Summary:
In his article "What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This...," Michael Kleine tries to inform the reader of what most college students do when writing a research paper. As much as most of us would deny it, when writing a research paper, a good amount of "research time" is spent copying quotes, statistics, and facts right out of a textbook. Sure, most of us switch words around and try to spruce them up a bit, but for the most part, "researching" involves a lot of copying and pasting. Kleine sets out to write an article to show students how researching should work, but in his experiences, realizes that he and his colleagues do much of the same things that his students do. Kleine decides that he and his colleagues need to relay this information with their students and find new ways to do research, instead of the practiced "copy and paste" method. Kleine's article compares with Stuart Greene's article in that they both use examples of student activity. Greene used papers written by students, while Kleine observes students while they research.
Getting Ready to Read:
My roommate/best friend and I have done "research" together many times in the past, and for the most part, it involves writing down random facts and ideas while discussing our personal lives. We would find sources on the Internet, through encyclopedias, and many magazines, and would mainly pull a quote from them, cite the author, and be done.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling:
1. In his article, Kleine most definitely describes my past research experience. In high school, you can mainly get away with citing one or two sources where you have just pulled information and changed up the words a bit to make them sound as if you had written them yourself.
3. Sources play a pretty major role in Kleine's article, because many of the professionals Kleine interviews have had to do mass amounts of research in getting where they are today. Sources have never been a major issue for me, just more of a hurdle to get over when writing papers. I'm sure it's different because with professionals, using sources is completely different in that they're using them for more important reasons whereas in high school I was just using them to get a good grade.
4. If I were to change how I did research, I would try to actually understand and analyze more of the research I found, because in the past, I've just kind of read, copied, pasted, and accepted the research for what it was. Hopefully soon I can start to analyze a little more and do more than just copy information.
Hi Megan,
ReplyDeleteThis response is working pretty well. You're covering all the bases, so to speak, and engaging with the material honestly and directly. I like how you bring in your personal experience and how you express a hope to change some of your ineffective research habits. That's great. In future posts, though, I want you pay closer attention to the types of evidence used by these authors. For instance, what does Kleine bring to the table when talking about good research practices? What about strategic/heuristic methods of research? What about the four processes he talks about? What about recursivity? All of these things serve as evidence of the different ways that "pro" researchers research and should at least be included in your summary as a way of summing up his main arguments. I'd also like you to go a little more in-depth with the synthesis. I think what you've got going on is a good start here, noticing that both Greene and Kleine are interested in student activity, but you'll want to take it a little further and think about what they do differently with that subject. Good work overall.