Klein page 22

Summary:

In Michael Klein's, "What is it we do when we write articles like this one-", he presents a conflict in how students write research papers. He claims that they do not "research" but merely copy text from a book to their paper and site the text, yet learn nothing. This is disheartening to Klein who then conducts an experiment with eight colleagues to determine how they conduct research themselves. He discovers that each acedemic group has their own style and react differently, but all begin writing because of something they heard, read, questioned, or became interested in. He concludes that everyone writes "both to learn and to share their knowledge" (page 32 paragraph 29).

Synthesis:

Klein in "What is it..." presents that students do not research to learn but rather to complete quotas on assignments. He encourages educators to revise and better instruct how students should be taught to research for knowledge and retension. He suggests that by teaching a better way to research would teach students how to have a better foundation for their works.

Questions:

1.) Klein describes how all students, both highschool and college, do not know how to properly do research for research papers. Which I agree is true. Students are given a vague topic to write about, told to make a more specific topic, then find data, information, quotes, and other pieces to support their arguement*. Students, my self included, then put minimal effort into searching for supportive texts, using keywords to support and using quotes out of context to fake a supporting arguement. By not knowing how to properly hunt for and gather information students do not write to prove their point, only to complete an assignment.

3.) Klein makes many references to how much the professionals research and also how they conduct it. ex a: scientist used "procedure, methodology, and data gathering".  ex b: historians used "Audience, purpose, establishing authority, and dimension" (pg 28 paragraph 19). I would say that I used methodology. I would research the way I was instructed or guided by a handout. Having an exact number of sites to need, or a certain number of direct quotes, paraphrases, and summaries.

4.) I plan to begin researching the way Klein supports. He poses a good point when stating that "research first, and only then beginning to write" and also "rely more on what I did, than what I read" (page 31 paragraph 28). How can you know what to write about or where to enter the conversation, if you do not first find your niche? By researching more, you better understand your topic and can better mold it to support itself and have weight for others to branch off of it.

Thoughts and Conclusion:

I was very much informed that not only my high school, but whole acedemic career was misinstructed for how to research. Klein explains that no matter how much you write about a topic, you will never truly understand it until you research it. "Research, leads to understanding, the purpose of writing is, to clearly communicate the results of that research" (page 28 paragraph 20).