Editing Communication Theory Development (Fall 2025) (section)

=== Final Project ===

;Presentations of paper due dates: December 3 (last day of class) 
;Paper due date: Friday, December 12, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT via Canvas
;Maximum Length: 4500 words of text, excluding references (~15-18 pages double-spaced)
;Deliverables: Turn in [https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1828104/assignments the appropriate Canvas dropbox]

In your final project, I'm asking you to identify a communication topic or issue that is of scholarly interest to you and consider how all four of the epistemological approaches to theorizing introduced in the course (that is, the post-positivist, interpretive, humanities, and critical research paradigms) can be used to better explain, understand, complicate and critically intervene in it.

Examples of topics or issues used in successful final papers in COM 500 in the past include:

* Motivating effective and sustainable collaboration across difference;
* The portrayal of Asian-Americans in contemporary television and film;
* The progressive workplace brand as a corporate public relations strategy;
* Communication of voter fraud conspiracies in the U.S.;
* Supportive communication practices around anticipated prolonged life stressors.

Your analysis should evaluate the various ways in which the epistemologies and common ways of theorizing within them can be compared by assessing how your selected topic/issue has been and could be theorized within each epistemology. In writing your essay, identify the commonalities as well as the most salient differences between the epistemologies you select; the aims, values, and assumptions of each; the theory-development practices in communication scholarship they reflect; and the implications of these commonalities and differences for theorizing this issue/topic. Draw on material that we read about epistemologies and specific areas as appropriate.

A successful final paper will not simply tell us what other scholars have said. An excellent paper will demonstrate fluency with the material we have covered in class by engaging critically, creatively, and synthetically. Although it is fine to briefly review the literature on the topic or issue you have identified, keep in mind that I am going to assess your work exclusively in terms of how you engage with the course material in proposing new projects around your chosen subject from each of the four research paradigms. Please format your papers and all references according to the latest version of a style guide commonly used in communication research, such as APA or Chicago Style.

In addition to the written papers, students will each give an oral presentation outlining their final paper work during the final week of the quarter. You are expected to use slides to assist in that presentation. Your instructor and classmates will provide feedback that will help you shape and improve your paper.