A GUIDE TO INDEPENDENT STUDY IN CHINESE
The rubric of Chinese Independent Study project is developed to evaluate works done for Chinese 401, 451 and 452.
- Independent Study projects need to have a critical and theoretical approach to the topic that interests the student;
- They need to include sufficient research and investigation in both Chinese and English in the scholarly literature that has already existed on the subject
- They should contain textual or statistical analyses grounded in a sound methodology
- Such texts and/or narratives need to be written in Chinese (or bilingually in the case of double-major involving materials or sources in English)
- Projects are evaluated by its originality and new ground-breaking perspective on the issues in question.
- The project can also be translations of modern poetry never done before; or introduction (interviews) of an artist, film director, artist, novelist or witness of social events whose works have not been known to the English or Chinese world.
Chinese 401 (junior independent study)
It is to be done entirely in Chinese. If it shows intellectual potentials and promise, the project can develop into the senior independent study project. The course is normally taken in the spring of the junior year or, for students who spend the spring semester of the junior year off campus, in the fall of the junior year. Students who spend the entire junior year off campus could complete 401 through email correspondence with his or her adviser while off campus, through sharing files on Google Doc Drive. The course is generally structured as a tutorial and conducted independently under the direction of a departmental adviser. One long paper (25-30 pages) or an acceptable alternative project is required. Students must select topics that the adviser approves. Double majors must complete two courses in 401, one in each of the departments.
Criteria
Methodology and criteria for grading
• Has an original and substantial thesis statement
• Shows a clear and coherent intellectual framework
• demonstrate proficiency and mastery in written and oral communication.
Some past IS topics:
- a study of the history and rules of loan words for Western ideas and products
- A look into the Buddhist revivals in modern China, interviews with initiates
- write a questionnaire and interviews native speakers on perception of America
- interview for reflections on the Long March of the Red Army along the route
- Gather first-hand data on Chinese attitudes to religion, literature, politics;
- study the language of Yunnan Minority Nationality Park on race and ethnicity
- interviewing women living in Lu Gu Lake about matriarchal society and tradition
- join and observe new cultural phenomena such as square dance, morning exercise
- translate narrative film Nuan and add English subtitles to the film
- translate the lyrics of rock-n-roll songs and interview a Beijing underground rock band
- investigate the subculture of gay and lesbian lifestyle in Shanghai,
- interview Buddhists on Buddhism revival in socialist China,
- Investigate members of host family on attitudes to divorce, premarital sex,
- study literature and publication on Uyghur situation in Xinjiang
- study CCP proceedings and official publications on U.S.-China relations
- review documents by Chinese government on crisis of Taiwan straight during 1950s
- investigate internet censorship (fire wall) by Chinese government and its effectiveness
- study official press release on China’s investments in Africa
- examine fashion magazines for perfume ads and the origins of perfume in premodern China
- examine memoirs of Japanese atrocity during the Second World War
- investigate the history of English language education in China in recent centuries and the roles of missionary schools in China’s higher education
- study the strategies of disaster press control to maintain CCP legitimacy and authority
- examine the life of Shanghai Gangster Du Yue Sheng caught in between the communists and nationalists
- history of cross-fertilizations of the ideas of waste classifications in German and China
- Chinese counter-culture: popular American rock music in Beijing underground activities
- Shanghai gangster Du Yuesheng and Chinese cultural ambiguities during the WWII
- the history of traditional Chinese medicine and its uses during the COVID pandemic
- China’s involvement in American drug pandemic: China and American perspectives
- the gender transformation of the Bodhisattva Guanyin Buddhism in the sixth century
- interviews with “Literary youth” as windows into youth culture during Mao’s Era
- interviews with the young and old on Chinese attitudes to Mao and the Long March of the communists
- A study of the censorship in cyberspace as a means of social control in China as a non-democratic nation
- the inherent inequality that peasant workers in China’s cities without full urban status
- the formation of cultural identity among pockets of Chinese diaspora community
- ideas of a liberal arts education in the West and China (with regard to the Civil Service Exam system): educational reforms in modern China
- examines the state-run media by official reportage on natural and man-made disasters to maintains its legitimacy
- Americanized Chinese food as sites of identities through visual ethnography as records the individual experiences of Chinese restaurant workers
- the construction of ethnicity at the Yunnan Nationalities Museum and how the Nationalities Village represents non-Han peoples
- A study of the 1962 animation of the monkey king as a modern version of the classical work, and as a political allegory of Mao’s communist revolution
- the issue of political legitimacy throughout the Republic Era, an intensely contested issue even in today’s post-Mao and post-socialist China
- a study of several pieces of Western music melodies in popular love stories and song lyrics being adapted in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese films
- a study of literary women in fiction and history, from Ban Zhao in Han Dynasty to outline the history of feminism as understood in post-Deng China
- what Confucian values and ideals still remain valid in contemporary China plagued by corruptions and identity crisis
Rubrics for Senior I.S., time-line and advising
During the first two weeks of the senior year, students should discuss possible projects with the program chair and with other faculty affiliated with the program. During the semesters in which a student is registered for 401 and 451-452, he or she has the responsibility to confer with the adviser weekly and meet deadlines agreed to by both the adviser and student. Any delay due to procrastination on the student’s part results in one letter grade reduction. The usual time-line for senior IS is as follows:
- Week 3: Topic selected and carefully defined (in writing) in one page
- Week 5: Critical Approach/Methodology defined (in writing) in one page
- Week 6: Preliminary Bibliography in one page
- Week 9: Preliminary Outline in no less than 3 pages;
- Week 10: Detailed Outline
- Week 12: 10 pages completed and edited
- Week 14: Significant part of Writing completed (25 pages)
Choice of A Project
By the end of the semester in which students have registered for 451, the student should expect to have essentially completed the research for their project and to have produced a general outline of the entire paper. He or she should also expect to submit to their advisers prior to the end of the semester some significant piece of writing (approximately 25 pages). Those who fail to meet these criteria will not receive credit for Chinese 451.
Chinese 452 is primarily devoted to the writing and the revision of the thesis. The editing should be done as the student incorporates the suggestions of the adviser whom he meets weekly. The protocol is when the student edit, the revisions should be highlight yellow so that the adviser would know where to look and then remove the highlight color if and when the writing is deemed clear and adequate. The student should respond to the adviser’s feedback in a timely manner and make corrections or changes as soon as possible. The exchanges with the adviser is also a part of your work to be graded, which can take place in writing or in person during weekly meetings. The complete and revised rough draft of the entire thesis should be complete two weeks prior to spring break. Once spring break begins, the advisor has no further responsibilities until he or she receives the final copy of the thesis.
Length of Project and Double Major
Independent Study projects in Chinese typically range from 40-50 pages, but length varies depending on the specific nature of the project. An expected length should be agreed on in conference between the adviser and the student. When the project is interdisciplinary by nature, the writing is often bilingual, with no integrity compromised in either language in terms of clarity, cogency, annotation, glossary, index, charts, bibliography.
For double-majors, the length of writing varies. In these cases involving writing in both English and Chinese, a short summary must be given in the language for the portion written in another. Your translation and/or transcription (from audio or video tapes) also counts towards Chinese writing, whether in the main body of the I.S. text or in the bibliography or footnotes and glossary.
* Students should be aware that they may apply for funding from the Henry J. Copeland Fund for Independent Study (http://www.wooster.edu/vpaa/copelandfund.php) to visit other libraries, to subsidize travel for purposes of research, or to purchase essential primary or secondary sources. The deadline to apply for such funds is normally early in the fall semester of the senior year, although some funds for summer research are made available in April of the junior year; students should consult with their advisers about the appropriateness of making such application.
Language
Such circumstances might include the following: double majors for whom no faculty member in the second department is able to read Chinese. Students who seek permission to write in English should consult with their advisers and with the Chair of the program. Before the end of the third week of 451, the student must present a written request to the Chair. The request should be in English and should include a full and detailed justification; the chair or any member of the department may request to see additional samples of the student’s written work in English.
Some bilingual and double major I.S. projects involve summaries. By summary, it is meant translating your ideas into Chinese when and if possible, or writing a new narrative in Chinese equivalent and comparable to the English when and if direct word-for-word translation is awkward both stylistically and intellectually. Such rendition should do justice to the quality of the scholarship in English; this is because some theories and abstract concepts have no perfect equivalents in a different language or culture. In such cases, a summary is very necessary. Sometimes, significant cultural differences, biases and discriminations, exist in the diction of a language.
The Responsibilities of the Adviser
The responsibilities of the adviser are as follows:
1. to encourage the student to attempt an inquiry or project of appropriate rigor within the limitations of the student’s potential, the time available, and the College’s and the student’s access to resources (library, laboratory, studio, computer, field work facilities, etc.);
2. to advise the student toward the successful completion of the chosen I.S., meeting the general College specifications as interpreted by the department;
3. to be available to meet regularly with the student and help guide the research process; while the length and structure of meetings will vary by discipline and for the individual student, on average faculty members should expect to be available for each advisee for between forty-five minutes and an hour each week;
4. to assist with the editing of the I.S. thesis according to the following guidelines:
a. On all drafts of the thesis/project, including the final draft if received by the deadlines specified below, the adviser is responsible for indicating to the student typical errors of logic, style, and mechanics, etc., which may occur. He or she is not required to edit and proofread these drafts paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence. The editing of any draft by the adviser does not imply the ultimate acceptability of the thesis.
b. After the completed I.S. thesis/project is submitted and evaluated, the adviser is responsible for indicating to the student any specific typographical and mechanical errors that must be corrected before the document is filed.
c. If the deficiencies in the final copy extend beyond “specific typographical and mechanical errors,” then the student must re-enroll for 452 in a subsequent semester. Students who enroll in Summer Session to complete I.S. 452 will not be given a reduced tuition fee.
College Regulations on Deadlines
Departments and advisers may impose deadlines for the purpose of commenting and advising when the work is in progress. The student may not expect editorial comment, guidance, and advice on drafts of the thesis or versions of the project submitted after the eighth week of the semester in which the student enrolls in I.S. 452. Two bound copies of the I.S. thesis are due in the Registrar’s office by 5:00 p.m. on the first day of classes following Spring Recess or four weeks prior to the end of classes for Spring Semester, whichever date is sooner. For an independent study thesis completed in the Fall Semester, the due date is four weeks prior to the end of classes. Any extension to the I.S. thesis deadline can only be granted by the Dean of the Faculty in advance and only with the support of the I.S. adviser.
Each student is also required to submit to the College a digital copy of his or her thesis for archiving, granting to the College and its employees a nonexclusive royalty-free license to archive it and make it accessible, in whole or in part, in any medium. The student retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis.
Any delay in turning in a thesis beyond the deadlines specified above automatically establishes the grade of I for the thesis. The conditions for changing the I to a passing grade will be established by the Dean of the Faculty after consultation with the student’s adviser. The I automatically becomes NC two weeks after the deadline for the submission of the thesis unless prior approval for an extension of the I has been given by the Dean. No thesis turned in after the deadline will receive a grade of Honors without the unanimous vote of the department and the approval of the Dean.
The Orals
In the weeks following submission of the final copy of the project to the Registrar, the student is scheduled to meet the advisor and by a second reader to talk about his or her project. The oral is normally conducted in the language of the thesis. At the beginning of the exam, the student will sum up significance of their work, outline the limits of their conclusions. The student’s performance on the oral exam is considered by the two readers in determining the grade. The student may still be able to make minor alterations before submitting his or her 452.
College Regulations on Grading
In evaluating the I.S. project the faculty advisors and readers will consider the following elements as the bases for the grades of H, G, S, and NC for the project:
Honors:
Show originality in research topic, new findings in research, potential and depth of the field, mastery of languages used (math, chemistry, Western philosophy, etc.) if applicable; cumulative grade point average of 3.500 or better for all courses completed in Chinese; a cumulative grade of 3.200 or better for all courses completed at the College.
Good:
Show adequate knowledge of the materials being studied; but no immediate and smooth communication with the advisor(s) on revisions; adequate language skills in oral and written communication in the subjects and theses studies; inability to hand in and revise the writing in progress as scheduled; a cumulative grade of 3.200 or better for all courses completed at the College
Satisfactory:
Completion of the project as initially proposed; but fail to incorporate critical inputs from the advisor and second reader; unable to incorporate important texts or findings in literature review chapter; yet able to talk about the project during the orals and maintained an average of B+ in Chinese and/or the other academic discipline as his or her second major; no or very little intellectual progress in 451 and 452 process;
No credit:
Unable to complete in time the project in a timely manner; failure to honor scheduled mattings with adviser(s); poor or no annotations, bibliography; unable to develop the initial academic interests into a research topic and provide an intellectual framework for them; unable to comprehend questions during the orals