Research is Good
As part of our assignments for the upcoming rhetorical analysis
essay we were to research one item and double check it ourselves. The idea is
to learn a little more about the topic’s validity and to see if the essay’s
author has a valid thesis. I haven’t done much honest to goodness research for
a paper since high school.
The first thing I did was taking into serious consideration
what out text books told us about researching a topic. One of the prominent
points, do not trust everything you read on the internet. Some people I know
do. You have to evaluate the site you are visiting for accuracy and credibility.
I for instance used the USA Today newspaper. While some things are opinionated
and not truthful in newspapers, such as opinion columns, most of the articles
are solid. Newspapers have a large staff of researchers and editors’ working to
make sure information is accurate. Then once you find the item you are looking
for you have to analyze it to see if it does the job for you.
In my case I got lucky and didn't have to go very far. My article
confirmed everything the author was saying and even gave me some extra examples
the author did not state. Just be careful where you search or you may
completely blow it!
Hi Jason, Your points about having to evaluate what you are using are spot on. The difference between Googling something and using the Kent library is that the library has already verified the information for an academic audience. It is always nice to have positive feedback about what we are researching and the fact that you found that on-line plus some is a good deal. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteJason, I'm glad you had the experience of corroborating your source's information and even extending your knowledge of the topic with additional information not listed in the original source.
ReplyDeleteJason, I found it interesting what you said about newspapers. I thought everything you said was correct. Last year I had was in a current event class in my high school. We studied the difference between a news story that was posted on FOX and the same story posted on CNN. Even though a lot of the facts were the same, there were parts that were quite different. I think it is very important to check facts with more than once source just to make sure the facts are straight.
ReplyDelete