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Strategies for Rhetoric and Research Writing Assignment 10: Preliminary Research As you begin your research for Writing Project 4, you want to cast a wide net and think broadly. Say, for instance, that you are researching George Washington as part of American social memory. You're not likely to find much if you were to run a search using the terms "George Washington" and "social memory." To start such a search, I would look up George Washington in some encyclopedias, I would enter "George Washington" in some general periodical databases, and I'd look at some Web sites (including but not limited to the Library of Congress, the Discovery Channel, PBS, the History Channel, Mt. Vernon, and Yahoo's directory). I highly recommend using these various sources before just googling George Washington, though do google away. The encyclopedia articles will give me some background information on the topic I can use to help refine my searches. For instance, if I didn't know that George Washington lived at Mt. Vernon or fought at Valley Forge, I'd learn that information from the encyclopedias and I could use this new information to help me broaden my search for good sources (say, for instance, that since famous peoples' homes often become museums, I'd look to see if there was a Web site on Mt. Vernon). Encyclopedias also offer bibliographies which I can use, either as a source or to find other sources. General periodicals and news stories might provide the same kinds of information that encyclopedias would and they're likely to include additional information. For instance, recent articles on George Washington are likely, in part, to discuss his cultural significance. Or I might come across a stories about George Washington the farmer. We all know that Washington was a general and the first president of the US, and sure, he owned a plantation, but did you know that throughout his public life all he really wanted to do was get back to being a farmer? And right there you've got an interesting angle on George Washington in terms of social memory. We don't grow up learning George Washington was more interested in farming than in being president and I could explore this, which might lead me into a larger exploration of the difference between the public George Washington we remember and the private man few of us know much about. Web sites can be good sources of information, and you'll note many of those I listed above are sites designed by reputable organizations. At this stage in my research, it's better to stick with reliable sources than with sources I'm not sure about. We'll talk about how to evaluate Web sites, but as a cautionary example, I point you to http://www.martinlutherking.org/, which looks okay at first glance. It has, after all, the http://www.martinlutherking.org/ URL and why wouldn't http://www.martinlutherking.org/ be a reliable site? Because it's owned and maintained by white supremacists. If you look around, you'll start to notice that things are a little weird at the site, and if you track down the contact information, you'll note the "hosted by Stormfront" link at the bottom of the page. How often do you look for such things when you pull information off of a Web site? The point here isn't to scare you off using the Web, it's to make you think about where you get your information, and to realize that in the early stages of research, it might be easier to stick, or at least start with, "safe" sites. I mention Yahoo's directory (not their search engine) because a human looks at every site they link to. It doesn't guarantee that every site is a good source, but your chances of getting bad sites is much lower. It is, however, worth using search engines like google.com just to see what comes up. It turns out that googling George Washington brings up many good sites. The purpose of doing this background research is to help you get a broad overview of your topic so that you can then narrow your research focus and give you a number of search terms and topics so that you can do a much more productive search for usable sources. A few hours of good background researching can actually save you many hours later on. Don't forget to include the Interdisciplinary Study of Memory's section on Social and Collective Memory as a resource Part 1: Background
research For part 1, I want you to find and read 4 - 6 background sources for your research project. Background source material includes non-scholarly materials like encyclopedias, popular magazines (Time, Newsweek, Popular Science, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Martha Stewart Living, etc.), newspapers, and general Web sites. You'll want a mix of sources, both in kind and in length — don't just find six Web sites and don't just read six 300-word newspaper articles and don't just use six online sources. You want a mix of print and electronic sources; a mix of encyclopedia, Web, newspaper, and magazines sources; and a mix of length in your sources. The idea behind this first stage is to help give you an idea of various issues and ideas people have raised about your topic as well as provide you with a better understanding of the topic before you begin your serious research. For your background research, you should have turned in a list of these 4 - 6 sources along with a brief summary (a paragraph or so) of each item. The point of each summary is to explain, as briefly as possible, the basic thesis and a couple of important facts or ideas in the source. Part 2: Working Bibliography For this part of your research project, I’d like a list of 20 possible sources for your research paper. No more than four (4) of these should be Web sites and no more than four (4) of them should be from your background sources. Due: 1 April 2004 Last Modified: 13 March 2004 Syllabus | Policies | Work | Schedule | Assignments | Handouts | Links |