Back to The Books!

It has been quite some time since we have been assigned a blog post! In this assignment we were asked to read chapters nine and ten of The Wadsworth Guide to Research. I found chapter nine to be very helpful. I liked how they talked about the difference in arguing and reporting. This will help me when i conduct my interview and write about it. I will have to remember to still argue my position on the topic and not just report everything my interviewee has to say. In this chapter the authors also give a helpful idea. It states that when you are thinking of possible ways to respond to a research question that it is very helpful if you create a cluster map. This will organize all of your answers as well as link some of them together. This organization tool will really help my paper flow. When writing my final paper i need to remember to clearly display my thesis statement so the audience of my paper understands how i feel about my topic and what the topic will even be. I learned that a thesis written in argument form is known as an explicit thesis statement. I have never heard of a "qualifier" before and in the book it states that this term means, a word or phrase that "hedges" or limits the claim of your argument. I will have to remember to include these in my paper. Chapter nine also brings up the terms; ethos, pathos, and logos, which i remember from English 103 from last year. The book says that in your paper you should always offer evidence and i will be doing that in my paper by providing an interview from an expert on the matter. Chapter nine is going to help me out a lot in my final paper!

Chapter 10 is just as helpful to me. In this chapter the book talks about selecting evidence that will be convincing to the audience and relevant to the context. The books reminds you to always remember your audience for your argument. You need to know who you are talking to and who will be reading. Then you must find evidence that will correspond with your audiences interests as well. It says that you should always make sure that your evidence is in a correct timeline that makes sense to what you are saying. You don't want to chose an old piece of information from years prior when there is newer more accurate information out there. That will reduce your credibility and therefore reduce readers interest. Your evidence should also be relevant to the point you are trying to make. This chapter also tells you to chose your resources wisely and to always chose the most scholarly information you can find because it is easy to get false information on the internet. I actually enjoyed reading these chapters, i don't know if it is because i was just very bored, but either way it helped!