Last week, the article, “The Great Research Disaster,” was discussed in my CTW class. The author presents a student, Liw, that who has written to requirement. When I read this, I thought…
Who doesn’t write their school assignments to fulfill requirements? Who doesn’t do what they have to do to get an A?
No one.
The author says the problem isn’t that Liw is lazy, but that no one has led him into the adventure of research, which is a task that takes time and certain amount of motivation. Their mission is to make students like Liw and me information-literate; however, they say one cannot accomplish this until he or she realizes research is fun.
The author says that research is about discovery and problem-solving, not merely about meeting obligations; and also that students projects are their own, not presents to their professors. Grappling deeply with issues and open questions instead of fudging a professor’s assignment is indeed fun.
This is where I have a problem. This article is just the authors opinion on research projects. For example, I know if I was assigned a research project with a topic that I have zero interest in, I would definitely not find it to be fun. How could that be fun for me? So, when the author describes Liw’s research as a disaster, I can’t help but think he is being a complete drama queen. Especially because in the article the author is basically lining up a different type of “requirement” or “guideline” that a student will just aim to meet and call it a day, which I could then call his method a disaster.
Despite my issue with the article, I really appreciated that the author does not say that it is Liw’s fault that he just meets his teachers requirement and calls it a day, but instead Liw has not been guided to understand the adventure of research to help him “get it.” However, the intention and meaning behind the author saying Liw has not been led to comprehend the adventure of research to help him “get it” could be take the wrong way by a reader. Like is the author being passive aggressive and saying…
… but is it really though?
Personally, I do not think that was the authors intention when he said Liw doesn’t “get it” yet. But if that were the case, I definitely would have an issue with it because the adventure of research is not something you should just automatically know (aka common knowledge)… And that is the entire reason as for why I am currently learning about the adventures of research in my English class. Even though I have done research projects prior in high school, I am not by any means a research wizard, but my research is also not a disaster.
