Zachary Trimm
Writing and Rhetoric
31 August 2012
Reading Response
pp. 22-32
In “What Is It We
Do When We Write Articles Like This One- and How Can We Get Students to Join
Us?” Michael Kleine wants to change the way students do their research papers.
According to Kleine, when most students go to do research they merely copy down
information pertaining to the subject the paper is about and mesh it together.
That is a problem. Research should be done to critically think about a topic,
to come up with new questions about a topic, to answer existing questions about
a topic, and to form a position on that topic. Kleine says that the methods
students use while researching leads to them not thinking the subject through.
Therefore, Kleine wanted to do his own research on how people go about
researching, using college professors with experience at writing research
papers as his subjects. His studies showed that the research process was more
effective when the researcher enjoyed the topic that he/she was exploring.
Kleine shares his discoveries not only to help students out with a possible
better way of researching and applying data, but also encourages instructors to
change lesson plans, to allow students to do assignments on what interests them
so that their minds can be free and more useful.
Kleine’s article
is a lot like the previous article we read, “Argument as Conversation: the Role
of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument” by Stuart Greene. The idea of a
“researched argument” from Greene is much like what Kleine wants to get across
to his audience. Both writers state that in research you can go after what you
specifically need in getting data or you can gather as much data as possible
and use what you can. While Greene referred to these methods as “two different
views of research” (Greene 19), Kleine argues that both methods are used
together in the research process, depending on the circumstance. Also, both
authors believe that at least one good question should be the focus of the
research and the writer must attempt to answer. Greene refers to this as
“framing.”
I have many
thoughts after reading this article. It was very interesting because of the
imagery depicted in the “night library” scene. I could instantly get a picture
in my head from scheduled class sessions in my high school library and most of
the students, including me, were just like the ones in Kleine’s vision. I
didn’t know how to deeply research. I wasn’t coming up with thoughtful questions
about a topic. All I was worried about was finding a good amount of sources in
different forms (books, internet, etc.) and getting as much information as
possible. Then I would get stuck when writing the paper because I had all this
information and no idea how to piece it together. Having read this article, I
feel the sense of purpose from doing a research paper that I didn’t get from my
high school teachers. They usually told us exactly what to write about with the
topic, but I probably would have gotten a more interesting experience if I
could choose whatever I wanted to write about within the topic. Kleine says
teachers should let students pick their own subjects to research, and in some
classes that might be fine, but in others I think the teacher should assign
what to research but don’t limit students on what intrigues them about the
topic.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling (QDJ)
#1) The “night library” vision that
Kleine describes is the most relatable part of the article. That was the way I
went about my research while I was in high school. I gathered as much
information as I could about the topic, but I hardly thought of the topic as
something to answer a deep question about. In my research, I was more of the
“gatherer” and not really a “hunter,” and Kleine describes being both at the
same time in order to become an effective researcher. Sometimes when I do try
to be a “hunter,” I don’t always find what I’m looking for and I get
discouraged. When I was a “gatherer,” I thought I was doing well because I had
a lot of notes and data but when it came to writing the paper I went blank.
However, without Kleine’s methods I still managed to get good grades on papers
that I turned in.
#3) In Kleine’s research, he
interviewed many professors to get his information. It was important to him to
question instructors from many different fields so he could see if there were
and preferences among areas and to compare and contrast them. In my research
experiences, I tried to get reliable sources from books and journal articles
and internet websites to get different perspectives and see which sources had
the same information so I’d know it was more credible. One of the differences
between Kleine’s research and my research is that he had primary sources from the
professors while I mostly had history relayed from some other author’s
knowledge. Another difference is that Kleine could directly ask his sources the
information that he needed, while I had to fish it out from several different
sources.
#4) If I was to change my research
according to Kleine, I would first start by gathering data because I used to
inquire on what I would write about before knowing anything about the subject.
My basic questions would be “what is this?” “how did this originate?” and “what
did it do?” which are good questions, but I could dig deeper into the topic. More
questions I could answer are “why did it happen?” “who did it affect?” and
“what changes does this make?”
