Chapter 7

Chapter seven of the Bedford Researcher describes all aspects plagiarism, from what it is to how to avoid it. The beginning of the chapter focuses on differentiating between intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism. The former, of course is the use of another person’s writing that you put under your own name and try to take credit for. The book describes that this can range from just copying passages to entire documents, or closely paraphrasing. Unintentional plagiarism they describe as inadequate quotations or lack of clear difference between your ideas and the sources. The chapter goes into more depth about both forms, as well as give advice on how best to avoid them.

I actually found this chapter to be more helpful than I had anticipated. Plagiarism, like citing sources, was something I heard about over and over again from teachers over the years, so preparing to read this chapter felt rather redundant. But, like with all the work we’ve been doing with how to correctly cite sources, I was yet again faced with the reality that as many times as I had heard people use the term plagiarism, I really had only the most basic understanding of what is was or how to avoid it. The various scenarios the book runs through make the subject much clearer in my mind, and I am greatly appreciative of having explanations on things such as what is considered to be common knowledge.  

Chapters 5 and 8

Chapter five of the Bedford Researcher talks about evaluating your sources. It breaks the sources down into several categories that should each be looked at and evaluated individually to determine whether or not you would be useful to your research project. The chapter says that you should evaluate the source’s relevance, the objectivity of the author, the objectivity of the publisher, the timeliness, whether or not it is comprehensive, and the genre when determining its usefulness. The chapter also talked about how to best evaluate web sources, by examining the domain, so you can be sure only to use reliable sources.

I think this chapter is going to be very useful over the next week as I continue to gather sources for my research project. Having the evaluation process broken down into easily comprehensible steps will make it easier for me to review my sources and determine the usefulness of potential sources as I continue to look online. The information in the chapter seemed somewhat obvious, but it was the types of obvious that is easily forgotten, like when you think you know the meaning of a word but then can’t explain it to anyone. I think in the back of my mind, my head was thinking, “of course you look at the bias of the author when you are evaluating!” but the rest of my brain wasn’t necessarily following that advice.

 

Chapter eight was all about researching information digitally. It breaks down the process into preparing your search by identifying keys words or phrases from your proposal plan to use in the search. It then goes on to explain how to search with an online library catalog, a database, a Web search site, or media search sites. The chapter explains the uses of each for not only finding specific sources, but also for connecting you to similar articles or webpages to help in the search for sources. It also describes how you can limit or edit you searches to find sources with only specific, relevant information instead of vaguely connected pages that are unhelpful to your project topic.

Like before, there were pieces of this chapter that I felt were somewhat obvious or redundant, but at the same time it was all useful and helpful information to have. I can’t say that I’ve ever really gone so far as to evaluate the search engine I was using, I have always just stuck with Google unless instructed to go somewhere else. What I found to be the most useful about this chapter is that while each section was describing how best to use a database or online library, it was also providing the leading sites to use for finding specific kinds of information, be it audio, video, images, etc.

Chapter 6

Chapter six acts as a continuation of previous chapters on researching your topic for your project. It picks up on the research instructions from chapter four and goes into greater depth about your note taking process. The chapter explains the best way for keeping track of your notes throughout the researching process by organizing printed information and digital information, and recording notes systematically. In your notes, they suggest that it would be good to include exact quotes, paraphrased passages of key ideas, summaries of whole passages, and/or your own reactions and thoughts about the passage. The chapter emphasizes that no matter how you organize your notes, it is best to stick with the same organizational style throughout the research process so that things do not fall through the cracks. The end of the chapter focuses on instructions for how to make and use a bibliography or annotated bibliography verses a works cited page.

I can really see how this chapter connects with the work we were doing for finding sources in class and the source analysis that has been assigned for homework.  I think the instructions for using the annotated bibliography are going to be very useful in the coming week as we gather more and more sources for our research projects. Another thing I found to be useful was the explanation of the rules for quoting a section of text. I have had this explained to me many times before, but it never seems to stick, so having yet another source refresh my memory and drill it into my head is always appreciated.

Chapters 2 and 4

Chapter two was a nice continuation from chapter one. Whereas the first chapter was provided guidance on how to choose a topic, chapter two talked about the steps involved in choosing an argument. The chapter suggests that the writer review other works of writing on the same topic by various people or institutions and try to identify common arguments, issues, or themes. It is a good idea to mark up these sources and make notes about themes you come across. Once that is done, you can go back over your notes and ask yourself questions such as which of the themes or arguments are you most interested in, which can you most effectively argue, and which would be the most important to your audience? The chapter also suggests that talking with others face to face about the topic is a good way to get feedback on the topic.

I found this chapter to be very helpful for the work we did last week, and for what we are going to continue working on. I was having a very difficult time picking a topic for this project, and the chapter gave me some great insight on how to take a deeper look at my choices. I many of the questions in the book provided a good sounding board for me to bounce ideas off of. After reading the chapter, I wound up choosing a completely different topic that what I had originally planned, because I realized I wasn’t invested enough in my other choices, or they would not have been all that interesting to most of my target audience.

 

Chapter four was a nice follow up to chapter two, it talked about how best to examine a source. It started with an explanation on how to use you position about your topic to find sources by coming up with a position statement. It goes on to explain how best to examine a source and which pieces to focus on, such as is it a primary or secondary source? What are the main points of the source? What are its reasons? What evidence does it use for support?  The chapter also goes over the most effective way to read the source. First, you should skim over the source and try to answer the main questions about the point, the support, the evidence, and the audience. Second, you should read the source over in more depth, making notes and annotations. Lastly, you should go back and reread the passages you found to be most valuable or the ones you still have questions about.

Again, I think this chapter is going to be very well connected to the work we will be doing this week in beginning our research. It provides a very solid frame to work off of when trying to review a potential source. I really liked have all of this sort of laid out in front of me because I’ve never really had an instruction in how to review a source on a more in-depth level. Before it was always just a case of looking at whether or not the author was credible, not about how well the source connected to my topic (of course they did connect in some way).

Bedford Researcher Chapter One

The first chapter serves as a guide for how to pick a topic for a research paper. The chapter suggests the first step to writing a paper is to have confidence in what you are writing. The rest of the chapter acted mostly as an outline for how to pick a topic and begin the writing process. When picking your topic, the chapter explained that you have to carefully consider topic you are interested in and one you are willing to debate. The next step would be considering your audience and format, who are you writing for and how can you best present this information to that group? After going through the process of picking a topic, there are several brainstorming ideas the book describes for beginning the writing process.

I thought much of the chapter was rather redundant. I do think that the tools they suggested will be useful for the writing process, but it seemed like they were just repeating the same ideas over and over again. Honestly, the part of the chapter I found most useful was the very end. The whole idea of this paper is rather overwhelming, not so much because of the length of the paper, but because of the amount of time we are going to spending on this one project and I’ve been having a hard time trying to find something I can write about for so long. The end of the chapter served as a sort of reminder that no matter what topic I choose, it may shift or change as the writing process continues.