Ball Point vs. Wadsworth

Both of the readings had some similarities but overall I liked the explanations from the Wadsworth Guide (I will refer to this textbook simply as the guide). One of the biggest differences was how they explained that research was situational and the examples they gave in the guide. Ball Point didn't seem to touch on this aspect at all and gave me the impression that all research has basic steps to follow with no exceptions. Ball Point also brings up the question of ethical considerations when conducting research which is not even discussed in the guide. I feel that discussing these two differences deserves some more thought.

I feel that the idea of thinking about how your chosen audience may change or grow as you are doing your research has a lot of merit to it and is ignored in most cases. A good example is this response to our reading assignment. The audience is our classmates and instructor but because our blog is a public forum one of our posts could show up in somebody's internet search. With this aspect in mind we can look at my first paragraph and see that I used familiar language by calling our text book “Wadsworth Guide” instead of by it's full title, “The Wadsworth Guide to Research”. By spelling out the title in my last sentence I just made it possible to expand my audience. The same goes for mentioning Ball Point, unless the reader knows about the Ball State Writing Program they would not understand what Ball Point is and they may have just been searching the internet for information about ink pens.

The idea of ethical considerations in Ball Point may be a little beyond what we, students in ENG 104, really need to worry about since our papers are for the classroom as exercises and not meant for publication. The overall concept is good to keep in mind and may have some bearing on some future classes if anyone decides to move on to graduate school or if you are helping a professor conduct research for a paper that will be published. In the scope of our writing I feel that just using common sense and good judgment will be adequate.

Overall I think being able to use Ball Point and the guide together is the best course of action as they do complement each other and where one text is lacking the other makes up for it.