Exercise #1: Personals ad. In keeping with the dating metaphor I used last week, imagine the perfect research source or "soulmate," the one with all of the wonderful qualities that your present sources lack. The one who completes you and brings fulfillment to your research life. Or at least fills in some of the gaps that the others are currently missing. Try to think about what this ideal source would be like, and write a few sentences of description. This ought to make it easier to do one last round of database searching. Post to the comments below.
Exercise #2: Most of you are having what Marlo called "one of them good problems," namely too many good ideas from your research sources. I recommend that you create a simple list with two columns, one of which is your Major sub-topics, and the other your Minor sub-topics. If you are successfully analyzing major topics in a research paper, the appropriate move to mark off a minor topic is something like: "This also leads us to consider XYZ. Unfortunately a full consideration of XYZ falls outside the scope of this study, but in general we can say ABC. Someone surely ought to study XYZ in more detail. Anyhow, getting back to my main topic..."
Reminders: Make sure you have all of your citations and annotations available for Wednesday's class. We will be creating outlines for the upcoming draft.
Link: Have you heard about the Three Cups of Tea guy? It's kind of like, what if Scott Templeton started a charity?
I have been pretty lucky with my research so far, but I am running into one problem. The articles that I have found are dealing with child-headed households in different countries, but not here in the United States. Because of laws in the United States it is hard to find information on this topic, but my ideal “soul mate” would be to find a source that contains information on laws on child-headed households here in the United States. If I find this source, I will be able to compare child-headed households in other countries and then bring it home to here in the US.
ReplyDeleteThanks for getting us starting, good post.
ReplyDeleteI have found a lot of sources (about 15) but I think it is really important for me to start weeding out the bad ones, because I think there are some that won't really help me too much. I also need to find a few new sources which have newer information. I would like to find sources with more current examples of my topic.
ReplyDeleteMy ideal source would be one that shows the reasons why major police departments in the United States are not hiring females to become police officers. If I find this source, it would help me show what the problems are with these reasons and any available solutions. So far, I have been able to find a number of reliable sources that should help me in writing this paper.
ReplyDeleteWanted, one tall dark and handsome article. Must know about international animal trafficking laws. Preferably one who understands the struggle of the locals of Indonesia and could give insight as to why the black market is so prevalent and accepted in the area. Must have good credentials and be reliable. If you are full of shit this relationship just wont work out. Must love long protest rallies and justice.
ReplyDeleteI have found a lot of sources that discuss the legal and criminal aspect of human trafficking, but I would like to find a source that focuses more on the victims of trafficking: where they come from, what happens to them, and why they are in the industry.Also I keep finding sources from early 2000s and would like to see more recent sources from the last couple of years to see if anything has changed.
ReplyDeleteI have found enough sources and have just started to weed out some of the out of date and repetitive ones that most likely won't help me in the bulk of my argument. I may try and look for one more to replace one of my older sources that supports the proponent side of ability grouping within elementary classrooms.
ReplyDeleteI have found many sources that deal with ethical issue regarding in vitro fertilization. They are very helpful and I actually somehow learn more about in vitro fertilization. But I have a problem finding about in vitro among homosexual couples because that is one of my sub arguments in my paper. Therefore, I need to look for more sources about that.
ReplyDeleteI have found about 12 sources, but out of the those, only about half of them pertain to my research essay. Many of my sources are general, but I need to start finding sources that narrow my topic down and basically find sources to support my thesis.
ReplyDeleteI have a good number of sources at this point (about 15 +), but not all them are as relevant as I would like them to be. I tried to focus my paper on fast food on COLLEGE campuses, but most research that I have found centers around fast food and the correlation to obesity in younger people: mostly adolescents and elementary school kids. It would be nice to find an article that actually discusses fast food policy in universities, but it looks like I might have to drag it out of one the school dinning officials if I can't find something suitable.
ReplyDeleteI have found around ten very good sources so far but my ideal source would have three key features. This well endowed article would state the extreme views on either side of standardized testing. It would give a well-reasoned opinion on the effects of standardized testing. Last but not least, it would provide creative alternatives to go along side or instead of standardized testing.
ReplyDelete