This week I'm going to talk about a documentary called King Corn and Chapter 4 in the Wadsworth Guide to Research.
King Corn is a documentary about two friends Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis who are trying to figure out why they have corn in their hair. From Boston to their hometown in Iowa, they set out on a journey to grow corn and track it.
They asked a few questions throughout the film. How does corn get in their hair from 1,000 miles away? Where does corn go? These broad questions but the answers they found were astounding. Corn is the most produced crop in the country and it goes everywhere but always manages to find it's way in the processed, unhealthy food that Americans are eating.
What strikes me about the film is how little I knew about the production of corn and how this generation is going to be the first to possibly live shorter lives than their parents. I didn't know that corn is basically in every food we eat besides vegetables and fruit. We are practically made up of it.The part of the movie that disengaged me was their process of growing corn on their one acre of land. It was very boring to watch and it didn't give much information about corn that I didn't already know.
When it came to their research, they had really strong primary sources.They mainly spoke to locals in Iowa while they were growing their acre of corn. Since these people have lived in the town their entire lives, they had a lot of information on corn, making them credible. Others would be scientists and doctors who are researching health risks of corn in the human body, environment, and animals. Speaking to people who worked or owned animal farms and factories with corn were also credible sources for research.
The focus of their research was to answer the question how did corn get in their hair from 1,000 miles away? To answer this question, the two friends moved to Iowa and grew an acre of corn and tracked the places it went, which was all over the country. They researched by talking to different groups of people on the effect of corn in the economy. In the end, the two responded to their discovery of how unhealthy corn was by growing grass instead of corn on an acre of land.
They used ethos, pathos, and logos throughout the film. Ethos and logos were used hand in hand throughout when credible sources, as previously discussed, shared facts about corn to the two men. Ian and Curtis also had graphs and showed visuals of where the corn went, which also showed logos. They used pathos by showing passion to go back to their roots to answer their research question. There were scenes in the movie where the would pause from their research, talk to distant relatives, and enjoy the view of the town their ancestors grew up in.
Turning to The Wadsworth Guide to Research, chapter 4 discusses how to find research through secondary research. The authors open up by asking a few questions. Where should you start looking for information? What search terms should you use to locate resources? Should you gather information from other people and conduct field research? Etc.When conducting research, the authors say it's best to avoid going to Google for information and instead figure out what you know about the topic, decide what information you need, narrow research results using search terms, and plan where to look for information.
The types of resource are important for the writer to be aware of. The first type is called a static source, meaning, they do not change and are usually published once. Examples of this would be books, websites, and audio/video files.The second is a syndicated source. This source changes over time under the same general title. Periodicals, podcasts, and blogs are all examples of syndicated sources. Finally, there's the dynamic source; the ever changing one. These sources would be email lists, social networks, online communities, wikis, and broadcasts. All these texts undergo either editing, peer review, and self-publishing.
In the end, it all comes down to your research plan. The writer needs to find a specific research question and collect information to answer that question specifically. Three key questions to answer before you begin researching are what data do you need to collect? In what way will you collect that data? On what timeline will you collect that data?
I found reading this chapter helpful because I am currently researching to answer the question how does being vegetarian affect me physically, emotionally, and mentally? At first, it was difficult because I didn't know where to start because their are millions of articles, books, and websites relating to vegetarian diets. Chapter 4 had tons of information on different platforms to use when researching. One big thing was using specific search terms. The authors recommended that the writer find words in their question to put into the search engine or database to get minimal results that relate to the topic. When I did this myself, I came across exact articles and journals that had the information I needed. Although I already knew majority of the topics discussed in the chapter, it was a nice refresher to help get my mind moving and collect my thoughts to make a research plan.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Reading Log #1: Chapters 1 & 2
Before reviewing the key points of the chapters it's important to know that the goal of this book is to help the reader develop skills to use for conducting research.
Chapter one opens up to preview research and the rhetorical situation and then explains what these things are throughout the pages. The authors explain that research is used in every day of our lives in ways like which car we will buy or what college/university we want to attend. We need to be aware that we will encounter situations involving research outside of schooling.
After explaining how often research is used, the authors turn to the rhetorical situation, which is the "context surrounding a particular research or writing task" (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo 6). The rhetorical situation has contextual factors: topic, purpose, audience, and author. Another key point is that research means the writer is answering a question. Without a question, there is no purpose to research and no rhetorical situation. Being aware of contextual factors will help the writer develop their question and help them grow as a writer.
Disciplinary approaches are important as well in writing. Different preferences are called conventions. Depending on your conventions there may be differences in style, organization, voice, and formatting. To find your preferences it's recommended to look at examples of writing with the discipline that you prefer.
Chapter two is all about the writing process. People want to believe that the writing process is linear but in reality it is much messier. Hence, good writers are aware of this and are even more aware of their rhetorical situations.
Rhetoricians from Greek and Roman times developed The Five Canons Rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Invention is similar to pre-writing in which the writer brainstorms ideas. When brainstorming, some of your ideas are going to be discarded and that's okay because they still helped lead to the final draft. Research is also an important step to the writing process. Research consists of gathering information. It's a good idea to put the research in one place so you can look back at it, like journaling. When the authors discuss drafting, they explain activities writers do to help the writing process. These activities are freewriting, looping, and asking journalistic questions, where the writer puts words on a page or connections their main ideas. Asking journalistic questions means to ask the five W's:who, what, when, why, where, and how.
Peer review is the next stage in the writing process and it is not the same as proofreading. Peer review includes comments on the overall piece, not the grammar. The last three stages are revising, editing, and proofreading. Revising means to remove or add to the text and editing focuses on the issues of style and fluidity. Finally, once the writer corrects the grammar, punctuation, and citations for errors, it is ready for publishing.
I had mixed feelings about the advice given in the text of chapters one and two. There were things that I know for sure that I will use in my writing.
In chapter one, I was interested when the authors talked about how we use research in our everyday lives. Especially as a student, I am constantly studying for my 7 classes and agree with that statement. It got me thinking on my rhetorical situation and how well I am aware of it. As I read the chapter, I continued thinking about the rhetorical situation and how important it is to ask questions. When I first decided that my immersive project will be on going vegetarian, I didn't ask any questions like the authors of this book say I should do. Instead of creating an outline, I jumped straight into looking up articles and quickly realized how overwhelming it was. I decided to ask and answer the question: how was meat effect the human body? From taking advice from the book, I was able to pick my topic efficiently. That was the extent of the information I found to be important to my writing from that chapter.
Chapter two was a hurricane of questioning. Now that I am aware of my rhetorical situation, I was able to create an outline and look for the write sources. This is called the writing process, which is what is discussed in chapter two. One thing I found to be interesting in chapter two was the myths saying that writing is linear. As a mathematics major, I instantly imagined a linear graph and realized that it's true that it's definitely not linear. I have drawn pictures of the types of graphs that writing is:
What people want writing to be (linear):
What writing actually is (not so linear):
One thing that stood out to be in the writing process was said by Aristotle, "although you may not use all of the information and materials you have discovered and developed, it is important to identify a wide range of choices" (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo). I liked this statement because it made me realize that all the research you find is important because, even though not everything will be in the final draft, the writer will become more well-rounded in the topic; making it easier to write about it.
Everything else involving the writing process did not interest me because they were things that I already know from experience in high school and my first semester of college. The two things I discussed in chapter two are things that I will keep in my mind as I research for my immersion project, along with growing more comfortable with my rhetorical situation.
Chapter one opens up to preview research and the rhetorical situation and then explains what these things are throughout the pages. The authors explain that research is used in every day of our lives in ways like which car we will buy or what college/university we want to attend. We need to be aware that we will encounter situations involving research outside of schooling.
After explaining how often research is used, the authors turn to the rhetorical situation, which is the "context surrounding a particular research or writing task" (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo 6). The rhetorical situation has contextual factors: topic, purpose, audience, and author. Another key point is that research means the writer is answering a question. Without a question, there is no purpose to research and no rhetorical situation. Being aware of contextual factors will help the writer develop their question and help them grow as a writer.
Disciplinary approaches are important as well in writing. Different preferences are called conventions. Depending on your conventions there may be differences in style, organization, voice, and formatting. To find your preferences it's recommended to look at examples of writing with the discipline that you prefer.
Chapter two is all about the writing process. People want to believe that the writing process is linear but in reality it is much messier. Hence, good writers are aware of this and are even more aware of their rhetorical situations.
Rhetoricians from Greek and Roman times developed The Five Canons Rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Invention is similar to pre-writing in which the writer brainstorms ideas. When brainstorming, some of your ideas are going to be discarded and that's okay because they still helped lead to the final draft. Research is also an important step to the writing process. Research consists of gathering information. It's a good idea to put the research in one place so you can look back at it, like journaling. When the authors discuss drafting, they explain activities writers do to help the writing process. These activities are freewriting, looping, and asking journalistic questions, where the writer puts words on a page or connections their main ideas. Asking journalistic questions means to ask the five W's:who, what, when, why, where, and how.
Peer review is the next stage in the writing process and it is not the same as proofreading. Peer review includes comments on the overall piece, not the grammar. The last three stages are revising, editing, and proofreading. Revising means to remove or add to the text and editing focuses on the issues of style and fluidity. Finally, once the writer corrects the grammar, punctuation, and citations for errors, it is ready for publishing.
I had mixed feelings about the advice given in the text of chapters one and two. There were things that I know for sure that I will use in my writing.
In chapter one, I was interested when the authors talked about how we use research in our everyday lives. Especially as a student, I am constantly studying for my 7 classes and agree with that statement. It got me thinking on my rhetorical situation and how well I am aware of it. As I read the chapter, I continued thinking about the rhetorical situation and how important it is to ask questions. When I first decided that my immersive project will be on going vegetarian, I didn't ask any questions like the authors of this book say I should do. Instead of creating an outline, I jumped straight into looking up articles and quickly realized how overwhelming it was. I decided to ask and answer the question: how was meat effect the human body? From taking advice from the book, I was able to pick my topic efficiently. That was the extent of the information I found to be important to my writing from that chapter.
Chapter two was a hurricane of questioning. Now that I am aware of my rhetorical situation, I was able to create an outline and look for the write sources. This is called the writing process, which is what is discussed in chapter two. One thing I found to be interesting in chapter two was the myths saying that writing is linear. As a mathematics major, I instantly imagined a linear graph and realized that it's true that it's definitely not linear. I have drawn pictures of the types of graphs that writing is:
What people want writing to be (linear):
What writing actually is (not so linear):
One thing that stood out to be in the writing process was said by Aristotle, "although you may not use all of the information and materials you have discovered and developed, it is important to identify a wide range of choices" (Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo). I liked this statement because it made me realize that all the research you find is important because, even though not everything will be in the final draft, the writer will become more well-rounded in the topic; making it easier to write about it.
Everything else involving the writing process did not interest me because they were things that I already know from experience in high school and my first semester of college. The two things I discussed in chapter two are things that I will keep in my mind as I research for my immersion project, along with growing more comfortable with my rhetorical situation.
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