Sources and I have an interesting relationship. I’m still not really sure how I feel about all the work that I put into finding them, but they definitely do help me on my papers. For class, we had to read the article, Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively, by Margaret Kantz that was all about sources. As a result, I did not really enjoy reading this article, but my professor got me a little bit more excited about it! She stressed at the beginning of class that this was one of her favorite articles ever, which immediately caught my interest and made rethink its importance.
This article helped me realize that when first researching, the first article that I find is probably not going to be the best one.
Not everything on the internet credible, so I can’t believe the first thing that I see/first article that I read. However, I can probably use these kinds of articles as background information, but I probably shouldn’t include it in my paper as my main source.
The article also explains how easy it is to replicate what we read, and that is very true. I tend to adopt the voice or form of whatever I am getting my sources from because that is what I am basing my paper on. As a result, almost all of my papers are in a narrative form. My my final research paper however, will not be in narrative form. This is because the background of my research process does not matter to the reader, so there is no need for me to narrate a story of that to them. So, I need to turn away from this sort of copycat form, and start to be little more original and formal.
Going off of the theme of originality, Kantz encouraged us to be creative. Even though finding sources and writing research papers can seem to be very formal and structured with no room for creativity, this is not the case. It is up to me as a writer to find a way to build original arguments based on the resources that I find, and do so in an interesting way. I have to think of this paper as not as a rehash of the available material, but rather, as an opportunity to teach someone, to solve someone’s problem, or to answer someone’s question. This is what I am going to think of when I write my paper and analyze my sources. When analyzing my sources, some questions I may ask myself when I am choosing these sources for my paper are…
- Who was the original audience?
- What is your question or problem with this topic?
- How can I use these materials to answer questions/solve problems?
All in all, researching, finding good sources, and writing is a lot of work. However, I am confident that with all of these good ideas and help in mind, I will be able to pull off a great paper!
Image:
Image 1: http://www.lhvlc.com/uploads/4/2/7/9/4279570/4415393.png?1315704717
Image 2: http://giphy.com/gifs/hipster-alice-in-wonderland-originality-isW4sLhHD8PzG
One Response to Sources and Stuff