Kantz’s article really described my own strategies for studying and writing incredibly accurately. His cautionary tale of Shirley viewing her sources as stories with indisputable facts and not really adding anything to the conversation in her writing pretty much summed up my entire academic life.
I view every source I read as a story with a plot I need to follow. Actually, I view everything I take in, including my own life like that. It’s probably because I’ve watched too much TV and movies since I was little, but I always view everything I come into contact with in terms of a story.
Me, IRL
That’s how I interpret things, and that leads to how I am usually too naive to really challenge the claims made by the author of the sources that I read. I’m used to fictional stories where you cannot really debate the claims made by the minds behind the story because they are making it all up and it is how they say it is. I take this attitude with all I observe as a force of habit so I have to consciously tell myself to read with a critical eye in order to have an active discussion with all my sources.
I will have to constantly remind myself to view the “facts” in my sources as merely claims made by the author so that I can actually, you know, add something to the discussion instead of reiterating previously stated stances.