





































Listen and Learn Sessions  295

Teaching Academic 
Research and Writing
Or, Two Works in Progress
By Kaeley McMahan, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University

ABSTR ACT In Fall 2016, the Wake Forest University School of Divin-
ity offered a for-credit academic research and writing course for the first 
time as a way to address concerns regarding the academic prepared-
ness of incoming students. As the subject specialist for the School 
of Divinity, the author co-taught Introduction to Research and Writ-
ing with the School’s academic skills counselor, who led the writing 
portion of the class. As a result of our experience teaching the class, 
and in consultation with the academic dean, we decided that a two-tier 
research and writing course structure would best serve the needs of our 
student population.

In Fall 2017, we taught the second-tier course, Advanced Research 
and Writing, which was targeted to students who intended to pursue 
doctoral work, or who were in the midst of research-intensive indepen-
dent studies or senior projects. This presentation summary will focus on 
the syllabus and course structure, including assignments and learning 
objectives, as well as lessons learned as we look towards the future of 
the course.

Note: Full course syllabi, assignments, and readings, along with the 
2018 Conference presentation PowerPoint can be found at: https://bit.
ly/2sAC4s3.

BACKGROUND

The Z. Smith Reynolds (ZSR) Library of Wake Forest University is 
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. ZSR serves both undergraduate 
and graduate programs, with populations of approximately 5,000 
and 1,600 students, respectively. The library is open 24/5 during the 

https://bit.ly/2sAC4s3
https://bit.ly/2sAC4s3


296  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

academic year, and has thirty-four library faculty and twenty-six 
library staff.

The library faculty at ZSR have taught for-credit undergraduate 
information literacy courses since 2003. These courses have proved 
popular with students and have been expanded from the introductory 
LIB100: Academic Research and Information Issues course to include 
a variety of 200-level discipline-specific courses.1

The School of Divinity at Wake Forest was founded in 1999. It 
currently has approximately 120 enrolled students and seventeen 
faculty. While there are several joint degrees offered by the School, the 
majority of students are working towards a Master of Divinity degree 
in a face-to-face teaching environment. The School does not have a 
separate library collection, so students and faculty use the resources 
of ZSR, and they are enthusiastic users of those resources. In order to 
provide targeted services to this population in the past, I have created 
a biblical studies research area in the Reference Department,2 offered 
topical research workshops, and held weekly office hours in the School 
of Divinity building.

MIN790D: INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH & WRITING

Developing the Course
In addition to the existing library services for the School of Divinity, I 
was interested in offering a for-credit research course in the hopes of 
addressing some of the issues that had been noticed by faculty, includ-
ing an increase in plagiarism incidences, the selection of inappropri-
ate resources for research, and poor writing skills. I also didn’t want 
to take on teaching a graduate-level course by myself, so I partnered 
with the academic skills counselor for the School of Divinity, Hilary 
Floyd, who was also an alumna of the School and had experience 
teaching college-level writing skills. With the support of my director 
and the academic dean of the School of Divinity, we submitted a course 
proposal in January 2016 and were approved in February 2016. We 
spent the next several months planning the course, and it was added 
to the course schedule for Fall 2016.

Syllabus
MIN790D: Introduction to Research & Writing was a one-credit course 
that met in one-and-three-quarter-hour sessions for the first seven 



Listen and Learn Sessions  297

Fridays of the semester, with ten students enrolled. After the intro-
ductory session, the first three classes focused on research and types 
of resources, while the last three classes were devoted to writing and 
presentations. Course points were also equally divided between 
research and writing topics, and Hilary and I were responsible for 
our respective class lectures and assignment grading.

The course description and learning objectives were as follows:

This course will introduce students to writing and research in 
biblical and theological studies. Students will learn the foun-
dational aspects of planning, writing, and revising academic 
papers as well as how to access and evaluate resources for 
research. We will also discuss important reading strategies, 
organizational practices, and appropriate citations. 

By completing this course, students should be able to:

 1.  Practice effective reading strategies for comprehension and 
retention.

 2.  Access reference books, scholarly books, and academic journal 
articles for research.

 3. Write critical evaluations of research sources.

 4.  Create an outline and craft a strong thesis statement for longer 
papers.

 5.  Incorporate research into written work and cite resources prop-
erly.

The course assignments totaled 100 points and were divided 
amongst the following assignments:

 • Research:
 •  Annotated Bibliography Project (30%) 

Using an approved biblical studies, church history, or theology 
research topic, students will locate, analyze, and cite an appro-
priate source in each of the following categories:

  Scholarly Reference Resource
  Scholarly Book Resource
  Scholarly Journal Article Resource
 •  Faculty or Clergy Interview (10%) and Presentation (5%)

Students will interview a School of Divinity faculty member or 



298  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

a clergy member with an MDiv based on the provided inter-
view questions and share their experience with the class.

 • Writing:
 •  Academic Plan (15%) 

Using their course syllabi and personal calendars, students 
will fill in calendars for the semester reflecting class sessions, 
assignments, and personal responsibilities, and outline their 
strategies for completing their coursework. 

 •  Analysis and Close Reading of Two Articles (20%) 
Students will analyze two scholarly articles, one in common 
to the class and one of their own selection. We will discuss the 
first article as a class, and then the students will pair up and 
share their rough drafts before turning in their final work the 
following week.

 •  Meeting with a Writing Center counselor and Report (5%) 
At some time during the semester, each student will make an 
appointment with a counselor at the campus Writing Center. 
They will write a reflection on the content of their meeting and 
how it affected their writing.

 • Other:
 • Attendance, Participation, and In-Class Exercises (15%)
 • Attend a Zotero Citation Class (+2% Extra Credit)

As A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations 
(Turabian) is the required citation manual for the School, it seemed 
natural to use it as one of the required textbooks for the course.3 In 
addition to consulting the citation guidelines, we had the students 
read the first five chapters of the text, which covered topic selec-
tion and creating academic arguments. The other required textbook 
was Working with Words, which Hilary incorporated during the writ-
ing portion of the course.4 We placed portions of three resources on 
course reserves:

 • The Seminary Student Writes,5 Chapters 1-3

 • Reading Theologically,6 Chapters 1, 2, and 5

 •  On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction,7 Chapters 3 
and 8



Listen and Learn Sessions  299

Sample Class Plan and Assignment: Scholarly Book
During the lecture on scholarly book resources, I pulled about thirty 
books from the stacks as examples of the various categories of books 
that could be used for research. The students were able to pick the 
books up, flip through them, and see if they could tell what type 
of book resource it might be or what might be distinctive about it. 
The categories included monograph, edited volume, anthology, 
commentary, festschriften, primary source, critical edition, and 
collected works. On the lecture handout there were empty boxes 
with the category names in them, and as we talked about the vari-
ous types of resources, the students filled in the boxes with features 
and examples. For the remainder of the lecture, I discussed topical 
search strategies and demonstrated using the library catalog. At the 
end of class we did an exercise on Turabian book citations and, if we 
had had time, would have done an exercise on deciphering footnotes 
to find resources. 

For the Scholarly Book Assignment, the students were required 
to find either a monograph or an edited volume relating to their 
topic. The book could be either in print or an ebook, but had to 
be something in the ZSR holdings. After describing their search 
process, the students needed to give the correct Turabian citation 
for their source, and include the Turabian rule number if there was 
anything unusual about their source. The remainder of the assign-
ment was their summary and evaluation of the resource, using 
prompts such as:

 •  What information can you find out about the author? What 
credentials do they have?

 •  Is the publisher a university press, religiously affiliated, or a 
scholarly publisher?

 •  How extensive is the bibliography? Does it include early as well 
as recent literature?

 • When was the source published? Is the research up to date?

 •  How is it organized? Is the method of organization logical and 
useful?

 •  What is the general argument of the work? Does the author indi-
cate a methodological approach?



300  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

 •  How does this source help you begin to answer your research 
question or address your research topic?

 •  How would you incorporate this information into your paper? Is 
it simply background information, or is there a specific piece of 
information you might quote or paraphrase?

Outcomes
As we taught the course, it became clear that the students needed 
significantly more assistance than Hilary or I had anticipated when 
we planned the course. Most of the students were second- or third-
career students who had been admitted on academic probation and 
had worked in sectors where humanities-based approaches were, not 
unreasonably, unfamiliar. Our students were also dealt a number of 
health issues that impacted their ability to attend class and complete 
assignments.

After the course was completed, we met with the academic dean to 
discuss how to proceed in future versions of the course. We decided 
on a two-course sequence of research and writing courses, with the 
following areas of focus:

 • Introduction to Research and Writing
 •  Focus on citations, plagiarism, basic searching, and writing 

skills.
 •  Give students completed assignment examples so that expec-

tations are clear.
 •  Ample class time for hands-on student practice at searching, 

looking in the stacks, and working on citations.

 • Advanced Research and Writing
 •  Assist students who are working on independent study 

courses, senior projects, or applying to PhD programs.
 •  Highlight advanced research approaches and lesser-used 

resources.
 •  Share strategies for completing longer research projects and 

preparing writing samples.

The advanced course was proposed and approved during Spring 
2017 and added to the course schedule for Fall 2017.



Listen and Learn Sessions  301

MIN790D: ADVANCED RESEARCH & WRITING

Syllabus
MIN790D: Advanced Research & Writing continued to be offered as 
a one-credit course. We started slightly later in the semester to give 
students a better idea of the research projects they might need help 
with. We shortened our class meeting time to ninety minutes and met 
for eight sessions rather than seven. Twelve students, mostly third-
years, enrolled in the class, and we had two students who had been 
part of the Introduction course the previous year. Class sessions and 
assignments continued to be divided evenly between research and 
writing, but rather than devoting entire class sessions to one or the 
other, we tackled both topics in each class session.

The course description and learning objectives were as follows:

The course will introduce students to advanced writing 
and research methods in biblical and theological studies. 
Through assignments such as preparing annotations for 
specific types of research sources and learning strategies for 
completing significant writing projects, students will develop 
skills that will support their work in the School of Divin-
ity and any future graduate degrees they may pursue. This 
course is geared for students who are completing their Art of 
Ministry III project, working on an independent study course, 
or who are considering PhD studies.

By completing this course, students should be able to:

 1. Understand the components of critical reading and analysis.

 2.  Be able to plan and create outlines for various types of academic 
papers.

 3.  Provide meaningful written analysis of different types of 
research resources.

 4.  Understand and apply the required formats for academic papers.

 5.  Provide appropriate and correct citations for sources and 
complete a bibliography/works cited page.

 6.  Explore the variety of sources available via ZSR holdings and 
databases and understand how to access, evaluate, and utilize 
them for research.



302  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

The course assignments totaled 100 points and were divided 
amongst the following assignments:

 • Research:
 •  Resource Assignments (30%) 

Using an approved biblical studies, church history, or theology 
research topic, students will locate, analyze, and cite an appro-
priate source in each of the following categories:

  Specialized Reference Source OR Specialized Scholarly Book
  Specialized Scholarly Article
  Primary Source or Digital Collection
 • Faculty Interview (5%) and Presentation (5%)
Students will interview a School of Divinity faculty member regard-
ing their approach to research, both in their schooling and as a 
professor, and present their findings to the class.
 •  Research Reflection (5%) 

Write a 1-2 page reflection essay on how their approach to 
research and writing has developed or changed during this 
course.

 • Writing:
 •  Academic Writing and Research Plan (10%) 

Students will map out their approach and strategies for 
completing their research and writing projects.

 •  Analysis and Close Reading of Article (15%) 
Read and analyze a scholarly article selected by the instruc-
tors. Prepare a 1-2 page summary and analysis paper in 
response to the article.

 •  Editing Write-up (15%) 
Students will share drafts of a writing project with a partner. 
After reviewing their partner’s draft they will share 2-3 pages 
of specific, constructive feedback and suggestions with their 
partner.

 • Other:
 • Attendance, Participation, and In-class Exercises (15%)
 • Attend a Zotero Citation Workshop (+2% Extra Credit)
 •  Social Media Project (+3% Extra Credit) 

Find a scholar or theologian who uses Twitter or Facebook or 
has a podcast or a web presence. What do they post or share? 



Listen and Learn Sessions  303

How do they interact with followers or commenters? Write a 
1-2 page summary of what you discover and learn from what 
they do online.

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Tura-
bian) remained our textbook, and we additionally had the students 
read Chapter 10 on writing introductions and conclusions. The only 
other readings Hilary and I assigned related to integrating the ACRL 
Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education into the course. 
For the second class session, I shared the Framework, as well as two 
short readings discussing the plagiarism of a pastor’s work by a well-
known author, and led a discussion on how the ideas distilled in the 
Framework might interact with their future ministry work.8 

Specialized Resource Assignments
In planning an advanced research course, I struggled with how to still 
include source evaluations but make them more interesting and useful 
to students doing more complex research. I settled on creating assign-
ments that would require them to use sources that I felt were underuti-
lized (Oxford Bibliographies products) or specific types of sources that 
they might already be familiar with (book reviews, primary sources 
in digital collections). Another goal of using several of these types 
of resources (festschriften, interviews, scholarly responses) was to 
show students the importance of building scholarly networks and 
how scholarship as a conversation works in practice.

 • Specialized Reference or Scholarly Book Resource
 •  For their first resource assignment, the students could select 

a reference resource from one of our online collections 
or a scholarly book from a specific category of books. The 
online reference collections included Oxford Biblical Stud-
ies Online, Oxford Bibliographies Online (Biblical or Islamic 
Studies), Oxford Handbooks Online (Religion), and Routledge 
Handbooks Online. I wanted to be sure that everyone could 
find a resource for the assignment, so in case the reference 
resources were too restrictive in their coverage to meet the 
possible student research topics, I also gave them the option 
to use a scholarly book resource. The students had to use a 
resource that fell into one of these categories: collected or 



304  ATL A 2018 PROCEEDINGS

edited volume, festschrift, series, and companion or hand-
book.

 • Specialized Scholarly Journal Article
 •  For the second assignment, the students had to find a scholarly 

article in a format type that they are usually steered away from 
using for papers: book or literature review (of at least three 
books), an in-depth interview with a scholar/scholars, scholarly 
responses or conversations via articles, and a theme issue of a 
journal. As students continue in academia, these are the types 
of sources they will need to start consulting to understand their 
disciplines and the research networks that make it up.

 • Primary Source or Digital Collection
 •  For the last resource assignment, the students needed to find 

a primary source or digital collection related to their topic. 
The options for this assignment were quite broad, and sugges-
tions for places to look included critical editions, anthologies, 
archives, museums, newspapers, images, and digital projects. 
In their assignments, students selected seminal texts in their 
fields, interviews with musicians, and critical editions of texts. 
As part of the class session for this topic, we visited our Special 
Collections and Archives department for an overview of archi-
val research practices and to view documents housed in the 
collections.

FUTURE PLANS

At present, it is unclear if this two-part course sequence will continue 
in this form. My teaching partner, Hilary Floyd, has moved on to 
pursue a PhD in New Testament, so currently there is no co-instruc-
tor for the course. I was asked to continue teaching the introductory 
course, so that is the plan for the Fall 2018 semester; however, beyond 
that it is unclear if the advanced course will continue as well.

NOTES

1 Kaeley McMahan, “Humanities Information Literacy: Develop-
ing and Improving a For-Credit Course,” American Theological 
Library Association Summary of Proceedings 69 (2015): 232-237, 



Listen and Learn Sessions  305

https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publica-
tions/2015 Summary of Proceedings.pdf.

2 Kaeley McMahan, “Making Space for Research,” American 
Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings 71 (2017): 
215-217, https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publi-
cations/2017 Proceedings.pdf.

3 Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, 
and Dissertations, 8th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
2013).

4 Brian Brooks, James L. Pinson, and Jean Gaddy Wilson, Working 
with Words, 8th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012).

5 Deborah Core, The Seminary Student Writes (St. Louis, MO: Chalice 
Press, 2000).

6 Eric D. Barreto, ed., Reading Theologically (Minneapolis: Fortress 
Press, 2014).

7 William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfic-
tion, 7th ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).

8 “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” 
Association of College and Research Libraries, adopted January 
11, 2016, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework; Emma 
Wenner, “Clinton Devotional Book Pulled after Publisher Finds 
Further Instances of Plagiarism,” Publishers Weekly, September 6, 
2017, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/religion/article/74713-clinton-devotional-book-pulled-
after-publisher-finds-further-instances-of-plagiarism.html; 
Emily C. Heath, “Plagiarism, Privilege, and the State of Christian 
Publishing,” Ministry Matters, published September 11, 2017, 
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8410/plagiarism-
privilege-and-the-state-of-christian-publishing.

https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publications/2015 Summary of Proceedings.pdf
https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publications/2015 Summary of Proceedings.pdf
https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publications/2017 Proceedings.pdf
https://www.atla.com/community/ATLA Member Publications/2017 Proceedings.pdf
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/74713-clinton-devotional-book-pulled-after-publisher-finds-further-instances-of-plagiarism.html
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/74713-clinton-devotional-book-pulled-after-publisher-finds-further-instances-of-plagiarism.html
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/74713-clinton-devotional-book-pulled-after-publisher-finds-further-instances-of-plagiarism.html
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8410/plagiarism-privilege-and-the-state-of-christian-publishing
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8410/plagiarism-privilege-and-the-state-of-christian-publishing

