Google Docs

Overview

Each week you will add to your online Research Journal, documenting and critically reflecting on your influences, history, culture, likes, and dislikes. This practice of being curious about your own design aesthetic is a way to gain experience engaging with critical design theory.

Your Research Journal is a place for collecting ideas, freewriting, images, links, videos, and other media to help you develop your ideas and formulate your research topic.

It can also be a place to reflect on the readings and write your rough drafts before they are put into a formal post, comment, or paper.

Your journal may be private or public throughout the semester but it should be submitted at the midterm and end of the semester for review.

Get Started!

We will be using Google Docs for our Research Journals because most students already use Google or Gmail. If you don’t have an Account, you can create one here.

1. Create a new google doc: docs.google.com/create
2. You may format your Research Journal in whatever way works best for you, but a good informational structure is helpful.
3. Here is a starter doc with headings, table of contents, and footnotes: Template Research Journal
4. Add headings and table of contents to structure your Research Journal.
   • Google Help Center > Add title, headings, table of contents
5. Use spelling & grammar check and word count.
   1. Google Help Center > Spell Check
   2. Google Help Center > Word Count

Submit your Research Journal

Twice during the semester, you will share your Research Journal with your professor. If there is anything in the journal you don’t wish to share, you may duplicate the journal, remove the parts you want to keep private and submit it for review.

Due Dates

• Midterm
• Final

Submission Process

1. Get your Research Journal ready to share by creating a sharable link.
2. Create a post with the title: Research Journal (your initials)
3. Write a brief reflection about the experience of keeping this Research Journal.
4. Paste the sharable link into the post.
5. To keep your post private and so only the professor can see your Research Journal, choose Visibility > Private when you post.