Monthly Archives: April 2016

What does being “smart” or “intelligent” mean? According to Miriam Dictionary, smart means being “very good at learning or thinking about things.” This definition seems inadequate taking into consideration that the word “smart” means different things to many different people.

I will be responding to this video that my colleague, Alex, wrote about in this article. To give a short summary, the video is called “How to Sound Smart” and is a TED talk given by Will Stephen who introduces his talk as “nothing.” He explains to that audience that he will make them feel as if they have learned something even though he himself has not conducted any research or has anything inspiration to say. Stephen claimed that he will create an illusion of intelligence by “using hand gestures, taking long pauses, adjusting his glasses, asking a question, telling a personal and embarrassing anecdote.”

In Alex’s article he describes the new techniques he will use for his own future presentations. He lists techniques such as engaging with the audience, having good posture, building up to a large idea, and many others. I agree with Alex in that these are great persuasive and public speaking skills. However, this was not the biggest take away from the video for me.

What fascinated me about the video was how engaging he was. Stephen’s presentation revolved around a simple idea: nothing. What he said did not fully relate or build on to the previous thought and he did not have anything “inspiration” or “revolutionizing” to see. Yet, he was very entertaining to watch. I kept listening and holding on to every word he was saying, waiting for the possibility that he would say something insightful and thought-provoking. Despite his claim that he was talking about nothing, I felt that his presentation spoke to a larger issue: what it means to be smart.

As defined earlier, smart means being “very good at learning or thinking about things.” Although Stephen is undoubtedly a very intelligent man, it’s interesting how he claimed that he could make himself “sound smart.” How can one “sound smart?” Based off Stephen’s TED talk, it seems that intelligence is linked with physical appearance and delivery. He claimed that he wore the glasses in order to appear smart and that by using hand gestures and asking questions would make him appear as if he knew what he was talking about. It’s puzzling to think that a characteristic can be connected to physical appearance. 

The definition of “smart” is complex. To Western Society, being smart can mean excelling in math and science subjects. To Indigenous nations, intelligence can be defined by the ability to retell traditional stories. And to Hollywood, smart can mean being able to memorize lines and dance routines the quickest.  In short, “smart” means a different things to different groups. However, the addition of physical appearances complicates this idea even further.

Do you think one’s intelligence can be linked with one’s physical appearance? I disagree completely, but we’ll save this debate for another time.

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We’ve definitely have all heard of the words “primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.” However, Bizup criticizes these vocabulary words as “rigid, disciplinary, and a-rhetorical.” So he introduces the concept of BEAM.

BEAM. What is it in terms of research? Well, According to Joseph Bizup, a professor at Columbia university, BEAM is background, exhibits, arguments, and methods. He wrote the article “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research Based Teaching.

Background. 

Have you thought about the assumptions made by the author while reading his/her article? And how you also have your own assumptions that you are unaware of when writing? Bizup explains that writers tend to leave out these assumptions because they believe they are “common sense” and “facts.”

I notice that I tend to do leave out my assumptions in almost all forms of writing that I do because I sometimes forget that some people may not necessarily see things the way I do. However, I’ve been working on trying to recognize that I my assumptions made in my writing pieces. For instance in my earlier posts, Down With the Patriarchy,  I had to keep in mind that I was speaking from a feminist perspective and that not everyone can relate or understand that particular perspective,.

Exhibits.

Bizup states that giving an example of something is the most common form of an exhibit source. However, Bizup distinguishes between “evidence” and “exhibit.” He states that the point of “exhibits [is to] lend support to claims …. [and] provide occasion for a claims.” In other words exhibits, allow other to make their own claims while evidence is used to support already made claims.

I noticed that in my past research papers, I would use evidence to support my own claims. However, in contrast, for my Archival Research paper , I kept an open mind about what topic to research on and drew my own conclusions from the primary documents. Although that experience was very different from my past high school experiences, it was very beneficial and eye opening.

Arguments. 

An argument is what hat the author is refuting, defending, or extending. As Bizup puts it: “entering a conversation.”

I definitely struggled with an argument and “entering a conversation.” For my past assignment about college and inequality, I had to put various documents into “conversation” while voicing my own opinion. It was a very difficult task to do because I am so accustomed to a structured form of writing taught in high school. You can read about my first experience in putting articles in conversation here. 

Methods. 

Last, but not least, methods. In my understanding, Bizup explains that method sources are how writers establish a structure to their papers. From my personal experience in writing, I tend to write in a chronological order. I like to think that my transitions from each topic is smooth. Although my writing is still a work in progress, I feel like it has improved drastically from first quarter of my freshmen year.

So what? 

Writing the final research paper for my English class is going to be a struggle for me because I still have yet to master BEAM. Wish me luck on this academic roller coaster.

It’s not easy to write an entire research paper in less than two weeks while studying for four other classes, attending club meetings, and going to the gym. So it is no surprise when Michael Kleine is horrified to see college students just “copying” and not “analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, selecting, rejecting…” different sources. Kleine wrote the article “What is it We Do When We Write Articles Like This One – And How Can We Get Students to Join Us?” In this article, he comments on the way students typically conduct research and performs various tests to see the research patterns of students.

In my previous post, I reflected on my research methods of the past and how I committed similar tasks as the college students Kleine mentioned above. However, I feel that after researching within the archival collection, my research method and views on research have changed drastically from merely gathering facts that support my argument to trying to find all the pieces of information before coming to a conclusion.

In this article, Kleine brings up a few options he believe would help engage students in conducting quality research. One of these stood out to me was “we need to promote genuine reading.” I think it’s interesting that Klein takes into account the fact that research is not described as personal and that in order to quality research to be done, one needs to be in isolation and in a personal space. Thinking back to my own research experience, I realize that I do not really work in my own personal space and am usually surrounded by constant distractions that prevent me from researching to my potential. 

Another interesting thing Kleine mentions is his idea of “building onto research.” What he means by this is to write research papers for a larger audience and to “downplay writing for the teacher.” I’ve never thought of writing my own papers for a larger audience since only my professor would be grading my papers.

Although Klein makes many valid points about researching, I feel that his suggestions and points are unrealistic to ask of on students because of the busy college lifestyle.

However, I do agree with him that research should be done in a quiet environment where one is alone with his/her thoughts.

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Archival research. Something that is rarely taught in high school and rarely spoken of.

As explained in my last post, for my college English class, we entered the archival collection to conduct research about my university’s past. My university archival room was not as large as I expected but it was a very regal-looking room with a lot of natural sunlight. It’s a beautiful room and despite the small size, the atmosphere made me feel as if I was in the Hogwarts library.

On the first day, the archival librarian introduced the different types of artifacts laid out and just as I had predicted, there was very limited information about Native Americans and Native American life during the creation of the university. Initially, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to research about Native American life, but was excited to have found interesting information about the arrival of women to the university.  

I was mainly focusing on the information about women involved in sports. I found this photo of the first women basketball team in 1984.

As I kept flipping through the  entire album of women in sports, I noticed that there weren’t any photos of women of color. I wanted to know when women of color started playing sports, let alone started attending my university. The album was extremely large and so I gave up my search in finding a photo of the first woman of color to play a sport.

I became interested in finding more information about people of color at my historically predominate white university.

On the second day of archival research in the archive room, I found some documents regarding my college’s Multicultural Center (MCC) and Unity movement. The current MCC includes 9 cultural clubs and serves as a safe space for minority groups at my university.  Unity (currently Unity 4) is a group of students (mainly from the MCC) who work in bringing diversity and solidarity to our  campus. Although information was also limited on these two groups, there were some interesting documents that contained the mission statements for both the MCC and Unity.

This photo above shows the mission statement of the MCC which is to:

“Provide the minority student organizations of Santa Clara University an environment conductive to promoting an appreciation of the different cultures…”

This relates to my understanding of the university because it is still the same mission statement as it was in 1984. The fact that this mission statement is the same goes to show that the same problem that existed years ago, still exists.

There are many unanswered questions about the MCC and Unity movement and it’s impossible for one individual to understand what it was like during the time of the establishment of these two clubs. However, this doesn’t mean my curiosity has ended. 

I’ll be going on an adventure for my English class. This coming Wednesday, we’ll be journeying into my university’s archival collection and have the opportunity to observe the different artifacts and documents about my university’s history.

When I think of myself going to into the archives and doing research, I picture myself in an underground library and in an explorer outfit on ladders sliding down vast and tall book shelves searching for lost books. Although I know this imagery is unrealistic, I hope that searching through the archival collection will be exciting and allow me to see research in a new light.

The purpose of our archival search is to find information about my university’s history. Archives are incomplete sets of information and because of this, I decided that it would be in my best interest to remain open-minded about needing to switch topics and to have low expectations for the amount of information available.

Since my university was initially a California mission, I hope to find information about Native Americans and where they were when the mission became a university, how were they treated, where are the remnants of their village before the mission was built, how the missionaries viewed the Native peoples, where (if any) are their graves… I am very doubtful that I will find a wealth of information on Native peoples because of the “Principle of Selectivity” that Tirabassi explained in her essay, “Into the Archives.”

The “Principle of Selectivity” is the process in which one decides which documents or artifacts to keep within the archives and which ones to toss out. I do not have very high expectations that my answers regarding Native Americans can be answered with my school archives alone. In America, Native American history is omitted from textbooks and is heavily romanticized in grade school textbooks, so I would not be surprised by the lack of information. Another thing I would like to add is that the history of natives at my university, specifically, was not very pleasant. I feel that the university would have discarded much of the Native American artifacts because they thought the Jesuit documents and artifacts relating to the mission were more valuable. I will be extremely surprised if my school had a wealth of information about Native Americans but I highly doubt that this will be the case when my class visits the archival collection.

In short, I will head into the archives with an open mind and low expectations while hoping to find valuable information.

Wish me luck as I journey into my university archives! 

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Hello again! I am back blogging about my next English assignment: a research paper. Throughout this quarter, my professor has asked us to continuously blog about our research. And it is no question that research takes time, dedication, and effort. It definitely is not an easy task, and contrary to the photo below, research is not as simple as pushing a button.

However, the article “The Great Research Disaster,” written by William Badke, an associate librarian at Trinity Western University, reveals one student’s research strategy. The article contains the text from the student, Liw Ekdab’s, research experience and how he used techniques to fulfill requirements. Ekdab used techniques such as using Wikipedia for background information, citing quotes from an abstract, searching for sources on Google Scholar, using lengthy summaries to quote, and using incomplete quotes from incomplete articles. Although Ekdab’s techniques in producing quality research are questionable, most college students can relate closely with it.

My personal research experience is limited to writing high school level research papers. But similarly to Ekdab, I have used Wikipedia to gain basic background information about a certain topic. An example topic could be cheating in high school. After gaining a simple understanding of the topic, I proceed to develop an essential question that I attempt to answer through research. For instance one question in regards to cheating in high school could be, “What factors motivate a student to cheat in high school?”

After developing an essential question, I usually start with Google and type key words to find articles related to my topic and essential question. If I were still researching on cheating in high school, some example phrases I could type into the search bar are “cheating statistics in high school” and “factors that cause students to cheat.”

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However, if I fail to find any relevant articles, I would narrow my search by focusing on a specific part of the topic. For instance, if I was focusing on the different factors that cause cheating, I could research information on each individual factor related to cheating.

Similarly to Ekdab, I would also use Google Scholar as a second resource if I could not find anything by simply using the Google Search engine. Another experience I shared with Ekdab was quoting from the abstract of scholarly journals. Although this practice is not beneficial to the quality of my research, I only did this because in high school we did not have access to the majority online journals and were only limited to what was free on the internet.

Overall, I admit that the quality of my research was not very high. However, I believe that my research techniques are valid and useful. And since I’m in college and have access to a broader database, I can use these techniques on more credible resources resulting in producing  credible research papers.

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