When I say hunter gatherers, I’m not referring to the tribes that hunted animals and gathered berries. I’m actually referring to research and writing.
Whaattttt? (Source: Giphy)
In an article by Michael Kleine, “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One—And How Can We Get Students To Join Us?”, he discusses his own method that he created for researching. Many students can probably relate to this, but Kleine was bothered by how students wrote their research papers when he was working in a college library. He watched people sit down and practically “copy and paste” their encyclopedias into their papers. In order to combat this behavior, Kleine came up with a research process of his own using the ideas of hunters and gatherers.
Hunters were the ones that found what they were looking for, while gatherers discovered things that might be of use. In other words, being a hunter is more strategic and being a gatherer is more heuristic. Within these two categories, Kleine broke up the process into even more steps. He added collecting, rhetorical sifting, pattern seeking, and translating. At the end of the day, you end up with something like this:
Source: Michael Kleine, “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One—And How Can We Get Students To Join Us?”
Now, I both agree and disagree with Kleine’s research process. Let’s break it down a bit.
Pros
- Organized way to research
- Challenges you to find something that fits in every category
- Forces you to really research and look at a number of sources
- Allows different perspectives
Cons
- There’s a certain order to it that you need to follow
- Defined; doesn’t open up to other possibilities
- Very structured
My research process is nothing like Kleine’s, however, I think that it might be worth giving his hunter/gatherer model a try. It seems like a challenging way to research, but it would be worth it in the end. Filling out his chart would produce a lot of valuable information and unique perspectives for your research.
So maybe instead of cranking out a research paper the old-fashioned way, Kleine’s model could help you produce an insightful and well-researched paper. Plus, his model would probably force you to start your research early instead of the night before the due date (because we all know how that ends).
Now it’s time to get back to work!
Source: Giphy