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).