Transcript Academic Writing

Research Overview
Following the Billy Trail
Remember recursive?
1 Plan
2 Draft
3 Revise
4 Polish
Research is recursive too.
1 Plan
2 Draft
3 Revise
4 Polish
Research can be Billy trail
Let yourself explore
“[Writing] is an act of discovery.
If I knew everything …beforehand
I would be bored sick and never keep
writing.” –Natalie Goldberg
Let yourself explore
Name
Distraction
Goal
Contradiction
Initial topic idea
CSI effect?
New angle
Serendipity is your friend
Goal
world’s leading authority
Paper: You + Sources
A research paper is a record of
intelligent reading in several
sources on a particular subject.
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Which is best?
Is this really true?
Can these ideas be combined?
What’s the latest?
How can you tell the difference?
Why do things
happen this way?
How could things
be made better?
Why read what they know?
You’ll be up-to-date.
“Ninety percent of what we know about Alzheimer’s
has been discovered in the last 15 years.”
(A. Riesenberg, as cited in “Health Questions,” 2007)
You’ll see the whole picture.
“An estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or
bulimia are male.”
(National Institutes of Mental Health, 2007)
“In certain overachieving circles, breast-feeding…is the
ultimate badge of responsible parenting. Yet the actual
health benefits of breast feeding are…far thinner than
the popular literature indicates.”
(Rosin, 2009)
You may be surprised.
Nicotine hit could slow recovery from PTSD
Reaching for a cigarette to cope with a flashback is all
too common among sufferers of post-traumatic stress
disorder. The nicotine hit may feel good but scientists
say its brain action probably makes their PTSD worse
in the long run (“Nicotine,” 2009).
You’ll find new connections.
The surprise is not merely that sleep matters but how
much it matters… to phenomena that we assumed to be
entirely unrelated such as the international obesity
epidemic and the rise of ADHD. A few scientists
theorize that sleep problems during formative years can
cause permanent changes in a child’s brain
structure….It’s even possible that many of the hallmark
characteristics of being a tweener and teen—
moodiness, depression, and even binge eating— are
actually just symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.
(Bronson, 2007)
You may find new insights.
How is violence like a virus?
As CeaseFire evolved, Slutkin says he started to
realize how much it was drawing on his
experiences fighting TB and AIDS. “….Treatment of
the most infectious spreaders is the most effective
strategy known and now accepted in the world.”
…In the case of violence, you use those who were
once hard-core, once the most belligerent, once the
most uncontrollable, once the angriest.
You might find a solution
Surgery checklist found to save lives
Scrawl on the patient with a permanent marker to
show where the surgeon should cut…. Count
sponges….
Doctors worldwide who followed a checklist of
[19] steps like these cut the death rate from surgery
almost in half and complications by more than a third.
…[Implementing] the longer checklist in all U.S.
operating rooms would save at least $15 billion a
year.
You might debunk a myth.
What “everybody knows” may not be true.
Reboot your brain with a caffeine nap
1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The
caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal
tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.
2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze,
you'll get what's known as effective microsleep, or
momentary lapses of wakefulness.
3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes [to avoid] sleep
inertia…The brain's prefrontal cortex…can take 30
minutes to reboot.
Your view may be challenged.
Does Prison Harden Inmates?
Chen and Shapiro’s 2003 findings “cast grave doubt on
at least one model of deterrence, which holds that a
few years of grim prison conditions will spook criminals
back onto the straight and narrow. Whatever the
deterrent effects of hard prison conditions, the authors
conclude, they may often be outweighted by the
increased criminal propensities of the prisoners subject
to them” (p. 33).
You’ll be credible.
“Lancaster, England,…is arguably the capital of
survivor studies. This is where John Leach teaches
and writes papers cited in almost every important study
of survival” (Sherwood, 2009, p. 45).
Why read what they know?
Some drink deeply
from the river of
knowledge. Others
only gargle.
—Woody Allen
What’s out there?
How do you find experts?
They cite objective evidence or expert opinion.
I am the mother of five children,
so I am aware of the importance
of watching what my children do
online.
Youth who engaged in four or
more risky online behaviors were
much more likely to report
receiving online sexual
solicitations. The online risky
behaviors included
maintaining buddy lists that included
strangers
 discussing sex online with people
they did not know in person
 being rude or nasty online
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“Internet Predator Stereotypes
Debunked in New Study,” 2008
[APA press release]
Experts cite sources.
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Check out www.cosmeticscop.com
What are her sources?
Two ingredients almost universally
added to cosmetics, fragrance and
preservatives are often thought to be
the major culprits when our skin has an
allergic or sensitizing reaction to a
cosmetic (Source: Contact Dermatitis,
June 1999, pages 310–315).
They are cited as sources.
Experts have a reputation.
They are described as
experts
• pioneers
• founder of the field of….
•
“Dr. Piers Steel is probably the world’s
foremost expert on the subject of
putting off until tomorrow what should
be done today” (“We’re,” 2007).
Sam Gosling is an author and
associate professor of psychology at
the University of Texas at Austin. He is
a nationally regarded researcher and
innovator in the field of personality
and social psychology.
They are Alpha roosters.
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Professional literature
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Respected sources
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Harvard Business Review
National Institutes of Health
Expert opinion
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Peer-reviewed journals
Professional associations
Professional training
Reputation
Groopman
How Doctors Think (2007)
Seminal thinkers
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H. Gardner—multiple intelligences
M. Seligman—happiness, learned helplessness
J. M. Burns—leadership
Gosling—animal psychology
Where are the experts?
They are searchable.
They are searchable.
Find keywords.
Use keywords.
Keyword(s)
Results
autism:
3,100,000
+ research: 1,800,000
+ causes:
486,000
+ genetic: 180,000
+ mirror:
35,100
+”mirror
6,800
neurons:
- mercury
4,910
They are searchable.
They are in scholarly sources.
EBSCO
• Google Scholar
• FindArticles.com
• omnimedicalsearch.com (MedPro tab)
• Infomine
•
scholar.google.com
Findarticles.com
Can you trust this source?
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Correct
Current
Credible
Complete
Critical
Tips for correct sources
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Cross-check
Benson is frequently cited by tax protesters, and many people have
been fined or convicted for relying on his claims. See, for example,
United States v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107
S.Ct. 187 (1986). More recently, Charles E. Hughes, of Dansville,
Michigan, who had purchased Benson's "16th Amendment Defense
Reliance Package," was convicted of four counts of tax evasion and
sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Tips for current sources
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Search by date range
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In EBSCO, use limiters
On web, use whonu.com
Tips for complete/critical
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Look for evidence of bias
Skimming for 5Cs
results for “stem cell research” from clusty.com
Components of URL
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/statement/index.html
HOST
PATH
DOCUMENT
Skimming for 5Cs
results for “stem cell research” from google.com
What about Wikipedia?
Wiki: a page or collection of Web pages
designed to enable anyone who accesses
it to contribute or modify content
What about Wikipedia?
Not credible enough for middle schoolers
"What's more disconcerting is that Anderson was
relying so heavily on Wikipedia for his information
in the first place; even middle-school book-reports
shouldn't be crafted with ancillary information from
that site. Confoundingly, many of the passages that appear
lifted were readily-available definitions of terms that would
appear in more credible reference books like the Oxford
English Dictionary.”
What about Wikipedia?
Credibility is being tightened
Can I use Wikipedia?
Directly: no
Indirectly: yes
• Overview
• References
• External links
Follow external links
ADHD
Get close to original
Check related topics
Look for connections
Capture sources
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Save a search
(print or email link)
Write down search terms that work
(e.g., revolving door > recidivism)
Print just first page of website so you’ll
have URL
Create personal online archive with tools
like Furl or Zotero
Keep digging
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Try different search terms
Add keywords (e.g., statistics or .gov)
Use more than one search engine
Ask Andy for sources not available locally
Talk to people with expertise
Take advantage of advanced search features
(e.g., spears NOT britney)
Add intitle to a Google search to restrict your
search to Web page titles (e.g., intitle:"obesity
epidemic")
Kuhlthau’s Model of Research
Stage
Initiation
Selection
Exploration
Formulation
Collection
Presentation
Task
what do I do?
what’s my topic?
what’s out there?
what do I think?
what will I use?
how will I share
what I learn?
Feelings
uncertainty
optimism
confusion
clarity
confidence
satisfaction
(or not)
Why research?
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Armed with Google, PDFs of manuals, and selfreliance, force yourself to learn how to figure out
just about anything on your own. There are no
office hours, no teaching assistants, and study
groups in the real world. Actually, the real world is
one long, often lonely independent study, so get
with it.
—Guy Kawasaki
How to Change the World
Have fun on the Billy trail
Scholarly vs. popular
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Written for experts
by experts
Detailed
Images tend to be
diagrams or pictures
directly related to
topic; no fluff
Most credible are
peer-reviewed
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Written for people
with no special
knowledge
General
Lots of pictures
Often don’t even
give full details
about source