Introduction to Researching and Making Claims
Summary: Research has the power to change us. It can expose us to new thoughts and feelings about the world around us. The more we research the better our understanding and increases our ability to feel passionate about something. Research comes in all forms, whether formal or informal but, research provides credibility for our claims, and with credibility comes ethos. Without ethos, a person may not have a valid reason to be believed.
The most interesting sentence in the piece, in my opinion, was “Many students were unable to discern whether something posted on social media was simply popular or whether it actually was true.” This is a prevalent issue nowadays with the many platforms for social media and the accessibility of it by millions of people. It raises concern because the population is being misinformed/misguided by biased media.
The Research Process
Summary: Research refers to the process of wanting to know more. Forming a research question means pausing briefly and looking at the world around us. Research aims to defamiliarize things and to see them from a whole new perspective. If we only look for what we already know then we don’t learn or grow from it. Research isn’t so much a collection of facts that prove your case but rather a type of exploration. Instead of finding a pre-existing truth, it looks to test out different ideas and hypotheses that could provide us with fresh ways of understanding the world.
The most interesting sentence in the piece, in my opinion, was “A problem from everyday life can produce a line of inquiry that leads you toward all sorts of other questions.” Everyday events can seem normal at first, but under the microscope, you can uncover a lot of unusual things about it. The potential for research lies dormant in the things we least expect.