BEAM: A new way of thinking

In his article, BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing, Joseph Bizup argues against the categorization of sources as being “primary, secondary, and tertiary.” As Bizop points out, these categorizations are inherently “anti-rhetorical.” By this, Bizop means that they do not promote the sort of thinking that accompanies rhetorical analysis. Resultantly, Bizop promotes a somewhat radical idea; to redefine the way in which students categorize source materials in order to promote critical thinking and ease the process of rhetorical analysis.

BEAM, as an acronym, is the product of Bizop’s realization and his own recommendation for the replacement of the traditional vocabulary of categorization. Consisting, of Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method, these terms encourage students to think about the purpose and “effects” of a text. If at this point, this topic seems a bit dry for you, take a break and check out the gif that google turns up when you search for “cause and effect gif.”
Although I had not yet heard of this acronym when I recently engaged in archival research. I think that it might be a useful exercise to apply these terms in retrospect to my own research process. Therefore, I will briefly dress each aspect of “BEAM” as they relate to my own research.

 

Background

According to Bizup, Background sources are those “materials a writer relies on for general information or for factual evidence.” When reflecting on my archival research project, a few sources immediately come to mind. For example, as readers of my past blog posts may already know, my archival document was essentially a summary of a guest speaker’s lecture. In order to gain more insight into the speaker, I did some online research on him as well as the college from which he received his degree. From these sources, I learned about various factual elements of the speakers life. In this sense, they were “Background” sources since they provided me with a factual foundation on which to begin building my analysis.

Exhibit

Unlike Background sources, which are merely factual accounts, Bizup describes Exhibit sources as the “materials a writer analyzes or interprets.” In this way, Exhibit sources are those with sufficient content and credibility to justify rhetorical analysis. In terms of my archival research project, I believe that my archival document, an article from the Santa Clara University newspaper published in 1961, would be considered an Exhibit source. This source was the most important document in my research process and involved multiple elements of rhetorical analysis. For example, from this source I began my analysis of gender inequality as well as my analysis of the rhetorical elements of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos.

Argument

Furthermore, Bizup describes Argument sources as “materials whose claims a writer engages.” In this way, an argument source is a document which is “in conversation” with the research that you are conducting. In the case of my research paper, I chose to analyze my own research process through the perspective of various class readings by Gaillet, Tirabassi, and Greene. Therefore, these sources, who’s claims I engaged in my own writing, would be considered Argument sources.

Method

Lastly, Bizup describes Method sources as “materials from which a writer takes a governing concept or derives a manner of working.” I am not fully sure that I applied this concept in my own research process directly. However, I can think of a few ways in which this concept relates to my research indirectly. For example, although I did not read them specifically for this assignment, perhaps any source which previously informed my understanding of either gender or research could be considered a Method source. In this way, a Method source is the most broadly defined type of source.

What I like best about Bizup’s BEAM acronym is that, as Bizup says himself, “[the terms are flexible.]” For this reason, they leave ample room for the writer to consider the purpose of any source, and thereby promote both critical thinking and rhetorical analysis. By encouraging researchers to think of their sources in terms of “purpose” and “effect” this process of categorization effectively promotes more effective writing than traditional terms. Although, I may not typically engage in such formal writing processes, I plan on utilizing this method in future writing assignments.

Hunting Gathering and Researching

After writing an essay on my recent archival experience, I felt that I understood my own research process quite well. However, through developing survey questions for additional research, I have been able to look at my research in a new perspective. As Michale Klein discussed in his article, “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One?” research can in a sense be viewed in two distinct categories: hunting and gathering. While these categories are limited in their ability to relate to varying research practices, I found them to be a helpful tool in analyzing my own experience.
First, there is hunting. This sort of research involves going out and seeking something, including data, information, or a quote. Just as a hunter tracks any given animal, a researcher engaging in this sort of research will use evidence to locate the source they are looking for.

Next, there is gathering. Unlike hunting, in which a researcher has a specific goal, gathering entails viewing all that there is to offer and then selecting that which might be useful. Just as a gatherer will come across both edible and inedible plants, a researcher engaging in this type of research will likely find some sources that are helpful and others that are not.

In consideration of these principles, I realized that my experience in archival research was mostly of the “gathering,” sort. In the archive, I perused the items on each table unsure of what I might find. Furthermore, I viewed a variety of documents before I found one that interested me. In this way, my search was mostly undirected and in a sense somewhat random. However, I did utilize some aspects of the “hunting” principle of research. When I began my search, I intended on locating an artifact which related to “student life at Santa Clara University,” and in this sense I was “hunting” for items of a specific type.

Similarly, I predict that my experience with survey research will likewise involve aspects of both the “hunting” and “gathering” styles. Since I will be choosing specific questions that target certain areas of interest related to my research questions, I will mostly be using “hunting” research techniques. However, once I have collected my data, I will need to sort through them and “look for any patterns” or relevant information that might supplement my research. In this way, I will also be utilizing “gathering” techniques.
In consideration of these new principles, I realized that I was able to evaluate my research in all sorts of new ways that I had not considered before. Although I was previously unaware of these ideas, I found that they were directly applicable to my own research process. For this reason, I believe that Michael Klein’s scale for evaluation of research processes is a useful tool for self reflection. Although Klein’s findings indicated that the scale was not sufficiently complex to accurately describe real life research processes, I found that the principles of “hunting” and “gathering” helped me to reflect on my own archival research experience.

Outline… Outline… OUTLINE…

When I sat down to write my research paper, I found that I was making very little progress. Although I had many ideas about the artifact that I was researching, I couldn’t seem to formulate any sentences. I even tried to write a few different introductions. However, I was equally disappointed with each one. Eventually, I came to realize that although I had plenty of ideas, I was unsure of who to organize them into a cohesive paper. So I decided that I needed to write an outline.

To begin, I reread the assignment rubric to determine what objectives I was trying to meet. From this resource, I determined that I would need to incorporate evidence from the articles that we read as a class. So I began to brainstorm by rereading each article and highlighting important vocabulary and ideas. Furthermore, my Professor informed me that my essay should be somewhat of a “research narrative,” indicating to me that it should be organized somewhat chronologically.

With this information in mind, I constructed an outline that helped me to organize my ideas into a cohesive essay that communicated my central experience with archival research. And from this point onwards, I only had to write. By this I mean that the hard part of the assignment for me, was to organize and plan my ideas, while the actual writing was made easy by my effective outline. I believe that this experience confirmed my belief that any successful endeavor is made in the planning. 

For example, if I were to throw a surprise birthday party, I would think about the guest of honor. I would consider what they liked, and were interested in, and I would probably choose a theme for the party. I would shop for related decorations and food, and carefully prepare the location for the event. Only then, would I invite over the guests to yell “Surprise!” as the person walked through the door. When looking back on the party, the guest of honor, would most likely remember that fateful moment when everyone yelled “Surprise!” However, without all of planning and preparation, the whole event would not have been possible. In this same manner, a strong essay, is built around the foundation of a strong outline.

Looking back on this experience, I hope to reform my own writing practices to incorporate the outlining process more thoroughly into my thought process. Rather than struggle for hours before deciding to form an outline, I hope to plan on building an effective outline from the very start of my next writing project. In this way, I can save time and frustration and perhaps even build a better essay.

Furthermore, from organizing my ideas into a cohesive essay, I learned the importance of unifying the various components of an essay. For example, in my essay, I analyze my archival document rhetorically and historically, as well as my own research process. Within each major paragraph of the essay, I discuss some analysis of the archival document, and then talk about how this relates to my research process. I believe that this structure is much more effective than a “separated” structure in which these ideas do not interconnect. For example, If had spent the first third of the essay talking about the historical significance of the archival document, the next thirdof the essay talking about the rhetorical significance of the archival document, and the final third talking about my research process, I could not have made nearly as many connections between these various components of my analysis.

To give a real life example, this same idea is relevant in my scenario of planning a surprise birthday party. After collecting all of the decorations, a person could potentially put all of the birthday related items in one section, all of the themed items in another sections, and all of the food in a third. However, this rigid structure is likely not cohesive to building a functioning party. Rather than one surprise party, it may seem as if you decorated for one birthday party, one themed party, and one dinner party.

In conclusion, in writing my archival research essay, I learned not only about an interesting aspect of Santa Clara University’s past, but about my own research and writing process. I learned that it is important for me to build an outline, and it is best for the ideas in an essay to be interrelated.

Gender Studies in the Archive

During my experience on Wednesday with archival research, I found that I was most interested in documents related to student ideals and beliefs. Therefore, it was my goal to find a document which directly addressed the beliefs of Santa Clara students at the time in which it was created. After investigation of a variety of documents and artifacts, I have chosen to focus on an article from Santa Clara University’s own student run newspaper, “The Santa Clara.” The article, which is essentially a summary of a lecture given by a guest speaker, is entitled “Austrian Count Talks on Love, Sex, Marriage, Death.” Written by John  Rallo, this article was published on Wednesday, December 6, 1961.

I chose this article because it expresses some highly controversial and generally sexist ideas regarding sex and gender. For example, the speaker claims that “sex is always selfish,” that “woman was, is, and will be subordinate to men,” and that women “will attempt by nagging to shape their mate.” I find it fascinating that a speaker who would be considered so highly inappropriate today was revered as “[vastly knowledgeable and experienced]” only fifty five years ago.

Similarly, I have included an a cartoon below which illustrates the relevance of gender inequality issues today.

As in the article which I found in the archive, the male speaker in this cartoon is seemingly unaware of his sexist remarks. In this way, the cartoon is a representation of contemporary sexism and gender inequality. I want to point out, that although my research is on an article from 1961, gender inequality is still an important issue today, especially in the workplace where women typically receive lesser pay than men. 

3…2…1… Archive

Tomorrow will mark my first ever visit to an archive and in preparation I have begun developing some research questions and associated research goals. In class on Monday, we discussed the evolution of student life and I found that the subject interested me. Therefore, I decided that I might like to research this topic further in the archives. Furthermore, I realized that since this topic is so broad, it might be helpful to narrow my search towards a certain area of student life. Specifically, I am interested in studying the history of Greek life at Santa Clara University to see how this system has evolved over time.

Here are a few of my initial research questions:

How did Greek life begin on campus?

Was Greek life ever associated with the school officially? and If so, how did Greek life come to be unassociated with the school?

In what ways were fraternities and sororities of the past alike and different from those of today?

In evaluating these research questions, I will seek to understand the context of the documents that I view within the archive as well as within their original time. To do so, I will keep in mind some key points made by Tirabassi in her article, “Journeying into the Archives.”

Firstly, Tirabassi says to consider “Who included this document in the archival record, and why?” This question is important because it seeks to determine the purpose or focus of a particular archive. Since not all documents are saved in an archive, the information which is omitted can be as telling as the information which is saved regarding the purpose of the archive.

Additionally, Tirabassi says to consider “Why is this document included in this location?” This question seeks to determine if the document is part of a certain collection. For example, a collection of papers donated by a certain person, created or written by a certain person, associated with a certain event or institution, or in connection with a specific class. It is important to consider these distinctions since they relate to the context and implications of any item.

Lastly, Tirabassi says to consider “Who created this document originally and for what purpose/audience?” I believe this is the question which will most influence my rhetorical analysis of any document that I view. In the context of my research questions above, it would be very impotent to consider the creator of the document. For example, a document written by a fraternity member would probably have a different style and motivation than a document written by a school official.

Considering that I have never been to an archive before, I do not know exactly what to expect. However, I feel that the questions raised by Tirabassi will serve as a good starting point for evaluation of any document regardless of its presence in an archive. My goal is not only to locate an item worthy of evaluation in a research project, but to engage in a process of contemplative investigation which will hopefully lead to a better understanding of Santa Clara University’s history and the experience of past students.

The Internet, Arch-Rival and Archival

Prior to class on Wednesday, I honestly didn’t even know that “archival research” was a thing. I suppose I knew that archives existed, but it just didn’t occur to me that people actively conducted research in them. However, despite my ignorance, I am excited to actually visit an archive and learn how to conduct archival research.

There are a few questions I am wondering about the way an archive works. For example, are there some documents that can only be viewed in an archive, or are all archived documents also available online? I know that some archives have an online catalogue of their documents and as an outsider, it seems like it would be much more efficient to view the documents online than to see them in person. However, I can imagine a certain sense of inspiration that might accompany the handling of an original historical document.

Furthermore, on a more philosophical level, I wonder which documents of our current society are worthy of being archived and how digitization will impact the archival process. Considering the incredibly massive amount of media that we as a society produce, I can imagine that the job of choosing what to save is becoming increasingly harder. However, in reality, this problem is actively being solved by the digitization of our world. The internet in a sense is one massive archive and as most people know, “What gets posted on the internet stays on the internet.”

This, in a sense, is part of what makes the internet so great, it serves as a historian to catalogue the successes, failures, and daily lives of nearly all of humanity. It is interesting to consider, that in a few hundred years (if we survive that long) students will be looking through catalogues of famous tweets and possibly even evaluating the 140 character limi as somewhat of an art form, similar to haiku. Today is tomorrow’s history and it is unbelievable to see the rate at which we produce media today.

On the other hand, there is also something special about the lack of such media in the past. When there is a limit to how quickly and easily media can be produced, people will prioritize which media is most important. For example, when people read their news in the newspaper, it was full of actual articles and important stories. Contrastingly, online news today is inundated with advertisements, fluff pieces, and entertainment news. We face so much information that at times we miss the important things because there are so many distractions. That, I believe, is what is so special about an archive.

An Experiment…

As a sort of research experiment, I chose to test my skill in search engine navigation and search term selection. After all, what better way to examine your own research tendencies than to engage in some research.

This is the task I developed for myself:

First I would find an interesting cartoon. Next, I would search for a quote that would relate to the cartoon.

Finding an interesting cartoon proved easy enough. In my own experience, Google Image search is highly effective. I Googled “Political Cartoons,” and was satisfied with the third or fourth cartoon that popped up after I selected the “images” tab.

The next part of my assignment proved slightly more difficult. I began by evaluating the cartoon and thinking about what message the cartoon was trying to convey. Then, I used Google to search for quotes about __________. Below are the searches that I made.

“quotes about confrontation”

“quotes about hypocrisy”

“quotes about irrationality”

“quotes about irrational fear”

“quotes about irrational fear and hypocrisy”

“the truth hurts quotes”

It took me 6 Google searches and much more time than I expected to locate a decent quote to go along with my cartoon. So what happened? Is this to be expected, or did something go wrong?

My “target quote,” is what spurred me on from one search to the next. As I considered various interpretations of the cartoon, I altered my search to account for these interpretations. For example, at first I thought that the man in the cartoon was failing to confront his true fears so I searched for “quotes about confrontation.” However, when I was disappointed with the results, I decided that I had misevaluated the cartoon. I realized that the man in the image was being a hypocrite since he was consuming such unhealthy products but worried about his own mortality, so I altered my search to read, “quotes about hypocrisy.” When I was still disappointed with the results, I decided instead that the man was being irrational since he was unlikely to die from ebola and I changed my search to “quotes about irrationality.”

At this point, I’ll admit that I began to get slightly frustrated and I chose instead to narrow and adapt my current search rather than start fro
m scratch. More specifically, I searched for “quotes about irrational fear” and “quotes about irrational fear and hypocrisy.” Finally, after all of this time, I saw a quote which read something like “the truth hurts,” and I thought “Yeah, this guy would not like the truth,” which led me to search for “the truth hurts quotes.”
Only then, did I finally find the quote by Khaled Hosseini (which popped up as an image preview) that I deemed worthy of my made up assignment.

So what went wrong? Nothing. I don’t believe that I made any true mistakes in searching for a quotation. Sure, I might have chosen a better search term, or I might have evaluated the cartoon in a different light, but this is the reality of research. My ideas are bound to evolve as I do research and research is bound to take time, more time than you would think, because locating even a simple quote tends to be more difficult than locating the answer to a factual question online.
What this experiment illustrates best is the power of choice and perception. All of my search terms were related, in some way, to the original cartoon, yet each turned up a unique list of quotes and sources. In this way, it is our own ideas that have the greatest impact on where our research will take us. All the more reason, I say, why a person must research with an open mind and an active interest in the subject.

 

 

Research Thoughts

In class today, we talked about the complex nature of academic research. While it can be as simple as “searching for quotes online,” this description barely scrapes the surface of what it means to do effective research. As a starting point for our discussion, we talked about some of our individual habits and past experiences with research. Looking back on this time, I recall thinking first about the various presentations and research projects that I had done in school. However, upon further reflection, I realized that I have conducted a great deal of research outside of the classroom as well.

I am constantly thankful of my ability to do quick and easy research on the internet. For example, whether I am wondering “How many kinds of dinosaurs existed?” or “How many actors have been in all seven Star Wars Movies?” I can find the answer in a matter of seconds by doing a quick
Google search on my iPhone. This sort of research is informal and often unrelated to academic topics, however it is extremely valuable. In fact, this sort of habitual research helped me to develop skills such as search engine navigation and source validation, which are directly applicable to academic research.

Furthermore, as a sales intern, I have learned about database research as well as information organization and management. When conducting research at work, my goal was not only to gather information, but to sort and organize it into useful and meaningful formats. This skill is applicable in all sorts of research. For example, when writing a research paper or essay, it is equally important to gather quotes and statistics as it is to organize them into an effective argument.

My personal experience seems to echo the focus of our class discussion in the sense that the vast majority of my research is conducted on the internet. When I approach an academic research project, I usually begin with the same informal methods that I utilize in my everyday life and then transition as needed towards more formal techniques, like those I used in my internship. For example, I might start by doing a simple google search and seeking out scholarly sources. However, If this doesn’t work, I might instead try searching an online database. All the while, I will be considering the material I find and evaluating which sources might work well with one another to support, contradict, or investigate a particular issue or idea.

Another student’s perspective on research is illustrated in, “The Great Research Disaster.” Through reading this article, I was able to recognize some of the mistakes that I have made when conducting past research and evaluate the ways in which I might improve my research process. Above all else, the article stressed that research takes time. Any attempt to rush the research process will result in diminishing quality of results and for this reason, it is my goal to manage my time effectively and allocate plenty of time towards research in the upcoming quarter.