed and try to figure out why you’ve enjoyed them. You could then take the approach of doing a deep critical analysis on that specific game, or you could take what you’ve learned about why you enjoy games and dig deeper into that. Either way, remember that this is a process of discovery: the answers aren’t going to be immediately clear – you should have to work a bit to find them.

Here are some example questions to help guide your thinking:

How do video games aid in the development of social skills in children?

In what ways can public school education benefit from the inclusion of video games in the core curriculum?

How does the term ‘gamer’ privilege certain demographics and marginalize others?

How does playing video games affect cognition?

How do video game economies mimic, or relate to, real-world economies?

Is there a relationship between the types of stories we tell in video games, and the types of culturally-related stories we’ve told through history?

Can we understand and analyze video games as a form of sport?

Note that these questions are starting points. The goal is for you to become much more specific in your own question, likely by asking questions similar to the above about specific games, or about a specific class/genre of games.

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