Research Paper

The people that read my research paper initially said it was really boring or not captivating at all. That's totally understandable. I am one of the few people who actually is super interested in politics and current events... it feels like. But still, it was kinda discouraging to hear. I thought my essay was pretty awful from the beginning.

So going in to see Dr. Ballenger, I was incredibly surprised when he high-fived me and said my essay was a fascinating read.

I'm not sure how I feel about the situation. On one hand, my teacher thinks I did a good job. On the other, my peers think I am boring.

I think it just goes to show that writing is subjective a lot of the time. I don't really understand how people can like Jane Eyre.... seriously, it's awful. I guess what I am left wondering is what is good writing anyways?

Autumn Leaves

As I write this I am sitting outside of the Administration Building. The sun is shining, the temperature is perfect, and the leaves are falling.

Autumn in my favorite time of the year. Sure, flowers are beautiful and they make life look so exciting. However, autumn is my favorite because it makes death appear so inviting. As these leaves, which have all revealed their true colors, fall elegantly to the ground I can only think about how serene this picture is.

Perhaps is reminds me that there are times where I need to let go, where I need to fall gracefully with the knowledge that spring will come around again. Maybe its a natural reminder that the world, and my world, will work itself out eventually. Nature will come along for the ride and mess everything up, but the least I can do is fall elegantly.

And I don't have to fall with other people. I can fall at my own time, at my own rate. I can fall when I am done, when I cannot hang on anymore.

And then I can look forward to spring again.

Experimenting with Motivation

I have been feeling unmotivated lately. I have tried various things to renew to vigor I approached my high school assignments with. I have gotten to the point where I am completing assignments moments before they are due, and I realized this has to change. I am tired of mediocre assignments, because I know I am capable of so much more. In high school, I was always striving to be the best. My best work came out in projects, and when I turned them in, I reveled in the annoyance the other kids felt towards me because I had gone beyond the requirements of the assignment. While everyone else had neon poster boards full of cutouts and handwritten descriptions, I had a professional looking, printed Adobe poster. My teachers admired me, and that was all that mattered.

Now, it seems I just don't care anymore. Sure, it would be nice to be at the top of my class, but that would require work. I'd rather just laze around and do nothing. I've been struggling with this for the last few weeks especially.

So, I made a deal with myself. I will work hard every day to complete my work and do it well up until Thanksgiving break. I will give myself the weekends off as long as everything is done during the week. I will put a great effort into keeping my room clean. I will do all of this, and see how I feel over Thanksgiving break. If I have not seen a huge change in my outlook, the quality of my assignments, and my grades, I will say the experiment has failed and will go back to my old ways. I am certain that if I complete these requirements I am putting upon myself, I will not want to go back to the lazy, sloppy person that I am now, though.

I am posting this so that I have accountability. You all have read this now, so there's no turning back. I will work hard until Thanksgiving and then decide where to go from there. The experiment starts now!

Midterm Survey

The midterm survey got me thinking about one of my writing insecurities.  I've found that I preface many of my sentences with "I think" or "I believe" in order to give myself an easy out in case I'm wrong.  I finished writing an essay for a different class yesterday and I practiced overcoming this insecurity by reading over it again and deleting all those "I think" and "I believe" phrases.  I found that I liked the essay much more after I did that.  Here's one of the paragraphs from which I deleted all those phrases.

"Death is the great equalizer.  It comes to everyone.  As Marcus Aurelius said in his famous Meditations, “Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.” No amount of money, love, exercise, or medical expertise can keep it at bay for long, so I need to determine for whom or what I want to live my life.  Too often I choose to live in hazy denial instead of bravely resolving to fix my eyes on one truth, whatever or whoever that truth may be.  Studying other people’s truths, what they decided to live for, can help my truth become clearer. "

The College Learning Curve

Does anyone else feel something along the lines of being slammed into having to learn everything at once? For a lot of us, the past 10 weeks has been a balancing act, trying to manage schoolwork with the new experiences of living independently/on our own. I feel like it has taken me this long to truly figure out how to do my homework effectively and actually use the syllabus to help you study and plan.

Does anyone else feel like they missed out on little things like that? For example, I was completely oblivious to the fact that we had weekly reading in this class, until I looked at the syllabus schedule. Why did it take me a month to figure that out?

I would like to think that, maybe, it's because I am learning how to learn.

Today I attended a lecture given by Dr. Matt Sanders, author of the book Becoming a Learner, which we were all required to read in Honors 198. His book makes the distinction that we come to college to learn how to learn, and not just to gain technical skills and people skills.

Today, someone asked him how we were supposed to manage the learning curve we will hit after we all earn our undergraduate degrees. How we were supposed to prepare ourselves to learn so many different things and not become overwhelmed?
Dr. Sanders' response was fairly simply I suppose, but it really struck a chord in me, and I guess I feel the need to share it all with you.

Dr. Sanders replied by saying that it would be impossible to give every single new thing we had to learn the same amount of time. There are some things that we are naturally good at, and others that we are not so good at. What matters is not how much time we dedicate to the subject, but the attitude in which we approach the subject. He used the example of general education classes vs. classes directly involved with your major. He said that you will probably place more emphasis, and therefore more time, into the classes concerning your major. However, the small amount of time you dedicate to that general ed. class can be worth just as much as the time you dedicate to your major classes if you approach the class wanting to be a learner.

Being a learner is not learning everything at once, but rather I feel that it is the way your approach your learning and the improvements you can make to it.

Sure, it took me a month to realize that Dr. Ballenger had provided us with a weekly reading schedule that would supplement the material we were learning in class. However, learning this has made my knowledge within this class grow and expand. It has also helped me to plan and study my other subjects.

So the college learning curve may have provided a slight obstacle for me, but I know that each part of the curve I climb gets me one step closer to who I want to be.

Reflecting on college so far

It's amazing that we are already in the 10th week of school. Time has been flying by so fast that I haven't really gotten to pay attention to everything I've done so far. I've accomplished a lot, I've realized, and have been more productive in these 10 weeks than all of my senior year in college. Though I’m not talking about schoolwork, (my homework in college has actually lessened since high school) I mean the other little things that people rarely notice. 

First of all, I have become more independent than ever. After talking to my parents though, I have realized how much I don’t rely on them anymore, which is a huge difference to only a few months ago. I no longer call or see them because I need something, I do so because I want to. While this is a given from being in college, I have always been the type of person that felt like I was older than I was and couldn't possibly grow up anymore, but being in college has changed my perspective. I no longer feel older than I actually am, in fact I feel younger. I realize now that I still have a long way to go, and a lot of growing up to do.

People always say that you “find yourself” in college, and I always thought that was a cliché thing to say with little truth behind it. However, I’ve learned that there is in fact something behind this saying. I’ve only been in college for two and a half months and already I can see a difference. Things I thought I’ve always known about myself have been challenged and I am learning more about myself every day.

With just this, I already feel really accomplished. I wonder what will become of me farther down the road.

Take A Break!

For the past two and half months or so since I have been in Idaho for school I have rarely just taken a break. I can't seem to allow myself to not do homework for a day. I hate the feeling of "relaxing" when I know I could be doing school work instead. I don't know if anyone else feels this same way. I'm guessing you do since we are all honors students here. We all stress about school way more than we need to do. When I was in high school I would take lots of breaks. I usually would finish most of my homework doing the school week and not do any over the weekend. I think this worked a lot better than doing all of your homework during the school week and yet still finding some homework to do over the weekend like I do now. Now that I am in college I don't take breaks. I feel like if I'm not doing school work then I am doing something wrong because I thought college was supposed to be where you are constantly doing work. However, my grandparents came up from California to Idaho to visit me. I stayed in their spare bedroom of the bed and breakfast house they were staying at. It was amazing to get out of the dorm for the weekend. Plus, since I wanted to spend all of my time with my grandparents I didn't do any homework over the weekend. Of course at first I felt stressed out like I should be doing some type of homework even though I didn't have any. Later on in the weekend, though, I realized that I need to start relaxing and enjoy the time I have. After letting go of the feeling of anxiety from not doing work I felt relieved from my stress. Sometimes we all need to give ourselves a break from the hard work we do. Now that I had a great weekend away from school I feel refreshed and ready to get back to working hard in all of my classes. I realized that taking a break can actually make you more productive in the long run. Now that I feel refreshed I have a clear mind for school. So, take a break sometimes!!

(In)Consistency at its Prime

Ah yes, this blog.
It's funny because I haven't posted one here in about two months.  It's actually not funny because blog participation is pretty important to my grade for this class.
So I suppose I have a few options here.
1) I can continue to just not post anything and see how that affects my grade,
2) I can just pick up where I left off,
3) I can write ten blog posts today.

If I do go with my third option, I'm wondering what my story is there.  No one can just be silent for two months and then totally unload all of this information without some sort of explanation.
I could make up some sort of story about how my laptop was broken for two months and I forgot my Blogger password or something so I just wrote little word documents and finally uploaded all of them today.  But that would be dishonest and I don't really like to think of myself as a liar or a cheater.
I guess I could be honest-er.  I could readily admit that I forgot about this blog.  Even though Dr. Ballenger mentioned it in class several times, by the time I walked back to my room in Driscoll the idea of blogging had completely slipped my mind.
But if  I were to be one hundred percent honest I could say that I did forget to blog only if I followed with "because I suppressed the memory of the blog's existence...because I hate blogging."
Thomas Hobbes says that men only do things because they want to.  And I think that's incredibly true.  I mean we say that we don't want to do the things that we're doing, like "I don't want to write a 12 page research paper."  But I do want an A in English, so I do it.  Because I want to.  And that is why I blog to you all now.  Because I "want" to.

Ashley Bates

Revising and my Conference with Dr. Ballenger

I had my conference with Dr. Ballenger, and in my last post I said that I wanted to revise my essay because I felt that I had not stuck with my thesis as well as I wanted. But it was really interesting to talk with Dr. Ballenger because we both had the same thought on how I could revise my essay and improve it. My paper discussed pretty heavily the diseases and disorders that are associated with gluten, but I had originally wanted to explore why gluten has become the "new fad" and the actual nutritional benefits of it. Also in my conference we discussed some good places to look for this information. I had mainly looked at scientific databases but Dr. Ballenger mentioned that psychology or sociology databases might be better to see why people "jump on board" with fad diets so quickly and why they have such a large impact.
I am excited to start looking for this type of research because honestly I was getting a little bored reading about gluten diseases and disorders, by the end of my paper. I found it incredibly interesting but after a certain point, I had read so many sources on the information that I was ready to read about something else. So looking into the social aspect of gluten is something that I am very interested in doing. I just hope that I am able to find the information I am looking for because since it was hard to find while I wrote my first draft, I did not write about it as much as I had hoped.

Caught Between Exploration and Argument

            What do you do when halfway through a paper your sources begin to contradict what you thought they were going to say? What happens when a paper meant to be exploratory turns argumentative? This is a question worthy of a research essay itself!

            The process of academic inquiry, though extremely helpful for writing papers, is occasionally difficult to follow. Throughout my research process, I tried to suspend judgment. I tried to keep the hunch I had as just that, a hunch. However, as I continued to research my topic, I found ideas developing against my will. If my essay was purely argumentative, this would have been fine. However, the brunt of my essay, because it comes from student testimony, is exploratory, and no final idea was supposed be arrived at until the end. But because these ideas had developed, and my first few interviews conflicted with them to some degree, I found myself a bit confused about how to continue with my essay. Do I start trying to prove my presuppositions, or do I pursue the new leads that these interviews are giving me and throw out some of the material I’ve already written? I’m still struggling with this question, but I know the correct answer. I should pursue the new leads, because my intention from the beginning was to write an exploratory essay. At this point, my struggle is just over trying to throw these ideas that developed out the window.

            This problem, being caught between argument and exploration, is new to me, as I’ve never written an essay that follows the process of academic inquiry. Though I will probably continue to struggle with this problem and others as I continue to write and conduct research, I know that my essay will continue to develop slowly but surely.

Rough Drafts

           Yay! Rough drafts are done! Writing the rough draft is always the hardest part for me. Getting those initial thoughts down on paper is always challenging, which is why I’m so happy to have it over with. Now I get to do the fun part, revising. I have always hated this part of writing, but for some reason I’m really excited to improve my paper. Despite knowing this isn’t true, I have always felt like I was wasting time revising. Now, I more view it as a way to really make the paper exactly how I want it. I get to warp those initial thoughts into something exciting, something intriguing. I get to really drive home those points that I think are most important and interesting. Maybe the reason I feel this way about revising this essay is because from the moment I finished, I felt like my essay was lacking. Other essays I have written have not been as “rough.” There is much more to work with this draft than other ones. There is more that I wanted to say but that didn’t make it in. I think the pieces I didn’t put in could actually make it much more interesting, but due to the tight schedule of parent weekend they were not included. In addition, the actual writing itself was very rough. There were a ton of confusing sentences and misspelled words. I feel like I have a second chance to make this essay awesome! I’m still confused to why I feel this way, as usually I would think about how time consuming and boring it would be to edit it. However, even if this isn’t my normal attitude, I’ll take it, because I’m certainly more productive and positive this way. 

Time for Revising

I was able to finish my draft and get to the required page count, but I was very glad that we were able to read it in groups. Although I can not say I particularly liked reading ten and a half pages aloud about gluten, it was very helpful for me. I had read over it by myself, but after reading it to others, I was able to see that I did not stick to my thesis very well. I wanted to look into the different gluten intolerances and why "gluten free" has become the "new fad diet". Although I had a lot of information about celiac disease, wheat allergies, and gluten sensitivities, because all this information was easy for me to find, I did not have very much information about why gluten free has become the "new big thing". Because this is such a recent topic, there are not as many studies and articles about this aspect of gluten. There were many bias blogs or some newspaper articles, but not many journals or such with this information. I think because of this, I just wrote about the things that were easier to find. This was not very apparent to me, until I read it out loud to my group. This was incredibly helpful because now I know that direction my revisions can go. I also think that once I had more information about the recent trends, the paper will be more interesting and relevant. I kept thinking to myself while I was reading it, "If someone didn't have one of the disorders that I am describing, would they want to read my paper?"
I also interviewed a nutritionalist about this topic, and she is giving a talk about it on November 5 and I am hoping to go to this and see if I can get more information from her talk and see if she brings up any new, interesting points that I could talk about in my paper.

My essay is currently full of other people's stories.  I love stories but I think I need to add a few of my own into the paper.  That was some great advice I got from the workshopping this week.  I'll work on that.  In the meantime, this is another story that touched me.

On one bitterly cold and snowy night Karla was driving with her dog Bandit in the back seat when her car hit a patch of black ice.  Spinning and crunching her car was left a twisted mess and she was badly injured.  A passerby called 911 and she was soon in the hospital receiving emergency care.  When the worst of it was over and she roused from the painkiller haze she grabbed the arm of the nurse at her bedside and pleaded for news about her black lab.  Did he die in the backseat of the car? Is he still at the crash site wandering around? Did anyone find him?  The nurse did not know and frankly it was not her job to know. 

Karla slept fitfully that night worrying about Bandit.  But she was awakened the next morning by her night nurse standing at her bedside wearing normal clothes holding the hand of her five-year old daughter.  “We called the police department that responded to your 911 call last night,” the night nurse said.  “They found your dog in the back seat.  He was fine just a little scared and he’s at the pound right now.  Sophia and I,” she said looking down at her daughter, “visited him this morning.”  (I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out; Listening and Other Lifesaving Measures; Karla Theilen)

In a slump

I don't know if it is just the time of the year or if I;m just getting burned out, but school is a struggle for me right now. I don't mean to say that I am failing my classes or anything like that but I just don't have the drive that I started with. 18 credits plus work and my sorority is kicking my butt and I am having trouble giving the effort to everything that I should be. For example, I only wrote 5 pages for this draft research assignment. Why? I don't know. I did have 2 other tests the week it was due but the old student in me would have started the paper weeks before. Instead, the new one waited until the night before it was due. I think I had trouble making myself set aside time to do this paper because this class is nothing to do with my major and (sorry Dr. Ballenger) I don't enjoy it. There are other classes, like biology and chemistry, tat take up way more of my time and matter much more towards my major and I need to really be absorbing the information given to me. English is just English and I am not giving the effort that I should be.

I know that when I sit down to rewrite this paper I will fulfill the requirements that were given to us but that's just it.. I need to sit down and do it. The semester is flying by and I need to step up my game or I will lose my perfect GPA. I know that I CAN do it, but making myself do it is another story.

Great Class

        I love how this English class is set up. I think it is great that we get to read our essays to our classmates.  Usually it is just the teacher who reads your essay and gives you a grade on it. When we read our essays to our classmates who are doing the same assignments we are, the feedback is more relatable. I also like to listen to what my classmates are writing and how their styles of writing are different from mine. I like to give feedback just as much as I receive it.
         I also like the one on one conferences with Dr. Ballenger. I feel like Dr. Ballenger truly wants to know how each and everyone of us is progressing through our essays. It is extremely helpful to use his advice to better my essay. In high school if you wanted in depth teacher feedback like that you would have to inconvenience them or yourself by meeting after class or disrupt them during class. The system of the conferences works well for me and helps me improve my writing.
          Today in class I read my essay out loud. I had read my essay numerous times on my own but reading it in front of classmates helped me realize the areas in which I could improve. The twelve pages were a lot to read out loud but it was worth it! I liked reading it because I felt like I had more of an importance audience instead of just myself reading it in my room. When I was reading it I figured out that I could improve my essay more than I had thought before. Now I can't wait to hear what Dr. Ballenger thinks about it.

Fairy Tales of Researching

When I wrote my original draft I was stressed about getting it done that I didn't care about anything I actually wrote. However, now that I'm rewriting my paper I feel like if I take it slow and don't rush I can get all of my ideas down on paper. I've never been very good about writing under pressure so I should learn how to budget time to write better. So my apologizes to Dr. Ballenger for not giving this assignment the proper attention until this week. However, I feel like what I've written in the three pages of my new draft already outshine all ten pages of my last draft. I'm not sure that I'll have ten pages of this draft by class tomorrow but I know what I want to say and I'm pleased with how it's coming out at this point. I'm sorry I'm not quite following what you want us to do but I feel like in order to get good content this is what I need to do.

The reason I'm so pleased with how this is coming out so far is because I've realized how to possibly keep it interesting. I'm writing my paper in the style of a fairy tale. Not a very good fairy tale mind you but I love my intro now and I'm hoping I can find clever ways to keep the feeling of the beginning going. Hopefully my group can give me good feedback on what I have tomorrow and I hope they like this version. I couldn't even bring myself to read my last draft because of how bad it was, hopefully tomorrow this draft will look as good as it does now!

My Past Experience

I actually think I created a solid start for my research essay. I have a full ten pages and the words actually mean something they aren't filler. However, I cannot wait until I receive more feedback on my essay because I know there is always room for improvement. I am sure I will have a lot to change before I can call it a final draft. When I read a few of the essays of my classmates on Monday I was really interested in their topics. I think everyone put forth some good effort to make sure they had a good rough draft to present. Even if they pulled an all nighter! I like to hear what others are interested in and what they did their research on. I think I am just proud of my essay because I never usually write long research papers like this. When I was in high school they never required essays like this. Of course I did research papers but not of this length or quality. English was honestly pretty easy at my high school even though they were AP classes. The only time I was challenged in an English class was my senior year. AP literature was a great class for me. It was actually a challenge and I loved it. The teacher was amazing. He expected a lot from our class and made sure we gave him quality work. This class taught me how to be a better writer. We wrote essays all of the time. These were essays on books we read not research papers though. So, this year I am figuring out how to write a really good research essay, not just a research paper to get done and hand in.

I'm not sure what my essay has become...

For now, the initial draft is done.
As I am sure you can all relate, this is a huge relief. It helps me to know that I have something on paper,that I have something to say about my subject and that my thoughts are somewhat organized. Whether the organization in my paper follows a logical train of thought, I'll find out when I read it over later.

I went into this essay with a very different frame of mind. I wanted to explore how religion impacted feminism. I wanted to talk about this theory I was particularly interested in and analyze feminism through this theory. As I look over my paper now, I feel that I actually turned this essay into... Well, I'm not exactly sure what. I don't really think that I am arguing a side. I feel like I am using my paper to complain about feminism and talk about my personal experiences. Sure, I have tables, charts. and research within it, but at this point I honestly don't know what to make of my paper.
In all honesty, I feel like my paper is a jumbled up mess of half-formed thoughts and semi-supported ideas. I'll be interested to hear what others have to say about it.

But hey, it's a start right?

Courage to Advocate

*I asked one of my nurse friends for a story about courage.  She told me this story about having the courage to advocate for patients.  The wording is a work in progress*

The courage to advocate for your patients is also required in nursing.  My dear friend Candace has been a nurse for over twenty-five years.  She told me a story of a time she had to advocate for one of her patients.  She was working in the recovery ward monitoring patients fresh out of surgery.  In this ward, vitals are taken every ten minutes and nurses hardly ever leave their patient’s bedsides.  Candace was working with a patient who had just been wheeled out of a minor surgery.  This patient was young, had no complications and had a healthy heart.  But Candace read through the patient’s files and saw this patient had been given a large dose of beta-blockers five times the normal amount per the anesthesiologist’s orders and now the anesthesiologist wanted an equally large dose to be administered again.  However, Candace knew beta-blockers are used to slow the hearts of patients with heart rate or blood pressure issues and this patient had neither of these issues. Candace believed such large doses would be detrimental for this patient. 

So she called the hospital’s pharmacy to get a second opinion.  They agreed that such unusually large doses were a bad idea.  So Candace called the anesthesiologist who had prescribed these doses and explained her actions.  She told him she had received a second opinion and would not administer the dose he had prescribed.  The doctor exploded screaming into the phone while Candace calmly repeated herself.   Finally, he hung up only to get in his car and drive back to the hospital where he found Candace and began screaming again a mere six inches from her face.  Again, Candace refused to administer the large dose.  In the end, this doctor was reprimanded by the hospital board and told to apologize to Candace.  He never did.  When the board demanded an explanation for his dangerous prescription, the doctor said he had recently read an article saying large doses of beta-blockers may decrease a patient’s risk of stroke soon after surgery.  This doctor was trying to experiment on a patient with no permission or evidence to back his decision up.  His choice of patient did not even make sense because she was young and had a healthy heart.  If Candace had not had the courage to advocate for her patient, her patient may have received such a large dose of beta-blockers her heart may have stopped.

Ballenger: Mortal Enemy of Paper

Who writes 12 page papers in an introductory English class? Oh, we do? And then we have to print 5 copies of that? Think of the trees.
I'm striving to differentiate this paper between every other research paper I've ever written, because, frankly, I've hit the sophomore slump. Much like senioritis, that feeling that this doesn't matter anymore. Except the sophomore slump is more dangerous because the end result is you feel like dropping out. I'm not going to actually drop out (Although that doesn't even seem to be the proper term in college). But if I have to write one more research paper where I pretend for X amount of pages to pretend to actually know something about a topic that is much deeper and more complex than I can possibly give proper respect and credit to...
I like Dr. Ballenger's individual techniques, my conference time with him always feels valuable, but despite his best efforts I can't help but feel that this is structured just like any other research paper, except, it's overly long.
Perhaps this wine just has me whiney when my plans fell through on a Saturday night, and I am just in one of my moods, but seriously, I can't help but wonder how I can possibly write anything about the negative effects of the militarized police.
What do I know about societally engrained racism?
What do I know about the black guilt created by our police forces?
What do I know about what it's like to hear your son was shot, and the very next day tanks are in the streets to remind me that the police are here to "protect" me and to remind me that they made the right decision?
I can write a lot about that, I can research and pretend to know just about everything about that.
But what a facade, what an impersonation
And what an abuse of privilege, to stand up and pretend to understand what people are going through every damn day of their life just for the sake of writing a persuasive paper for a grade. The issues  that I will honestly merely skim the surface of despite what will appear to be a heavy analysis, are, to me, objects. They are the next paper, the next debate, a tool that I wave around to say "look at me, I'm socially aware! I'm conscience of issues and I care about them." But I'm not really doing a damn thing about them. And that issue, that problem, whatever it is.. For me it's a 10 page obstruction of my life that I will throw together in the last minute hyped up on red bull or whatever the hell else gets me through my weekend.. But for the people that this effects.. The people of Ferguson, African Americans in general, this is their life. This is what they live. And we just take it for granted and write it off, quite literally, in a paper, for a grade.
Privilege is a beautiful and gracious creature to her friends, isn't she?




But she's also a two faced bitch, quick to repeatedly disappoint those who weren't fortunate enough to land in her good graces.

Looking at things a different way

When I came to class earlier today, I felt ahead of the game. I had a sudden inspiration to write last night so I started to draft my research paper. After two hours I had about five pages of the research paper done. I felt so accomplished! 

This morning I realized that I still hadn’t come up with the three different openings. So, I took my actual opening as one, but then was stuck. I already had an opening that worked, so I couldn’t find any other way to jump into the essay. After a lot of thinking, I was finally able to write another one (though not a third) that was completely different than the first.

However, in class the two people who read my introductions liked the second opening more. This surprised me because I didn’t put much effort into it, it was done on a whim. However, I decided to try the second introduction and see where it took me. I took the twenty minutes in class and was able to write about a page and a half of an essay that was basically different in every way to my first one. I noticed that I liked it a lot better too, it had more of my personality and it was definitely more of a narrative than my first draft.

I guess there is more than one way into a paper. It surprised me that I could write the same information in such different ways. Although I’m happy with this turn out, I now I have five pages worth of research paper that I probably won't touch again. Though I'm still glad I wrote both and by doing so could learn the importance of having a good lead to go off of.  

One Way In

I have to admit that I was really surprised at the results of today's in-class activity. I had one source that I really that put a lot of time and effort into. It had a quotation, it was well explained, properly cited and everything. Compared to the other two leads I wrote, this one was truly well-written. 

My second lead was this far-fetched illustration that worked to discover a main point without the guise of confusing context. The other was just a retelling of some of my personal experience that helped to explain why the topic was so important to me.  

What really surprised me was that my first lead, the one I thought would capture the most interest, didn't capture the interest of either of the people who looked over my leads. It really confused me because I thought that it was pretty good. I thought that I made an excellent connection.

What I see after the in-class activity is that the first lead is one that I would write on a typical research paper, one that takes a much more logical approach. The other two leads were more narrative in nature, and it is not surprising to me that the readers preferred them. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that this activity was really able to cement the concept that Dr. Ballenger keeps referring to, this concept of a more narrative research essay versus the typical research paper. In some ways, this opens so any new paths for me to take with my essay. On the other hand, the subject of my paper is conceptual and abstract; in other words, really hard to grasp at times. I sincerely hope that taking a narrative approach to my paper will allow me to communicate my message effectively.

Research and Library Buddies

I went to the library earlier this week to pick up some books I needed for my essay, but I didn't want to go alone. So I asked if anyone would like to go with me and two of my friends decided they would. Of course I didn't worry that they are both rambunctious people, I just thought it'd be fun. It was very fun but not because we were in a place of learning but because I went to find my books and they wandered away and then when we ran into each other again they were freaking out because they had gotten lost... How did they get lost in the library? I have no idea! But until we left they kept getting turned around and they kept making jokes and it was so hard to be quiet because we were all laughing. Now I don't know what they're going to do when they have to go to the library without me because they couldn't navigate it at all. I know this is random, but it's a bright spot in a stressful week and it's just nice to know that friends can make you relax with even when you're working hard and stressing out.

Thanks Mom

Whenever I talk to my mom everything seems to become abundantly clear. I was talking to her the other day about my research paper problems, and she said, "Well, why don't you talk about how you can be American by passport, but not by culture?"

And suddenly everything made sense. 

Now I'm researching the phenomenon of Third Culture Kids (see http://tckid.com/what-is-a-tck.html for more information) and what constitutes their national identity. 

I've personally been struggling with this idea, because I'm American by passport, but not necessarily by culture. I'm European and Dutch in many ways, but I'm technically from the U.S. 

This is something that I know that a lot of from friends from other DoDDs schools (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Defense_Dependents_Schools for more information) that are also struggling with this because they have lived in Germany, or Turkey, or The Netherlands for a long time, and they are a part of that culture. Now you'd think that moving back to the States would be coming home, when in fact they are undergoing culture shock. 

Since there's a lot of research on Third Culture Kids, but not necessarily on what constitutes national identity (is it your citizenship, how involved you are in the culture, if you speak the language, etc...), I've emailed a lot of my friends from DoDDs (120 to be exact), whether they be out of Europe for years now and married with kids, going through culture shock, or still in Europe, and asked them to take a survey of mine. This survey will really be the meat of my research, talking with kids who have gone through this and what they think about it. 

I just emailed them last night, and I've already received 10 full responses, and 5 kids said they would soon. 

Needless to say, I'm excited to find the correlations between my friends responses and find an answer not only for myself, but for them as well. Many of the have said they'd love to read the paper when I'm finished with it. 

So, Thanks Mom. Everything is falling into place. 

I am feeling nervous for this paper. I am confident in my idea, but I a worried about the research part. I'm not very good at weaving quotes in with my own thoughts. If it were up to me, Id' have a whole paper of my thoughts, but I do understand the importance of sources. I need to have the paper done this week because I will be gone this weekend, so I am really feeling the pressure. I just hope I can find really good sources that will fit seamlessly with my own writing. I know what I want to say, I just have to write and hope it will fill at least 10 pages worth. I need to more like those people that can write a ton and have to cut back on the content.

I also am feeling a lack of motivation if I'm being honest. I don't feel like an honors student. I feel like I have senioritis. It's really not good. How do you all get motivated?

Did you know you can upload pictures? You can. I commented about this picture in a comment (word play, self-five). But, in all seriousness, I feel like I need to say this to you all after reading some of your posts. Hang in there, baby.
I have found that when I am overwhelmed it helps me a lot to pull out my planner (you don't have a planner? get one. seriously) and look at the lists of things I have to do. Somehow, it becomes more manageable to see things in a list. I puts them in a controllable capacity. Then, do it. I think a lot of the time we shut down, blow it off, so on, so forth. Stop doing that. I think you will find if you actually do what you need to instead of panicking about it things become less stressful.
Mostly, remember that you can do it. You are here, in college, for a reason. You are here, in the honors college, for a reason. You are all extraordinary people who can efficiently accomplish the tasks ahead of you.
And if it is all just too much, and for the love of God some days it is and you have to realize that, there is always someone to help you. We have a lovely community in the honors college that should be taken advantage of at every opportunity, even if it's just to blow off steam.
Good luck. And hang in there.

Pre-writing

I have found that this week frequently requires us to write things in advance. For example, this week we are writing three introductions for our research paper. We consistently have to write our papers in pieces from the conception of the idea to the very end which takes us a few weeks. While I understand the intention, I am very uncomfortable with it. 

I have a weird way of writing... whatever weird is. I will literally do all of it in one sitting. I snuggle up in bed with a glass of water, chocolate, and my headphones in. I spend a few hours doing nothing but compiling research, I do not even open a word document. Once I feel that I sufficiently understand a topic I doing the entire paper, no matter how long. I will sit for hours, usually in the middle of the night because that seems to be when I write best, and do nothing but write. Usually, I edit as I go so the finished copy is the final copy. And I turn it in from there.

So this class has been very weird for me. I have a very hard time breaking things into pieces. It stresses me out. I sit awake in the middle of the night thinking about something that isn't finished because dammit I want it done already. Also, I partially feel that I write better all in one go because my ideas are focused rather than, somehow, managing to scatter everywhere in a few days.

Does anyone else feel this way....?

All Writing is Personal

My friend Barry Lane, the author of a number of books on writing, sent me some interview questions about "voice" and informational writing.  This will sound pretty familiar to all of you, but I thought I'd share it because it seemed timely as you begin writing your research essay drafts.

 How do students approach informational writing differently than narrative essay writing and how  does that affect their voice as writers?

When most students approach personal writing, they intuitively know that the stories they tell are narrated; that is, the telling depends on the writer’s perspective on the experiences she’s exploring.  The most obvious first move in this narration is to invoke the first person, and from there it’s pretty easy for writers to imagine that theirs is the guiding hand, leading readers along.  But when they confront informational writing, most student writers assume that they are required to drop their role as narrators.  This kind of writing is supposed to be “objective,” they think, and consequently they do everything they can to erase themselves from the writing.   The result is that informational seems to lack any kind of guiding hand, and readers often respond by complaining that the writing is “boring.”  Writers of such prose feel the same way.

What can teachers do to help students find their voices when writing about facts and information outside of their own experience? Why is this important?

We have to convince student writers that informational writing is narrated, too, even if it doesn’t invoke the first person.  One theorist talked about this as “presence,” and argued that presence is possible in all kinds of ways beyond self-disclosure.  Finding your own ways of saying things is an obvious way for a writer to leave his signature on the work.  Control of quotation is another.  But so is emphasis, drawing attention to certain interesting facts (and not others).  This is important for students to practice because it further establishes their agency as authors of their own work, even when they’re borrowing information from the work of others.  In this sense, all writing is personal.

Research Essay

In my conference with Dr. Ballenger, he really helped me to focus in on my research essay, specifically what I struggled with the most which was how to write my essay for a normal audience, for the masses. I had to decide on a way in which to grab my audience and make them care about my topic, which is Tuberculosis in the United States and why we should be concerned about it. It is easy for me to write about the topic if I was writing for people who actually care about what the disease and what it can do to people in the United States. I'm trying to find more sources that are less scientific and are more relatable for the common person. After completing the in class work with the dialogue boxes, I felt a little more comfortable with my paper. Being forced to answer "What's the big deal?" helped me to hone in on what matters the most and how to convince people the met effectively. It seemed like I wrote almost a mini summary of my paper highlighting the basic ideas of why it's a big deal. I believe that I have enough of an outline now to begin writing the paper and how it should flow.

Exercise 4.2 helped me to decide more on the "talking points" of my research project. It helped me with my research question but really helped me focus on what I want to write about to back up on opinion while also being objective in the research. I have struggled with narrowing down my topics to talk about and make them more relatable. Today in class really made me decide on what facts and opinions are the most strong and how to use them in my paper.

Feeling Slightly Overwhelmed?

Hopefully I'm not the only one feel just a bit overwhelmed right now, because there are definitely days where I feel like that is the case.

Am I the only one who feels like the first half of this semester has been kind of wasted? I feel like I took too long to adjust to college life. I feel like I have missed all this time I could have been studying, writing, reading, practicing, and just being productive in general. I thought that my transition into college was going to be a little smoother, and I think that this is the point in the semester where I am finally realizing that I have no idea what I am doing.

Right now it feels like I am never on-top of what I need to be doing, that I am not producing the quality of work that I expect from myself.

There is so much to do, so much to be done, and so much that I feel I have missed. It's gotten to the point where I have to forcibly remind myself to sleep even though my brain is running faster that I can catch it.

Tomorrow I become a Strive for College mentor to a local high school senior. I am so excited to be a part of this, and so incredibly scared at the same time. How am I supposed to give this high school student advice about college? I still have no idea what I am doing!

There are days that I feel just fine, but that is probably because I am not doing everything I should be doing. I feel loath to change these days though. I am fairly certain that if I try to do one more thing my head might explode. I doubt it, but it does feel like that some days.

Hopefully I'm not the only one experiencing this tiny mental breakdown, and if I am, then I would love to know the secrets that I seem to be missing at the moment.

Re-learning How to Research

I would have to say that I have learned more about researching than I have about my research topic. This is kind of a bold statement to make, but I feel that this is completely true.

As a chemistry major, it makes sense that I always preferred writing research papers. I loved actually finding creditable sources and working their knowledge into my paper. I was always great at integrating sources together, making the authors agree or disagree. I loved the manipulation I could do, the hard evidence that I could hide behind. I didn't have to worry about what I thought or how that affected my paper.

This research essay, using these somewhat new research techniques, has been interesting to say the least.

I have chosen to write my paper as an exploration of the possible relationship between our view of God (concerning gender) and the thoughts we have and live by as they apply to gender superiority. I felt that this was a good topic, one that everyone can share a stake in (whether you are religious or not), but it was also a topic very close to me. I felt that if I wrote my paper on a topic that I could relate to that I would be able to write this paper in the way that Dr. Ballenger is trying have us write in. It's a dramatic change for me, and I still feel that I am struggling to really put it all together.

I still find this method hard to relate to my field of study. I haven't had much chance to employ these new skills in that particular field, so I am still out about how I feel about this new method.

Is anyone else feeling the stress of an end-of-the-semester portfolio? I feel that I have written nothing really worth putting into this portfolio, even after revising a couple of the assignments we have done in class so far. Maybe writing this research essay will make me feel better.

Refining the Original Question?

I began my research with the question of "Is a gluten free diet healthier than a diet with gluten for those without celiac disease, gluten allergies, or gluten sensitives"? But as I accomulate information on the topic, I may need to alter the thesis because I have a lot of information on different aspects of the "gluten debate" but not necessary on the part I wanted to focus on. I feel like at this point it would be most beneficial for me to review my sources this far, and see what I have the most information on. Although it would be a very small change because there is an immense amount of information on gluten because it has now become a big conversation in the US,  I feel that my SOFT would be stronger if I took sometime to change it a bit. Also doing Exercise 4.2 helped me to truly think about what I wanted my main topic to be, because although the prompts were simply fill in the blank, I had to think if I would be able to write an entire essay on what I had filled in the blanks with.
Also at my conference with Dr. Ballenger, he told me to make my paper interesting and put personal stories and opinions into it. Of course this was different from what I was taught in high school. I was taught to simply put the facts down on paper. But since the gluten debate is something that I have personally dealt with, I have a lot of people I can interview. This way I am able to add their story into the paper, and those who have gone through an experience with gluten can be the best sources of information. So when I interviewed a few friends about gluten, their own stories provided a lot of very useful information for my paper. And I am excited to be able to add it into my paper, instead of just what the FDA has to say about my topic.

Writing a Research Paper, Again

It's kinda strange to be writing a structured essay like this again. So far this year, the only papers I've written have been the rather abstract Personal Essay, and argumentative essays for the philosophy class I'm taking. Going back to this structured, research based form of writing feels different; which is kinda ironic considering it's what I've been doing for most of my scholastic career. So, I guess this past week has mostly been getting back into the swing of things. Truthfully, it's not hard; its like riding a bike, you don't forget how but sometimes you aren't as good as you used to be when you're first starting out again.
I've chosen Non-verbal communication and cues as my topic for this research essay; a fairly broad topic that I've always found interesting but never really looked into extensively until now. In fact, it's so broad that for the sake of this essay i'm going to have to somehow narrow my angle of focus significantly in order to actually make a point and develop a strong thesis. I'm considering using the study of haptics, communication through touch, as a way to narrow my focus research wise and help me pick a thesis. I've also tossed around the idea of comparing the level of aptitude at reading non-verbal cues between genders, and if there is a difference discussing what the reason for this difference might be.

Drafting Essay

             After my conference, I started debating in what in specific should I look for in my sources. Choosing a topic about what's the real purpose of beauty pageants is; I started looking more into how it can really affect the participating individuals in their lives, as they grow older. This could include a variety of information about how they think of themselves in their future lives, as to what they do in effect to this to some of their own daughters/sons. It definately has become a very interesting and fascinating research , especially as I encounter myself with the different kind of personal interviews and essays of famous models, to understand how they actually felt about themselves at some point in their lives throughout their beauty career.
           
             As I go through my research I encounter myself with all of this fascinating facts about how everything really started, which I have been writing down in a separate document, just in case it can comes useful at any point while writing my essay. But too, some of this information that is there, are just facts that I would really like to put into the essay somehow.

           I believe that writing this essay, is definately going to become a task for me, like I mention on my conference, it's just not the kind of writing I am used to, but it too, will become a really intersting subject to write about, and hopefully an intersting one for the reader as well.

The Trouble With Research...

Early on in the process of this research paper, I decided on my topic: The Unwritten Rules of American Society and how they transfer over into other cultures. (Unwritten Rules of American Society: certain acts that Americans never do in public because it's just not done, and if they do them, they will be viewed as a jerk and perhaps socially ridiculed. For example: Never steal someone's seat during intermission, if a car is waiting for you to cross the road, do a little jog, etc...)

I felt that because I've lived in the Netherlands for the past eight years, I could speak to this topic. At the beginning of this project, I had great ideas, I could speak to the International Club, I could perform some of these unwritten rules here in the States, and have a friend do the same in the Netherlands and see what the difference was, etc...

Now I'm stuck.

I've spoken with the International Club and gotten all the answers I wanted, but it seems that all of these unwritten rules are just common sense, or they are differ between countries for obvious reasons.

As of now, there is no driving question to this essay.

I don't know what to research because I don't know where this research is going.

I like the idea of my topic, but in practice, it's simple, and doesn't lead anywhere.

Help!

Drafting Essay

For the past week I have been on google and google scholar searching for acceptable articles for my research topic. I found it extremely helpful that as soon as I found a site or article that I wanted to use I would write down the works cited MLA format for the site. Then, I would read through the article more thoroughly and write down key points I wanted to remember. I would also write down certain quotes I may want to use in my essay. After reading through the article, I would write out a summary for the whole document. I would also add in my own opinions and ideas about the article's ideas. In doing this annotation it became easier to figure out what I was going to write about in my essay. However, I think it is going to be hard for me to write ten pages about one thing. The "S.O.F.T" idea will help keep my essay on track but I think it will be difficult to follow the S.O.F.T. I have many ideas that I find interesting about my topic and I would love to talk about all of them. I need to realize that a good essay needs to go more in depth about a few of the topics that I love to make it more interesting and better written. My essay, I believe, will most certainly develop into an argumentative essay because after doing my research I have decided I want to take a stand on the topic. My essay will be arguing why people should think a certain way about my topic. I don't want my essay to turn into a persuasive essay so I will try not to become too involved in the persuasive aspect. I will try to present the facts which will in turn lead people to believe the same way I do about the topic.

Turning Point in Research

           Before my conference, and even some after, I had trouble finding sources pertaining to one specific question. Everything I came across didn’t really work with the direction I wanted to move in with my essay. On top of that, I really struggled with deciphering some articles due to jargon. Most of the sources I found didn’t relate to each other, and therefore did not use the same terminology. That is why when I came to my conferences on Tuesday I only had a few, very general sources. They were good for introductory information to the topic, but didn’t delve too deeply into it. These sources lead me to consider many other inquiry question but non seemed to work. 

           Finally, after trying many different keywords I stumbled upon an article that was actually relevant to my focus! The article brought up some very interesting ideas, but the most important information I gained were new terms relating to my topic. By plugging in the combination of "REM," "NREM" and "dreams" into academic search premier, loads of good sources appeared. One article lead me to a treasure chest of information. Just like that, my luck changed. I now have much better sources both quantitatively and qualitatively. I also have a better idea of how and what my essay will head. It’s funny how one small article can influence my research so much.

Principals

This process of writing has definitely been an emotional one; something I find ironic considering most think of research essays as cut and dry and without personal opinions. At the first initial mention of the phrase "research essay" there was an immediate grimace upon my face. I like being able to speak through my writing, and research essays are so stifling in the way of narrative, or so I had been taught to believe. And being in a class filled with fellow Honor's students, I knew I would soon be swamped with the brilliant and studious essays from my peers which sounded so much more intelligent than my own. Dismay.

As we began the first baby steps of forming a topic a couple of weeks ago, I found the interactive and self-driven ideas much more opening and free than ever before. Instead of being assigned a specific topic by my teacher from a predetermined list or choosing whichever controversy was splattered on the headlines, I was able to decide on something I was genuinely curious about and interested in. Why was I never able to do this before? It was pretty easy to think up the topic: why does McDonald's advertise at the Olympics? Sure, it was a little rough around the edges and needed some fine-tuning but it was a good place to start. Anticipation.

And as these last few weeks and classes have gone by, I've found that this process has it's own guidelines with which it operates, but they're not necessarily rules to abide by. They're helpful suggestions and tips, but are not meant to change how you write, but to better how you write. The Curious Researcher chapters and readings I find, both easy to relate to and a tool meant to open myself up to these new ways of thinking and writing which weren't options I had considered before. During my initial stages of research I've discovered a lot of useful and interesting information, enough almost to the point of it being overwhelming and I had too much to explore and talk about. There were numerous points and pieces with some being annotated for conference, and some taken note of for further exploration. Awe.

In my conference with Dr. Ballenger last week, I think the point of revelation for me was that I had overlooked one of the most basic aspects of my inquiry question (which had been altered at this point), and I was shocked that even with all this information I had gathered, I had managed to miss a key foundation piece in my research. I was so overwhelmed with the multitude of information about my topic that I needed a calm voice of reason to tell me to stop what I was doing, which was moving on to all these various perspectives and ideas, and work from the base up. Like the Where's Waldo pictures, I think it's easy for us to get caught up with all the colors and happenings and trying to be the first to spot the elusive traveler, that we forget to stop and remember, oh, Waldo wears a red hat, oh, Waldo wears a red striped shirt, and all the characteristics which set Waldo apart from his surroundings. We can loose ourselves in the sea of exploration until a nice tenure college professor sidles up in his little kayak of wise words and independent perspective and fishes you out and brings you back to reality. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed by my misstep.

And if you've stayed with me for this long, kudos to you kind reader. To summarize, this process of sculpting research essays has been eye-opening to say the least. It's something I'm not quite used to yet, but the more I experience it, the more I like it.

The Amazing Evolving Inquiry Question

     Contrary to what you may think, the most interesting part of my research essay experience has not been learning more about my topic (though that too has proved to be enjoyable). Instead, I've found the writing process itself fascinating. During my research so far, my inquiry question has changed at least three times. Because the writing process is inquiry based, my research inspires new questions and new potential directions I could take my essay. So far, I've enjoyed this style of writing, because it leads me to topics that I'm naturally interested in. It should also help the development of my essay because quality sources are what inspire these changes in my inquiry question.
     My only concern was connecting the main idea of my speech with my sources. I addressed this question during my conference, and I believe that a few interviews around campus should make the connection, and eventually help me answer my inquiry question.
     This approach to writing differs greatly from what I'm used to. Though I've done research papers before, they have always been persuasive. I knew what I wanted to prove, and searched for sources to support my argument. The research essay turns that approach to writing upside down, and makes it dynamic. Because you approach your research asking questions, your ideas about your topic develop through the process. You might discover the answer to your research question at the end of your essay, or you might not discover it at all!
     I'm still in the research stages of my essay, but as I begin to write, I'll be interested to see how my inquiry question continues to evolve.

Researching the Emotions Behind Nursing Care

I changed my research question about twenty times in the last two weeks.  But thanks to Google Scholar and random search words I think I found a question that will stick.  My question involves researching the emotions behind nursing care, like vulnerability, self- compassion, courage, etc.  One of the best articles I found on this subject was an article entitled “The Meaning of Vulnerability to Nurses Caring for Older People.”  This article discussed the theme of vulnerability in nursing care for older people and six subthemes of vulnerability.  The six subthemes of vulnerability are: having feelings, experiencing moral indignation, being harmed, having courage, protecting oneself, and maturing and developing.  Each of these subthemes contributed to vulnerability as a whole and aided in describing this nursing care.  The nurses interviewed described this vulnerability as a healthy, essential part of their job but also as a burden.  They described it as a burden because vulnerability opens you up to hurt and harm.  But it was claimed that denying vulnerability and adopting defense mechanisms could lead to quicker burnout in nurses. 

            I hope this and many more articles will help me explore this area of nursing life.  I am excited to learn more about the profession that I one day hope to be a part of. 

The Emotional Arc of Research and Writing

It was great hearing about all of your research projects in conference this week.  With few exceptions, everyone is working hard (when they can) on their research.  The problems, when there are any, have mostly to do with refining the inquiry question.  This is no surprise, especially if you're writing about something you know little about.

Prior knowledge about a research topic is a huge advantage:  you know what the conversation is about the subject--the key concepts, the words people use to talk about it, the experts involved, the schools of thought, and so on.  But when you're just entering the conversation as a relative novice, you have to listen in first before you dare to say anything.  This is a listening in week.

Next week, you'll develop a more focused knowledge on your topics, and there will be moments when you start to believe that, yes, you may have something to say about it.  You'll hopefully find your own "Where's Waldo?" question, and this will help you to know what information you don't need to look at (along with the information you need to look at).  This is fun.  At the same time, though, you may find your motivation start to sag. There's an emotional arc to the research and writing process (isn't this true of anything that's hard?) and it's important to be honest about it.  I have some theories about this emotional journey of research, and I'd love to hear this week and next how you're experiencing the process.

When I went into my conference with Dr. Ballenger, I was worried that my research paper wasn't going to be good enough. I had my sources and my inquiry question but worried about making the connection of the "so what" in my paper. I can write a research paper relatively easily but actually thinking about a connection that a general reader would care about is more difficult for me. Dr. Ballenger helped me to think about my topic and how I could write about it in a way that makes the general audience care about what I am saying.

I enjoy writing annotated bibliographies. I think, at least in my case, it makes it much easier for me to examine my source, identify what it is saying, and how I can use it. Not to mention, when I go back to use it I know exactly which source what. It also helps me to further outline my paper. I can establish the points I want to make, use my sources, and then bring it all together. This is a tactic that I also use in other classes that makes life much easier when it comes time to write the paper.

Looking at Research in a new light

I met with Dr. Ballenger today for my conference, and it was very interesting. Although I have just started my research because I only have six sources, I was able to plan where I am going to look next for my sources. I have found all my sources so far from Google because I was able to find good sources with the starting information that I needed. Now I am going to go to the library home page and use some of the databases, and set up more than just the one interview that I have already sent. When I began my research, I found a lot of bias information because I am researching the benefits of a gluten free diet for those without celiac disease, gluten allergies or sensitivities. Since this topic has become so mainstream and common now, there are many people will strong opinions on the matter. But after looking a little bit farther I was able to find so interesting information and studies being conducted on the subject. I am also very interested to know the information I will be able to get from my interviews, and hear the personal experiences with gluten. Another thing I found very interesting from my conference today with Dr. Ballenger, is he said that normally research papers are not
"interesting" because we are taught to just get the facts down on the paper. But he was not like that, and he wanted a paper that was interesting and with personal stories. Because gluten is a topic that has effected so many people, I have a feeling it will be very easy to make an "interesting" paper, while still making it informative.

Going Deep

I really could not write this blog post until now. The questions posed by the Curious Researcher as to what type of a researcher I am is a thought that had never really occurred to me before, and it was a thought that I wanted to examine throughout the week before I really answered it.

Not only have I been researching heavily for this upcoming research essay, but I have also been doing extensive research for my UF 100 class. I am taking the Invention and Discovery class, where we choose an invention and research the history of the world through the eyes of this invention. We are asked to look at the history behind this invention, major people involved, technological advances made, along with a whole host of other questions and put in into a presentation that we will submit at the end of the semester.

As I researched for this class and my UF 100 class, I would say that I feel I am much more of a deep diver. When it comes to researching a topic I spend a lot of time evaluating sources and searching for the best ones. I don't like to spend a lot of time reading introductory research; I would rather go the meat and potatoes. I am not afraid of sources that use jargon that I do not understand. The articles just take longer to read and are frequently assaulted by my pen as I scribble in the definitions to words I don't understand. If my sources don't seem extremely credible when I won't use them. I don't really care what side the research supports, I just want it to be the best research.

I loved the section that included the research tips, like the Google search tips and the explanation of the organizational system of the library. I volunteered frequently in my town's public library, so I understood the Boolean system well, but the organizational system of my town's public library differs radically from the Albertsons Library. I also really appreciated the flowchart for evaluating online sources. It is super easy to follow and gave me a more comprehensive list of criteria to look out for. It even brought up a couple of points I had never thought of before, such as looking for author credentials.

I am really looking forward to further applying this new-found knowledge to my research routine. I know that these skills are going to help me in all aspects of my college career.

Writing in the Middle

When we discussed the relationship between gender and tattoos in class last week, I had you practice a form of note taking that is the basis of the "double-entry journal."  (This is explained more fully in Curious Researcher).  The idea behind the approach is that we can use writing when we come in contact with information to helps us both understand what it seems to be saying, and explore our our thinking about it.  This is a "dialogic" approach to note taking that is in sharp contrast to more conventional note taking encouraged by notecards, which is pretty much a one-way conversation--source to you--and not dialogic--source to you, then you to source, then source to you, then you to source.  I can't overstate how important I think it is to take notes as you collect information.  While this seems inconvenient (and to some extent it is), it can ultimately be more efficient because you're actually writing your draft before you write the draft.

Since class, I thought a lot about opening moves in this kind of note taking.  The two that strike me as most helpful are

1. What I understand you to be saying... This would lead to an initial summary of the reading. Always super helpful in any conversation to listen for understanding.
2. What I find most interesting here is...This move builds from the start on our own particular intellectual interests and concerns, which seems like a logical starting point.

In class, a number of you mentioned that you started expressing agreement or disagreement, and this makes some sense, too, though I wonder if it moves us too quickly to judgment without providing sufficient time to explore a little.

The third chapter of Curious Researcher offers a range of options for how to do this kind of note taking.  You should take a look if you're interested.  I'll also ask you in conference how you're approaching note taking for this project.

Panning for Gold

     Have you ever gone panning for gold? After learning about the California Gold Rush in the fourth grade, my family went camping in gold country, right on the American River. I remember going to a gift shop, buying a gold pan, and thinking that I would spend an afternoon by the river and strike it rich. In my naivety, I spent about half an hour panning for gold on the river, and came back with nothing but a wet pair of jeans. In research papers past and continuing into my research for this research essay, searching for sources on the internet feels a lot like panning for gold. Without the proper searching tools, simply "Googleling" your topic will yield a wealth of information - much of it useless.

     I was pleased to learn from The Curious Researcher the proper ways to search for relevant information on a topic online and in library databases. I had no idea as to how much using proper searching techniques could narrow down potential sources - indeed, using keywords, connector words, and Library of Congress Subject Headings can narrow down your search results as much as six-thousand percent! I believe that the resources of the Boise State Library combined with what I find using search tools such as Ebsco databases and Google Advanced Search will yield sufficient information for my research essay, provided I use the research techniques described in The Curious Researcher.

     Of course, panning for gold made hundreds of men rich during the Gold Rush. In the same way, simply searching Google with the name of a topic can yield some excellent sources, and can even help refine your inquiry question. However, when it comes time to dig deep, to really mine for sources, one should know the proper techniques for striking gold.

What Type of Researcher?

When I research I feel like I'm a mixture of all three of these types. I feel like a lot of high school writing I've done I didn't feel like I had a lot of time to do in depth research so I wouldn't try super hard to find different sources and I didn't really care where they came from. However, I do often find my best sources accidentally because I don't use the same source twice more often than not. I just don't really keep track of where I get my information after I've finished my research. I also don't plan my research out, I just look and read then I read more and more until I've found information I can use for my paper. I can be pretty steadfast in my opinion at times but other times if I find a lot of information and it sways what I think I will change my mindset and change my paper if I need to. I don't know what kind of researcher this makes me but it's kind of interesting to dissect my research habits because I've never really thought about it before because it worked out well for me in high school so I figured why change it if it works? Now in college I'm sure I'm going to have to change my researching habits.

Reading Response

After reading the "What are your Research Routines" I would definitely classify myself as a fast surfer. It's not the I wait until the last minute to begin writing papers (most of the time at least) but I just want to get them done as fast as possible so that I can move on to the next thing I need to do. I definitely have a hard time suspending judgement while I research and I go into my topic with my opinion already taken. I am trying to work on that for this research project but am just not sure how well it all go.

While I do use some databases to look for information, I typically use Google just for the fact that I am comfortable with it. I know how to search for things easily and find what I am looking for. "Planning for the Drive" talked about using databases and how to use them to your advantage to weed out the information you do not want included in your search results. I am going to really make a strong effort to use different database in order to find the best possible sources. That was another topic in the reading and one that I never really gave too much thought too. In the past, I find good sources but I don't particularly look at them in depth. I find something that supports my opinion and includes a quote that I know would fit nicely, and I use it. That relates back what we read in "What are your Research Routines". I go in close minded and then have a hard time finding exactly what I'm looking for. This class is opening my mind to my flaws in my own writing process and what I can do to improve.

Helpful Hints

I found the “Planning for the Dive” reading portion very helpful.  Helpful hints are always appreciated.  A few hints were completely new to me.  First off, I did not realize the BSU library is organized differently.  A couple weeks ago I went in looking for a book.  I typed the author’s name in, confirmed the library had that book, wrote down its location number, and went searching for it. I got confused when I found other books by the same author but not the specific book I was looking for.  Once I spoke with the woman at the front desk she explained the books are not organized by author but by topic.  Then we found the correct book.  Knowing that now and learning about the Library of Congress Subject Headings will make finding relevant books a lot easier.  Also, reading about the little things that can refine Internet searches helped.  I now know how including “not” in web searches or parentheses can help narrow down the results.  At this point, my research question is too broad so hopefully these tricks can help me find a narrower subject. 

Research Exercise 2, pg 11

In all honesty, I don’t think I have ever written a true research essay before. I was always in classes where they would scrap the notecards or make you make a website or turn your information into something creative. Even if I did do a research paper one day, I don’t even remember it. I learned to BS my way through school at a young age which I might now regret. Now, back to the research topic:

I had a hard time understanding that this essay, “Theories of Intelligence,” was actually a research paper. I didn’t not see any facts, I did not see any sources in fancy MLA format but then I realized, this is a whole new idea of “research paper.” This is no longer Research and Regurgitation 101 (Junior High). This is “Research and Discovery 101.” I still learned many things reading this essay but, looking back, there wasn’t a single fancy factoid or number that I really didn’t care about, it was built on the foundation of experience and personal discovery. It was rooted in life, not statistics. When we research the holocaust, is it not more telling to read about the personal experiences in an autobiography than to read about facts that have no relations to us whatsoever? It is those books that make us change the future, it is those books that make us look at this time and try to find something about it. I will admit that there is a time and place for these facts but there is also a time and place in research for a little bit of everyone’s life. For is history not a collection of many lives? When we explore them, what should stop us from giving away a little bit of our own history? Nothing. Nothing should stop us. At least not in this class. Because here, we explore, we don’t regurgitate. How else will people hear about new history—us?