The Craft of Research Chpt 1-3,7,11
Chpt 1When creating a relationship w/ your reader, the authors suggest 3 ways: found something cool, found something to help you, found something to answer a question. Of the three the third seems to me to be the most important for it is aimed at the practitioner. To me educational research should be targeted more with the practitioner in mind and not just adding to the discussion or base. However, I’d assume that the last of the list would be the most common. Maybe answering the "so what" question will help bring more practical application potential to the pure research that takes place in academia. It can be more than "tell me something that will help me understand our common topic of interest better"
Chapt 2/3 - Really like the idea of a round robin draft sharing when working on a group research project. MS Words track changes function could really help here. I also like the idea of preparing your "elevator story". As mentioned earlier, my writing and to some degree my oral communication has changed in order to communicate more effectively in academia. It is not usually how teachers in secondary schools talk to their students. Consequently, my ability to communicate effectively with a larger audience may have been inadvertently hampered by this short experience. This technique, along with op-ed type assignments, re grounds us and helps us function in the larger world. Pg. 32 also has a nice checklist for getting to know your readers. If we were to go thru the list, what would be the most common responses to our audiences for journals and conferences?
Hints - write as you go - even as you begin your project - research writing, like the process of science is much less linear than expected
Finding topics and writing questions I'd like to investigate really isn't a problem for me. I have lists of over 40 categorized areas of interest. What is harder for me is to choose which topics are of greatest interest to me, can be researchable, and have access to good amounts of data. This third chapter lays out a great framework that can help me whittle my list down and find topics and questions that are more important. The topic, question, rationale sequence makes a great deal of sense to me. However, at my novice stage, I still feel I need to seek input from others especially help in answering the so what question. I'd like my research to be interesting to me and to be impactfull in some small way (someday).
Chpt 7/11 - I am a bit confused at this point and could use a few more concrete examples for me to dissect as I try and understand the sequencing and construction of quality arguments. The steps of
1. What do you claim?
2. What reasons support your claim?
3. What evidence supports your claim?
4. Do you acknowledge alternatives and respond to them?
make good sense to me. However, the warrant piece confuses me greatly. This how I conceptualize warrant.
