In his article, “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing,” Joseph Bizup, a professor at Columbia university introduces his research concept: BEAM. As opposed to the traditional way of categorizing sources, primary, secondary and tertiary, Bizup chooses to organize them in categories based on how the way they are being used. BEAM is made up of background, exhibits, arguments, and methods.
Of the four categories, the most interesting is exhibits.
Bizup states that the most common form of an exhibit source is giving an example of something. However, Bizup distinguishes between “evidence” and “exhibit.” He stresses that the job of “exhibits [is to] lend support to claims …. [and] provide occasion for a claims.” In other words, exhibits are basically a way to restate the claim you are making through an example, rather than provide a “proof” for your statement.
The reason why exhibits are the most interesting to me is that I believe it is the category in which many new technological sources would fall. As a student, I would never consider using twitter or some other social network in my research paper. However, Bizup’s method leads me to think that it’s possible, assuming I do it correctly. A new feature that twitter offers is access to creating and participating in simple polls. Someone can tweet out a question, and quickly gather responses from a huge group of people. This data could then be used to share the opinion of many people in a research paper. As long as it isn’t used to prove that the writer is correct in their complete argument, it would be extremely powerful as a form of evidence that shows what people are thinking.
Bizup’s strategy has given me hope that research papers, something I would never associate with the developing technological world, are becoming accepting of the ways the next generation thinks.