For class today we were asked to read BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing. It covers the ideas of research papers and how he has taught it over the years. He uses a method called BEAM, which stands for Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method. Through these 4 strategies, any student would be able to quote anything with different approaches.
The B, Background, is for straight up facts. Hard evidence that goes with your argument and that can support it or give background. This adds the meat to the bones of your paper. Background is useful to research papers because, as you may guess, it provides a way for the reader to understand what the writer wants them too. This is what I used most of in my paper. Hard facts that support my thesis that I got from the newspapers.
The E, Exhibit, refers to the analysis of certain things. Exhibit goes to the next level of thinking about the research topic. They further the conversation and make people think of the next level. They bring something new to the table. In my paper, I used exhibits to further the idea of students not wanting to go into war. I made assumption, which I don’t know was good or bad. But I explored how students were affected by the wars.
The A, Argument, is what your research paper is trying to achieve. What you want your reader to believe. This is like the thesis statement of your research paper. It is the bread and the butter. It is what your entire paper relies on. My argument for my research paper was that student life was affected by WWII and the vietnam war.
The last point, M, is Method. This is the route taken to obtain the information. Method sources are similar to background sources, but they do not always need to be sourced. They are like things that could be previous knowledge. For my research paper the Method sources was the information I already knew about WWII and the Vietnam War. I already knew there was going to be something about peace riots on campus.