Google search

Take a look at this presentation of how to search using Google:

The Research paper

Go to the Purdue OWL and read through their links with regard to the research paper. Post your comment to this blog post.

Revising the 2Synthesis paper

In what follows, I explain the connection between the three papers in the course: the 1Report, 2Synthesis, and the 3Research paper. Then I give an example of the synthesis process you should use when writing the 2Syn paper. Finally, I talk about the 2Syn first draft, suggest an organizational pattern for the paper, and give ways to revise and edit your paper for the final draft.

The 2Synthesis paper is a necessary link between the 1Report assignment where you investigated a primary document to arrive at a sense of what the conversation about that topic starting more than 100 years ago--an arbitrary point, to be sure, but a point where our modern world was just appearing. You could see us from there, so to speak. With the 2Syn paper you are attempting to formulate a topic for the 3Research paper which we will start next.

The 2Syn paper is a process paper of sorts. You are asked to take a more modern document in the same topic conversation and read it in terms of the primary document you started with in the 1Report assignment.

A simple way to look at the process of synthesis is to take an idea that both documents are talking about and come up with a third, forth, fifth idea based on those two versions of the idea. I say versions because even though the two documents talk about money and sports, diet, racial discrimination, the nature of serial killing and so forth, they are talking about it in very different ways. You must let these different ways of talking about your topic spark new ideas that you will acknowledge in the 2Syn paper and then take as your research topic in the 3Research paper. Let me give you an example of the synthesis process.

“The challenge is to synthesize information from your research to develop [new] ideas about your topic and then to support those ideas.” –from Synthesizing Ideas

Basic synthesis formula: In the new document, the author discusses X, while the old document also explains X but somewhat differently. When these two versions of X are set side-by-side, I infer from them that . . . [add your new idea here--the product of synthesizing X as it appears in the old and new documents].

Ex. 1:

The comparison: The transcript of the Joe Jackson trial reveals the way money can corrupt sports figures and the game of baseball in general. Here is an example of what I mean. Jackson says: “ . . . . “ The Lewis document about Billy Bean and the A’s also illustrates the power of money when it comes to sports. Lewis illustrates this more prominently, when he explains that Bean “ . . . . “ The difference is that Bean found a legitimate way to work with very little money in an attempt to achieve the same results that more wealthy teams had when it came to hiring and keeping good players. The Black Sox players simply tried to cheat their way to success—success measured in wealth.

The synthesis: These two examples of the influence of money on sports shows how the game of baseball suffers from the tendency by owners and coaches (and some players) to fixate on the money instead of on the pleasure and passion of the players and the fans [synthesis thesis]. In the end, there might not be any way around the power money has to influence sports since no one is going to play at the major-league level for free and the fans want the best team money can buy because they know that’s the only way to win.

Organizing pattern for the 2Syn paper:

1. Introduce the synthesis topic (what the paper is about i.e., How the two documents go together).
2. Give a short summary of the two documents.
3. Provide a forecast of the paper - say what ideas the writer will be working with.
4. State the thesis concerning the ideas under synthesize.
5. Work out each of the ideas in the synthesize (in separate paragraphs) in accordance with the thesis while giving support for the argument by quoting from each of the documents.
6. Write a conclusion that restates the thesis in a different way that indicates what the writer has learned by writing the paper.

Revision

• The paper needs to be about the ideas contained in the documents and not simply about the topic or the writers.
• The synthesis thesis must reflect the process—how comparison and contrast of ideas lead to other ideas. In other words, what new knowledge becomes available when reading the two documents together? What new insights occur for you?
• The ideas you want to use from the documents need to be supported with quotes from the documents (see the synthesis process example above).

Beginnings: Here is an example of how you might begin your essay

• Start: Race has been a contentious factor for as long as the US has been a country and even before. . . . In order to begin to understand what Race means in the US, this paper wishes to present/study/interrogate/analyze some of the ideas on Race found in two very different documents: X and Y.
• [A short summary of each document follows.]
• Forecast: It is our hope that studying these documents will lead to new ideas about the way we view Race in this country. But first we have to see what the documents under review say. The ideas the paper will consider include X, Y and Z. These ideas will be pulled from each document and looked at for their similarities and differences. The result of this process will be new ideas, such as . . . that will then be explored and evaluated. [Note: This paragraph should be written as one of the last things you do in the paper because you can’t forecast something that you haven’t already written.]

Editing:

A sheet on integrating sources into your paper: Integrating sources

Always (in MLA format) refer to what the document says in the present tense. In other words, “the new document says X.” However, if you refer to the writer of the document, then you put it in past tense: “Ida B. Wells explained X to her readers.”

Magazines and books are italicized. Articles are put in quotation marks.

Don’t put ellipsis [. . .] at the beginning or end of a quotation. Use an ellipsis to indicate what has been removed from inside the quotation.

Peer Review Sheet for the 2Syn Paper

Peer Review for the 2Syn paper

When you look at your group member’s paper consider these Higher Order Concerns (HOCs)

Thesis or focus:

• Does the paper have a central thesis?

Audience and purpose:

• Does the paper have an appropriate audience in mind? Can you describe them?
• Does the paper have a clear purpose for the paper? What is it intended to do or accomplish?
• Why would someone want to read this paper?

Organization:

• Does the paper progress in an organized, logical way?
• At the end of each paragraph, can you forecast where the paper is headed? If the paper goes in a direction other than the one forecasted by the reader, is there a good reason, or do the paragraphs need to be re-written? Give some suggestions.

Development:

• Are there places in the paper where more details, examples, or specifics are needed?
• Do any paragraphs seem much shorter and in need of more material than others?

Adapted from the Purdue OWL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/690/01/

First step in writing the 2Syn paper

Today I would like to expand on the notes I put in the assignment sheet for the 2Synthesis paper in regard to organizing the paper. Here is the first step (see the 2Syn Assignment).

Start the paper off . . .

1) by providing a summary of the new document in terms of the ideas you have already generated from reading the old document,

Notes and an example: Look to the old document first and to the mindmap that you are creating for this assignment. Ask yourself what the four or five most important ideas are that you have found while comparing the old document with the new. Take the Race topic and the idea of nonviolence in both word and deed as an example. [Note: This idea was only reach after 1) the comparison between the two topics was made which indicates that the you will need to do the comparison first, then 2) come up with the idea, and finally, 3) revise the comparison to conform to the idea you arrived at after the first step.]

Ida Wells writes at the end of the 19th c about the scourge of lynching in the South. The first idea that comes to mind is racial violence--the violence one race perpetrates on another because they consider the other race, in this case Blacks, as Other. They have rationalized that if Blacks are hurt or killed, it doesn't matter because they are not part of our community; they are not citizens like we are: they are below us in every way.

Wells on the other hand, writes with the full consciousness of someone who considers Blacks as having all the human rights of other residents of the South. She writes in a way that is lucid, objective, and straight forward. It is important to think about the way she writes because that has a lot to do with why she was not banned or harassed by Whites and why she was seemingly accepted by Blacks who read her writing. She is entirely reasonable while what she writes about is entirely out of the pale of human behavior. She convinces her readers by her calm and objective reporting that what she says is true and what she describes is horrific. [Note: A study of the reception of Wells’s rhetoric would be an appropriate topic for the 3Research Project.]

These are just a few of the ideas--Blacks as Other and Wells's rhetoric--that you now have to think in terms of the new document. In the early 1960s Blacks were still considered Other because . . . ? And here you would try to give us the ways they were still not looked up as equal with Whites in the South. Not only are they not equal but there is still the vestiges of the hatred you saw in Wells. Give those examples from the new document. And as far as a connection to Wells's rhetoric what about the aspect of non-violence that is apparent in the Freedom Riders? This idea connects to the way Wells writes: the way she does not offer violence for violence, hatred for hatred, but instead presents a reasoned voice that appears above the angry emotions of the time yet zeros in on the violent behavior of Whites. She doesn't accuse all Whites but instead gives example after example of what actually happened, thus putting individual names and faces to the crimes. [Note: You must give support from the documents for these assertions]

In the new document, you can see that the Freedom Riders use of non-violence has the same effect as Wells’s writing but this time it’s not just one person confronting the crimes against Blacks but many, many people and instead of just writing about these crimes, they have gone in and done something about them. In the mode of Wells, they don't react to violence with violence but offer their bodies instead as a way to force white people to consider them as equal.

This moderate, reasoned reaction to violence by the Freedom Riders has its roots so to speak in Wells's approach to lynching. She writes provocatively about what actually happens, daring those who read her to oppose her, but they can't because there is nothing but facts there to support her views. The Freedom Riders also are taken seriously after a while because they present an objective and non-confrontational aspect to the violence and discrimination they see.

The differences (and here comes the synthesis) between Wells and the Freedom Riders has to do with Wells writing to a primarily Black audience that at least initially was like "preaching to the choir". They knew what was happening but what is not fully known is how her pamphlets were read by concerned Whites of the time. It is clear, however, that she did not and could not put her own life at risk for this cause as the Freedom Riders did in the 1960s. It is logical to assume that if Wells was present at a lynching and protested what was going on, she probably would have been lynched also. At the time Wells was writing, there were none of the most elemental safe guards for Blacks from those who would harm them. They only survived by being submissive.

By the 1960s this need for Blacks to be submissive had waned primarily because there were many more Blacks inside and outside the South who had a certain power that protected them. They were still confronted by the Jim Crow laws but many had risen to middle-class status. But they wanted more. The slow reforms of previous decades were not enough. They wanted freedom. This was much different from what Blacks wanted in the 1890s. At that time they wanted not to be killed while Blacks in the 1960s wanted merely to be able to sit with Whites at the same lunch counter. The approaches to these wants were different but not dissimilar. Both reactions where predicated on confronting evil and hatred with reason and dignity instead of reacting to it with violence.

More on the #1Report paper

The #1Report paper must start with a primary source. This document is a window onto the soul of the era when it was written. It is like a relic or a fossil that an anthropologist finds or a clue at a crime scene that a police investigator has uncovered. The first priority is to read the document and to discover what it means or at least try. Like any in-context piece of information it was directed for a particular audience that is not you, 21c first-year students. It was written more than a hundred years ago so you can imagine that those reading the document then had information that allowed them to understand the document that present day readers like yourself do not have. So it is difficult to read for us. But we can start to read it and find what seems logical and coherent in it and describe it to our readers in a partial sort of way. For those things that are understandable because of the knowledge we have of the era and topic we can write about with ease, but the ideas and events in the document that are not known to us we by necessity have to start with questions.

The paper should start with a summary of what the student writer knows about what he/she has found in the document. First, you might speculate as to the answers to particular questions you don’t have immediate answers for. Then you will want to start doing research and pulling up sources that help you answer these questions. The paper should start with a summary of what the student writer knows about what he/she has found in the document. Along with what you know you know about the document you should start to ask questions about what you don't know. These questions should hang on ideas posed in the document that revolve around the topic conversation.

In other words, if the topic is health, then the document presents ideas about health that the people of the era thought about and struggled with. The approach to these ideas might not be presented in language that we can understand. Therefore, we need to ask questions and look for answers in those who were writing at the time and to those who have written subsequently. With these questions in hand the student writer then proceeds to the second part of the essay where he/she tries to find answers to the questions posed by the document by doing research on the topic and the era.

One way to find answers to the questions you have is to investigate the writer of the document. Look at his/her biography and see if there are clues to answering the questions. Also, look to the document writer’s contemporaries. See if they can shed light on the questions you have about the document. Finally, look to more modern sources that allow you to see the document in its cultural and historical context. Context is everything here.

What were the people like that are talked about or addressed by the document? What were their concerns, their opinions, their social mores, their religious and philosophical understandings, their views on a multitude of things, etc. Try to fill out the biography of the people who lived in the US 100+ years ago. They are undoubtedly the same in many respects to ourselves but there might be some true differences what might account for the way the document speaks about the topic.

And remember that the document is just a partial, ephemeral snapshot of the era. It is their knowledge of the thing at the moment. With every momentary commentary on the events of the day it will be missing things that we take for granted because we have historical hindsight. Yet, the document can be evaluated rhetorically. We can ask about the document's purpose, the ethos of the writer, and its intended audience. These questions will allow us to discover how it fits into the conversation at the time about the topic we are interested in joining.

For this is the reason we are looking at these documents to begin to understand the conversation about X that has been going on for centuries. The people writing these documents are just our nearest contemporaries who have engaged in these conversations. They are just distant enough to puzzle us but not distant enough to preclude our understanding of them and their culture and practices so that we can come along side of them and see them as relatives in the culture and practice of the ideas we are interested in understanding today.

Notes on how to approach the first paper: #1Report

Paper structure. First, get a sense of what people where talking about in relation to your topic at the end of the 19th C, early 20th C. The best way to do this is to read through the article I've posted in the mindmap but also to do a bit of research about your topic during that era. Second, pick a figure, the moderator I've chosen (e.g. Muir-ecology), or someone else who is involved in the topic and tell us how he/she is important for your topic. What ideas are they talking about? Who are they talking to about these ideas? What difference did these ideas make at the time? Etc. Third, pick one of the ideas that seem important and write in more detail about what your person has said about it, why he/she was key in regard to this idea, what happened as a result of the work that this person did, etc. And finally, tell us why what this person did is important now.

In general. The era we are exploring initially can be framed by two wars: The Civil War in this country and World War 1 (WWI), the first world-wide war. This is a suggested limit. You wouldn't want to go much later than 1920 and not much earlier than the 1820s. The period encompasses the start of the industrial revolution and the great emancipations of slaves and serfs. Britain was the world power and the period can be loosely called Victorian after the long-reigning Queen of England during this period. It also contains many of the important revolutions--1848 in Europe and 1917 in Russia. Important inventions from the steam engine to the light bulb to Penicillin and the machine gun occurred during this period. It is also the period where many modern institutions are born -- the World Bank, the Red Cross, the modern university system, to name a few -- and when certain ideas also come to prominence that still influence us, for instance: evolution, socialism, the Protestant ethic, the unconscious, etc. Also, the great middle class was established in this country as was the ascendance of capitalism and progressivism. A growing sense of a period between childhood and adulthood -- adolescence -- was more clearly established with reforms to child labor laws and the institution of mass education. At the end of the era romantic love became a staple of popular entertainment. People started to have more leisure and more money to spend on consumer goods. Catalog companies like Sears and Roebuck started to bring these goods to families in isolated homesteads across the country. Women's rights became a pivotal issue leading up to American women getting the vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920.

That's a brief over view of the era and some of the events and ideas that marked it. These factors are still important for us today. The era 1820-1920 has defined our world more distinctly than any other before it. It is just distant enough to provide a sense of strangeness at the same time what these people lived through is very familiar. For instance, the idea of the West where cowboys and Indians struggled is well defined. The reality of the years in question -- right after the Civil War -- is more strange and different than you might imagine from the sense one gets now of the era from TV and movies. We have done a lot to mythologies this era so what is the truth? Often the truth is bound up in what the society at the time says is the truth which gives us a sense of shifting sands so it takes some digging to develop a more complicated notion of the truth of an era. Typically those in control of the message have a more powerful lock on the truth while those who are marginalized are not able to contribute at all to our understanding. The truth in these cases gets skewed and it is up to us by research to unearth the real nature of things.

Trying to see the deep structures of a culture at a particular time takes reading all kinds of documents that a particular culture produced. You would want to read pamphlets, newspaper articles, scientific journal articles, fiction and poetry of the era as well as other more popular expressions of everyday life. But as it is true these days, popular culture gives a narrow take on the culture that has to be put into context and be supplemented by other more mundane facts and statistics as well as a notion of what the everyday person was like, what made them tick. This can be quite difficult in light of the sort of filters we have developed and our own feeling that we are much different from these people and have no connection to them. There is need for you to approach this project with open eyes and with the idea that you may not be much different from these people after all.

Feel free to post a comment or question to this blog post and I will respond to you.