As I read "Rethinking the Research Paper" in The Curious Researcher, I found myself wishing I had an example of a research essay to read so that I could understand exactly what type of writing our textbook is talking about.
Until now, I had always thought of a research paper as a dry, formal piece of academic writing that seeks to prove or disprove a certain point. It usually focuses heavily on using other research projects as sources to prove its point, and usually, the answer can only be one of two possibilities.
I had also never thought of a research paper as being a place where personal examples could be used as evidence or as part of an argument, and definitely not a place where first person language could be used. I was quite surprised to find out that we would be writing a research essay, not a research report, and that we would be doing all of the things I thought should never happen in a research paper.
Dr. Ballenger's Theories of Intelligence is a type of research paper, not a research report, but a research essay. He shares his perceptions about intelligence and self acceptance through personal experiences while backing his examples with quotes, anecdotes, and studies from other sources.
I was blown away by the fact that one could write an impressive research paper based on self-exploration. I had never thought that such writing could be called "research". Theories of Intelligence is in fact a research paper because it draws on the author's experience as well as that of others to explore a topic or question. What makes it an essay rather than a report is the prominence of the author's voice and the element of exploration - the thesis doesn't come until the end of the paper!
Theories of Intelligence certainly provided the example I was hoping for, I wonder, though, what will happen if I use the same strategies in my paper not for self-exploration, but for exploration of the outside world?
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