The Bedford Researcher Chapter 8: Summary and Discussion

Chapter eight focuses on learning how to collect information. Palmquist reviews ways to search for sources on digital databases and tips on how to narrow a search using key words or phrases. The internet can be a tangled web of information and learning how to navigate it takes practice. Palmquist has the writer refer to the original research question and chops it into segments that can be researched individually. He notes that synonyms for certain words can either broaden or narrow a search and learning how to include or exclude certain phrases while performing an advanced search is useful.The chapter reviews keywords, phrases, and wildcards, as well a commonly used Boolean operators.

I took a lot away from this chapter and was able to apply it to my ongoing research. The table on page 152 was seemingly redundant at first, but after going over each prompt in my head when performing a new search, I was able to narrow things down and find a lot of useful sources. If I had to critique my list of sources at all, I’d say that they mostly all fall into the genre of scholarly articles. I didn't necessarily think it was a bad thing but in order to balance my paper out, I decided that I needed to broaden the genre a bit. In doing so, I've found some really useful periodicals that I've included in my working bibliography. 

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 5: Summary and Discussion

Chapter five of The Bedford Researcher covers source evaluations and ways to utilize a source based on the evaluation. When we examine a source, we review evidence, author, publisher, timeliness, genre and comprehensiveness. Page 88 has a useful table that includes questions regarding source evaluation. The way we assess one source may be very different from how we analyze the information in other sources. Classification of genre, for example, helps us categorize how to use our information accordingly. A working bibliography with a variety of sources will ultimately allow a writer to narrow things down and focus on pertinent information useful to arguing for the position statement.

We have been covering source evaluation in class over the last week and a half and chapter five was complementary to those lectures. The questions in the table on page 88 allow a writer to conduct a source evaluation in a organized fashion and establish whether a source will be useful and, if so, how to utilize the source in the paper. I didn't think chapter 5 brought anything new to the table, given that we've been reviewing evaluation steps in class and conducting source evaluations for the last three class periods. The chapter did crystallize all those steps into a sequence, though, which may reinforce the methodology we should practice when handling potential sources.  

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 6: Summary and Discussion

Palmquist discusses information management and sources in chapter six of The Bedford Researcher.  Chapter four dealt with the subject of sources but chapter six goes into more detail about how to manage sources, notes, and citations. Palmquist provides tips on how to save and organize information for later access, as well as time saving recommendations: bookmarking web pages, recording dates on hard copies of articles, including citations on printed materials, etc. Email is also a great way to keep track of source locations. The text reviews note-taking in further detail and underscores the importance of sticking to one type of note-taking method.

This chapter was really useful and complements this week's lecture nicely. I do not normally take separate notes on the side while reading an article but, after having moved my comments from the article margins to notebook paper, I've found that it allows me to have a much more organized format where I can scan the highlights quickly. I've also found that summarizing the main points of a given source on separate notebook paper is really helpful. My writing topic references a lot of specific U.S. Supreme Court rulings so I have used Wikipedia as a starting point for many of the cases and recorded the summary of the court findings in my notes. While reading through some of the scholarly articles that may be useful to me, I've found that a couple of them are a little dense and discuss details of other rulings at length. My strategy has been to read my notes on the cases cited in a given article, review one or two periodicals about those particular cases, and then approach the scholarly article with a better understanding of the issue. 

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 4: Summary and Discussion

The fourth chapter in The Bedford Researcher covers critical reading tips, source evaluation techniques, and general information on how to gather and approach potential sources. The transition thus far has been to start with a topic and create a research question. In this chapter, we move on to framing or re-framing a research question using sources so that eventually we can create a position statement. This is an important step and one that lays the foundation for the reader; if there isn’t enough information on the topic or the perspective is skewed and doesn't introduce differing views that can be argued against, the reader will be less inclined to agree with the position statement.

This chapter was very helpful for me because the content was a little more tangible compared to chapter two. I was given concrete examples of ways to gather sources, review them, summarize and note-take, and process that information in a way that will strengthen my paper. I have experience with active reading and how to mine a good source for other potential useful sources so that section was review for me. I did, however, like the part of the chapter where Palmquist reviews the connections that are drawn between sources. In the past, most of my sources have come from peer reviewed journals, which are great and extremely informative. There may be value in other types of sources, though, and this chapter helped me broaden my search criteria for my paper. 

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 2: Summary and Discussion

The second chapter in The Bedford Researcher reviews writing topic exploration. As we begin to explore different topics for a writing project, discussing a topic of interest and gathering preliminary observations are important ways to gather feedback. These steps help the writer narrow the research question and begin to delve into gathering sources. There are many different kinds of sources available and finding good information sources that are appropriate to the topic is important. As sources are reviewed, the writing project moves from identifying a topic to examining an issue within that topic, to arriving at a research question.

This section of the textbook covered a lot of great information regarding topic exploration. The contents of the chapter, however, weren't as helpful to me as chapters one and four because I have chosen a topic that I already know a little bit about. The conversations that I've had with people about my chosen writing project topic before taking this class fueled my desire to learn more about the topic, do more research, re-frame my position if necessary, and write a paper on a topic that is very relevant to the current state of politics. I didn't take as much away from this chapter but there were still one or two ideas that I feel would be useful for navigating databases.

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 1: Summary and Discussion

The first chapter in The Bedford Researcher provides a great outline of each step of the writing process and useful tips on how to format a writing project based on the target audience. The chapter discusses how to begin a writing project, covering everything from selecting a topic to refining that topic using freewriting, looping and clustering tools. Palmquist provides tips on how to develop a position and convey the main point once the research question has been identified. A sample research project timeline is included in the chapter as well as points on how to effectively manage time.

The first chapter of the text relates to the current topics of lecture this week. We have been reviewing the first step of the writing process: how to select a topic. The text included links to samples of featured writers; the variety of the writing project topics opened my mind to many ideas. I have a lot of topics that I’d like to write about and narrowing it down has been challenging. The syllabi guidelines for the research paper helped me focus on what topic would enable to meet the bibliography requirements. I changed my approach so that I would be able to find relevant peer reviewed articles of 8 pages or more on my topic with greater ease.