Fluent Essays

The definition of myth in the context of our research follows the second sense listed in OED: “A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. Also: something existing only in myth; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing” (“myth”). As we focus on cultural myths, we deal with the very fabric of our collective and individual perceptions and imaginations, something that has become part of our identity in various domains. This fact makes the task of identifying an “untrue belief” in our own value system—or of discovering a fictitious foundation under own feet—a true challenge, a real test of our courage and our responsibility to think critically, to swim against the mainstream, in our pursuit of truth. Can we afford not to question the status quo, not to rock the boat—but rather to flow with the stream like proverbial deadwood? Well, considering the direction of the stream over the last fifty years—and I imply the sharp acceleration of social inequality—our insouciance will finish us before they cry “Timber!”Please make sure that the paper (3,500 words) is formatted in MLA style, including a Works-Cited page. Save it as a pdf before submission.Research Paper Assignment (3500 words, final draft is due May 26)initial stepsAs mentioned in your syllabus, the curriculum requires that students produce a research-based argument that critically addresses one of the cultural myths associated with the United States.To start this assignment, read Heike Paul’s Introduction to his book The Myths That Made America (pp. 11-31) and briefly answer Study Questions 1, 2, 5-7 (p. 32). [10 points available]Browse the list of Works Cited (pp. 33-42) and see if any of the publications looks like a potential source to check for more details.Look at the Table of Contents (pp. 7-8) to decide which myth appeals to you most. Once you have two or three candidates, look at the Study Questions in the end of the corresponding chapter to have a closer view of the related issues; check the bibliography that follows—work titles often generate good ideas and set directions for research. See if the chosen chapter relates to the selections in our course reader.Browse the desired chapter and the works-cited list further to find a little niche for your input on the subject. Articulate your research question(s). [A research question is the one that requires research to be answered, so you are expected not to have a definite answer prior to conducting research.]Write down 2-3 candidates for your research question and post them on Canvas ASAP: I’ll advise you on whatever choice is the best to yield an effective paper, and you’ll focus on that. [As you decide on your research question, consider why your answering it could be important to your audience, why they should care about an answer. What possible problem or issue could your research address or resolve? -- 10 points available] managing_your_research_process.pdf myth_research__2_.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview MANAGING YOUR RESEARCH PROCESS Some useful strategies Considering Your Rhetorical Context Many skilled writers compose a text with their rhetorical context in mind, i.e. their rhetorical context informs their decisions about content, structure, and style. Commonly, rhetorical context includes the following factors: ▪ purpose ▪ audience ▪ genre Considering these factors, writers make their choices about content (where to focus, what to include and exclude); structure (what to say first, when to reveal the thesis, how to arrange the parts, how to format a document); and style (big words or ordinary words, complex or easy sentence structure, lots of jargon or no jargon, etc.) Based on a writer’s aim or purpose, rhetors identify eight rhetorical aims or purposes that writers typically set for themselves. The table will summarize these aims and prompt the connection between subject matter and audience in a given situation. Rhetorical Aim Focus and Features Express and Reflect Inquire and Explore Offerings to Readers Desired Response Examples Focus: writer’s own life and Shared emotional, experience intellectual experience Features: Literary techniques such as plot, character, setting, evocative language Readers can imagine and identify with writer’s experience. Success depends on writer’s ability to create scenes, dialogue, and commentary that engage readers. Nursing student reflects on her semester of Service Learning at a school for young children with developmental delays and disabilities. Focus: Puzzling problem seen through narration of writer’s thinking process Features: Delayed thesis or no thesis; examination of subject from multiple angles; writer’s thinking is foregrounded Readers will agree question or problem is significant, identify with writer’s thinking, and find new insights. Success depends on writer’s ability to engage readers with question or problem and the exploration process. Students in an honors seminar taught by a physicist and philosopher write papers that explore the question: “What makes study of the origins of the universe significant to daily life in the 21st century? Shared intellectual experience, new information, new perspectives Rhetorical Aim Focus and Features Offerings to Readers Desired Response Examples Inform and Explain Focus: Subject matter Features: Confident authoritative stance; typically states point and purpose early; strives for clarity; provides definitions and examples; uses convincing evidence without argument Significant, perhaps surprising, new information; presentation tailored to readers’ interest and presumed knowledge level Readers will grant writer credibility as expert, be satisfied with the information’s scope and accuracy. Success depends on writer’s ability to anticipate reader’s information needs and ability to understand. Economics intern is assigned to track 10 years of the rise and fall of mortgage interest rates and report on experts’ current explanations of the trends. Analyze and Interpret Focus: Phenomena that are difficult to understand or explain Features: Relatively tentative stance; thesis supported by evidence and reasoning New way of looking at the subject matter Readers will grant writer credibility as analyst and accept insights offered, or at least acknowledge value of approach. Success depends on writer’s ability to explain reasoning and connect it with phenomena analyzed. Literature student analyzes the role od Shakespeare’s works in the novel Brave New World with the goal of interpreting Huxley’s take on technological progress. Rhetorical Aim Focus and Features Offerings to Readers Desired Response Examples Persuasion: Take a Stand Focus: Question that divides a community Features: States firm position, provides clear reasons and evidence, connects with readers’ values and beliefs; engages with opposing views Reasons to make up or change their minds about the question at issue Readers will agree with writer’s position and reasoning. Success depends on writer’s ability to provide convincing support and to counter opposition without alienating readers. For his ethics class, an architecture student decides to write an argument in favor of placing certain buildings in her community on the historic preservation register, thus preserving them from demolition or radical remodeling. Persuasion: Evaluate and Judge Focus: Question about worth or value of a phenomenon Features: Organized around criteria for judgment and how phenomenon matches them Reasons to make up or change their minds about the focal question regarding worth or value Readers will accept writer’s view of the worth or value of the phenomenon. Success depends on writer’s ability to connect subject to criteria that readers accept. Political theory students are asked to evaluate and choose between the descriptions of an ideal ruler embodies in Plato’s philosopher king and Machiavelli’s prince. Rhetorical Aim Focus and Features Offerings to Readers Desired Response Examples Persuasion: Propose a solution Focus: Question about what action should be taken Features: States firm position, provides clear reasons and evidence, connects with readers’ values and beliefs; engages with opposing views A recommended course of action Readers will assent to proposed action and do as writer suggests. Success depends on readers’ agreement that a problem exists and/or that recommended action will have good results. A group of seniors majoring in social welfare writes a grant proposal to a community foundation interested in improving health education in a rural area. Persuasion: Seek common ground Focus: Multiple perspectives on a vexing problem Features: Lays out the values and goals of the various stakeholders so that others can find commonalities build on; does not advocate New perspectives and reduced intensity regarding difficult issues Readers will discover mutually with opponents; conflict perhaps not resolved; could lead to cooperative action. Success depends on readers’ discovery of mutual interests. An environmental studies student designs a thesis project to interview advocates and stakeholders who are divided over a proposal to remove a dam from a major river; her goal is to find and highlight points of agreement. Regarding “Desired Response”. . . By labeling the table’s fourth column “Desired Response,” we emphasize that a writer can only desire a certain response from a reader, but cannot force that response. The reader is in charge because it is the reader who decides whether to accede to the writer’s intentions or to resist them. Since writers try to persuade an intended audience to adopt their perspective, they select and arrange evidence, choose examples, include or omit material, and select words and images to support their perspective best. Yet it is readers who decide—sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately—whether the presentation is convincing. CONSIDER COGNITION The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise [person] ever acquired wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. ~ John Stuart Mill NEW UNDERSTANDINGS AND NEW KNOWLEDGE ARE FORGED ONLY TROUGH OUR PRODUCTIVE INTERACTION WITH THE THINKING AND WRITING OF OTHERS, INCLUDING—PERHAPS, ESPECIALLY— THOSE WITH WHOM WE DO NOT EXPECT TO AGREE. IN OTHER WORDS, FOR PRODUCTIVE RESEARCH AND WRITING, YOU SHOULD CONSIDER ▪ systematic and efficient techniques for finding reliable sources that are worth your reading energy, ▪ techniques that will still leave you plenty of time for thoughtful writing about the information and ideas that you uncover; ▪ procedures to clarify your purpose by formulating and analyzing the questions you will address; ▪ ways to find and select materials that will provide you with reliable and diverse perspectives on the questions and issues you investigate for the paper. Ana’s Assignment to Analyze Multiple Factors of Cultural Conditioning in the U.S. For this paper, you are to extend the conversation about social injustice by (1) analyzing (taking apart and examining) social conditioning, then (2) using synthesis (putting together) to share your understanding of the causes, effects, and other patterns that re-enforce inequality in the U.S. What realities make Huxley’s dystopic vision relevant today? Audience: People like your classmates and instructor who experience injustice but haven’t looked into it enough to see its hidden tributary causes. Purpose: Fill in our lack of understanding so that we can see what makes this issue difficult to address and think about possible solutions. Length: 3,500 words. Use MLA style. FORMULATING AND ANALYZING QUESTIONS WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? TO WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU WANT TO FIND ANSWERS IN YOUR RESEARCH? Think of research-based writing assignment this way: Your job is to conduct an inquiry, not to shop around for sources. Here’s a cautionary tale. Consider what went wrong when Ken treated a research assignment as a hunt for bargains instead of an inquiry. He was assigned to examine the potentially negative consequences of something that interested him. Ken had heard that Barbie dolls were being redesigned to have more natural proportions, so he thought Barbies would be an interesting “topic.” He skipped the assigned step of writing out a initial question because, as he wrote in a later reflection, he thought that since Barbie was in the news, it would be faster just to search a periodicals database and see “what there was to say.” Ken found so many articles that he felt overwhelmed, so he just chose the first three for which full text was available. This was not a good idea. Ken you believe it? The result was a piece of patch-writing—a patchwork of quotes and paraphrases from source materials stitched together by a few sentences of Ken’s own. But it didn’t make a point about anything nor reveal any conclusions that Ken had reached through his research. Patch-worked papers don’t make their own arguments. They just present ideas collected from sources until the page limit is met. Ken’s paper interspersed engaging descriptions of his own favorite Barbie among three long summaries of a feminist’s reflections about her childhood dolls, a psychological report about connections between gender stereotypes and eating disorders, and a commentary about the negative impact of Teen Talk Barbie’s dislike for math class. Not only was there nothing about the Barbie’s proposed new figure, his original topic, but there was no continuity from one summary to the other. Ken had not been working with a sense of purpose during his research reading, so his paper ended up not having a sense of purpose—and neither did his readers. INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS TO GUIDE YOUR RESEARCH The skills you need to write successful research papers include 1. The ability to determine what kind of information is needed and how much 2. The ability to access the information efficiently 3. The ability to evaluate the information and its sources critically 4. The ability to use the information effectively for a specific purpose 5. The ability to access and use the information ethically and legally in light of the economic, social, and legal issues about information use and sources These five skills provide a map of research activities that will lead to successful college papers. Notice that the definition of information literacy begins not with retrieving information, or even searching for it, but with careful consideration of what information is needed to accomplish your purposes. In other words, writers who are information literate and thus already inclined to be successful are writers who undertake their actual research with more in mind than a generalized “topic.” They begin with a carefully worked-out question and a set of expectations about how they will recognize relevant, valuable answers. You need to do the same. It is likely that as your research progresses you will probably revise your original question, narrowing or broadening it as you catch the drift of the ongoing conversation about it. (Many researchers find that they must narrow their initial questions significantly just to make their project feasible for the amount of time available and the number of pages allotted for an assignment.) Eventually, your modified question will become part of your paper’s introduction. Combined with the answers you find, it will lead into your thesis statement to signal your paper’s purpose to readers. Still, you need the question first. How else will you recognize good answers? TRANSLATING PURPOSE INTO A FOCUSED RESEARCH QUESTION RECALLING RHETORICAL READING EXPERIENCE TO APPLY ITS CONCEPTS TO RESEARCH-BASED WRITING Exigence: translating purpose into a focused research question Recall your weighing your purpose as a reader against a given author’s purpose for writing. Authors seek to change your way of thinking somehow, and you the reader decide how much your thinking will change. Recall that authors write within rhetorical contexts; i.e., they are writing to an audience, according to conventions of a particular genre, for the purpose of changing readers’ thinking in a way that will remedy some flaw the writer perceives in current thinking about the subject matter. The same dynamics apply when you are a writer undertaking a research-based writing project. In an academic setting, you are to write for an instructor according to the conventions of that discipline. But beyond the need to satisfy this assignment, your real purpose, the question you seek to answer in your paper, is yours to determine. Your need for an answer is where your paper begins. That need for an answer is called exigence, the rhetorical term for a flaw or gap in knowledge that your efforts at research and writing will seek to remedy. In the jargon of our service economy, your professors will expect you to pose questions and provide not only answers but “value-added” content that demonstrates your own thinking about the question you research. THE VALUE YOU ADD COMES FROM THE ANALYSIS, ORGANIZATION, AND SENSE THAT YOU MAKE OUT OF A DISCONNECTED ARRAY OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION, AND FROM YOUR ABILITY TO HELP YOUR READERS DO THE SAME. ANALYZING YOUR QUESTION TO PLAN A STRATEGY QA: A start-up routine for a research project The multilayered process of researching, reading, and writing involves rhetorical reading at its most challenging. A systematic means of meeting this challenge by combining and applying analytical, listening, and questioning strategies comes from a technique called QUESTION ANALYSIS (QA), which offers a series of analytical prompts as a start-up routine for a research project. These prompts will not only help you recognize what you already know about possible answers to your research question, but will also suggest in advance what you need to “listen” for when you begin examining sources. The QA process of freewriting in response to these prompts will enable you (1) to make a preliminary map of the terrain you need to cover in your search for relevant source materials, and (2) to consider in advance what kinds of sources are going to be most useful for you to retrieve, read, and eventually integrate in your paper. The QA process takes you out of a passive role (waiting to see what you can find) and puts you in charge of your research. QA will help you read more powerfully and thus prepare you well for joining the multivoiced conversation about your subject matter. By helping to focus your sense of purpose, the QA process will enable you to choose powerful sources efficiently. Whatever your purpose, if you clarify it for yourself in advance, you will greatly reduce the risk of losing sight of it once you drive into the research process. In fact, students who use QA for the first time are often surprised to discover how much they already know about where they are likely to find relevant sources and what issues these sources will raise. Freewrite on the questions that follow BEFORE you begin searching for sources Questions to Ask Details to Follow Up 1. What question do you plan to investigate—and hope to answer—in this paper? Avoid questions with obvious or simple answers. 2. What makes this question worth pursuing—to you and to others? What benefits will come from answering the question, or from discovering why it is so difficult to answer? 3. What kind of expert would be able to provide good answers or the current best thinking about possible answers? Perhaps a physician? Wildlife biologist? Water resource engineer? Journalist who has reported extensively on the subject? 4. Where do you expect to find particularly good information about the matter? General-interest publications? Specialized publications? Are you aware of a specific source with relevant material? 5. How recent must materials be to be relevant? What factors might make information outdated? Defining a particular timeframe will help you search more efficiently. You may need information recorded before or after a particular event, such as an election or announcement of important medical findings. For situations that change rapidly, even a few months could make a difference. 6. What individuals or interested groups have a major stake in answering your question in a particular way? For example, players’ unions and sports team owners look at salary caps from different perspectives, lumber companies and environmental activists evaluate the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act differently. 7. What kinds of bias do you need to be especially alert for on this particular question? Bias of some kind is unavoidable, so it’s important to recognize how it is operating in your sources so that you can compensate by consulting additional sources. 8. What words or phrases might be useful for some initial searching? Different library databases often favor different search terms, so be prepared to consult with a librarian if you are not finding what you expect. Frame of Reference for Your Research Project The definition of myth in the context of our research follows the second sense listed in OED: “A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. Also: something existing only in myth; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing” (“myth”). As we focus on cultural myths, we deal with the very fabric of our collective and individual perceptions and imaginations, something that has become part of our identity in various domains. This fact makes the task of identifying an “untrue belief” in our own value system—or of discovering a fictitious foundation under own feet—a true challenge, a real test of our courage and our responsibility to think critically, to swim against the mainstream, in our pursuit of truth. Can we afford not to question the status quo, not to rock the boat—but rather to flow with the stream like proverbial deadwood? Well, considering the direction of the stream over the last fifty years—and I imply the sharp acceleration of social inequality—our insouciance will finish us before they cry “Timber!” The investigative work of Paul L. Williams is a great example of such courage. In the opening pages of his exposé of The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia, Williams disclaims: I know what you’re thinking. The author of this book must be a Baptist. It’s a common assumption. Most Welsh people are Bapti ... Purchase answer to see full attachment