english

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.

—Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Evaluate and choose sources to print, read, analyze, and interpret.

2. Read critically, take effective notes, and understand how your sources relate to one another.

3. Employ sources to answer your research questions.

4. Understand the components of a thesis paragraph.

5. Use sources responsibly in order to avoid plagiarism.

4Evaluating and Working with Sources

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.1 Evaluating and Choosing Sources

Now that you know how to search library catalogs and databases, you should have few problems finding potential sources for use in your research project. In fact, it is likely that your searches have turned up far too many sources for you to read in the time allotted for your project. The next step in the research process, then, is to understand how to narrow down your sources. In this chapter, you will learn how to evaluate the sources you find, understand the criteria you will use to select sources from among the many you find, become familiar with effective strategies to read, analyze, and interpret your sources, and learn how to use sources both effectively and responsibly in writing your research essay.

4.1 Evaluating and Choosing Sources

As you begin to evaluate sources, keep in mind that you are looking for pieces of writing that will give you more than just facts or information. You are looking for sources that offer you ideas and perspectives that encourage you to think about your topic in a more nuanced manner. Sources that exclude other researchers’ analysis and interpretation will make it very difficult for you to respond to the issues and ques- tions driving research in your field. Remember, too, that your sources must provide you with each of the four elements of BEAM—background, exhibits, arguments, and methods.

Evaluating Sources According to Basic Criteria Most systems for evaluating sources stress the criteria we reviewed in Chapter 1. A source can be considered for inclusion in your source set when it is relevant, credible, timely, rep- resentative, motivated by pursuit of truth, and bias free. These criteria are useful because they establish a minimum threshold that sources must cross to be considered for inclusion in your source set. The Basic Source Evaluation Tool provides you with questions to guide your evaluation of sources.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.1 Evaluating and Choosing Sources

Choosing Sources That Meet Your Research Needs Once you have determined whether your sources are fundamentally sound, it is impor- tant to evaluate your sources further in order to make sure that the time you spend read- ing them will be well spent. You will also need to ensure the coherence of your source set and make certain that your source set will meet your needs as a writer of a research paper. The advanced source evaluation tool (see the Advanced Source Evaluation Tool) can help you evaluate your sources for these purposes.

Basic Source Evaluation Tool Basic Source Evaluation Tool

Is This Source Relevant?

• To what degree does the subject of this source match my research needs as established in my Essential and Supporting Questions? • Do keywords, concepts, and specialized jargon used in the source overlap with those used by other expert researchers in the field? Do they serve any of my research needs? • Do the analytical methods used in the source overlap with those used by other expert researchers in the field? Do they serve any of my research needs?

Is This Source Credible? • Is the writer a certified expert writing in his or her field of expertise? • Is the source peer reviewed? • Does the source offer reasons or evidence to support its claims? • Does the source consider all available and relevant information as it makes its case? • Are the data and arguments borrowed from other writers fairly and accurately rendered?

Is This Source Timely?

• Does the source represent a view or position that is current in the field, one that takes the latest available ideas and information into account? • Does the source represent a significant earlier-but-still-relavent view in the field? • Does the source fill in a gap in the history of the development of a line of thought you are tracking?

Is This Source Representative?

• Does the source illustrate a trend in thought in the field? Or is it an outlier or innovator? • Are the data and examples and lines of thought applicable in a larger context?

Is This Source Motivated by Pursuit of Truth and Bias Free?

• Is this source designed to sell a product or service? • Is this source designed primarily to change your opinion? • Does the source meet scholarly standards of fairness, accuracy, and open-mindedness? • Does the source interpret data in light of a passionately-held position, such that it distorts the truth or its reasonableness and open-mindedness may be questioned?

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.1 Evaluating and Choosing Sources

During this second level of source evaluation, you are trying to determine whether your sources are useful for more than the information they contain. Remember, when you sit down to write your research essay, you will need to establish the background or context of your topic, work with exhibits or illustrative material to give your reader samples to think with, bring forward or counter arguments from other writers as well as make arguments of your own, and evaluate the methods that you and your sources have used to collect, analyze, and interpret data.

To do so, you will need to evaluate your sources both individually and as a set for how well they enable you to convey and discuss some coherent aspect of the conversation researchers are having on your topic. You will want your sources to serve multiple pur- poses and, at the same time, provide you with rich and sophisticated ways of thinking about your subject. That means you should prefer longer sources that treat their subjects with complexity rather than shorter ones that present answers as matters of fact. Sources that make it into your set should use the specialized language of expert researchers in the field who interact frequently with the ideas, arguments, and evidence of other research- ers. If at all possible, look for a series of sources in which two or more researchers explic- itly respond to one another’s writing over a period of a few years. Doing so will allow you to observe the development of ideas and viewpoints over time and will also provide you with an example of how to respond to another writer’s views.

Be sure that the sources you select do more than establish a fact. You want sources to make an argument that attempts to account for multiple aspects of your topic, to consider alter- native explanations, and to think through the implications of the exhibits they have pre- sented. Since you will have to develop a perspective on your research and respond to the arguments of other writers, you should look for sources that take a different position than the one you hold and ones that inspire you to write back in response. If you can, find at least one strong source that approaches your topic in such an innovative way that it changes the conversation. Such a source might introduce new questions or complicating exhibits, develop a new explanatory concept, or dissent entirely from the usual ways of looking at your subject. Finally, try to find sources where the writer treats readers as fellow research- ers, rather than as people who are being brought up to speed on a subject and need to be lectured to. You can tell that writers are treating readers as fellow researchers when they:

• Invite readers to think along with them, by arguing for the significance and value of their ideas, rather than stating their views as foregone conclusions;

• Display the evidence and train of thought from which they draw conclusions; • Present and consider sources whose evidence, arguments, and perspectives

challenge and complicate their own; and • Admit that their own arguments and perspectives, however useful, are lim-

ited and subject to criticism and review.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.1 Evaluating and Choosing Sources

Advanced Source Evaluation Tool

Advanced Source Evaluation Tool

1. Are your sources long enough to treat subjects with complexity and sophistication?

Sources that present matter-of-fact answers in brief are likely oversimplifying the matter.

2. Are your sources treating readers as partners-in-inquiry, or as mere decoders of information?

You’re looking for sources that treat readers as partners-in-inquiry.

3. Do your sources use specialized vocabulary, indicating that they are concept-rich? Or do they tend to present information in “everyday language”?

You should be looking for sources that use specialized language.

4. Do your sources interact with the ideas of other writers and thinkers, defining their projects, forwarding and countering their ideas, and assessing the uses and limits of the sources they cite? Or do they present themselves as having all the answers, writing apart from other thinkers working on a similar topic?

You’re looking for sources that take other writers’ ideas into account. 5. Do your sources seek merely to establish a fact or casual/correlative relationship in the data? Or are they pursuing a line of inquiry to think through the implications or meaning of their observations?

You’re looking for sources that pursue a line of inquiry.

6. Does your source set accurately and fairly represent an existing conversation on your area of research, including both scholarly sources and sources of informed public commentary?

7. Does your source set include a “conversation changer,” a source that rethinks something that one of your other sources takes for granted?

8. Can you imagine making your own use of each article in your source set? Can you see yourself having something to “say back” to the text?

9. Can you imagine putting your sources in conversation with each other? Do they “speak” to one another in ways that move the existing conversation forward? Can you identify or infer the issues that likely started the conversation? Is everyone in the conversation saying the same thing? Is anyone “listening” and “responding” to anyone else, or following a thread in the conversation? Or are your sources all speaking about different aspects of the problem without addressing themselves to the conversation going on around them?

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

As we move from finding sources to working with sources, it is important to under-stand what you are doing when you “review the literature” as well as get a better grasp on the structure and dynamics of research conversations. The most impor- tant thing to bear in mind when you are reviewing the literature is to remember that research articles and books are artifacts of living minds actively involved in conversation with others. When you consult a research database to find information on a topic, you are actually seeking out partners-in-inquiry—people who are asking questions similar to your own and thinking about issues that concern you. You are looking both for more material (facts and concepts) to think with and for someone to think along with, someone who looks at things from a different perspective and who sees different aspects of the phenomenon or problem.

So when you start your review of the literature, remember to keep track of the names, dis- ciplines, and areas of expertise of the researchers who wrote the articles you are reading. Over time, if you have located an active and coherent conversation, as Emma did, you should start recognizing names, be able to link them to positions and lines of thought, identify whose ideas and positions they use and whose they counter, and see the struc- ture of the conversation emerge. In fact, creating this understanding of the structure and dynamics of the conversation is a significant part of the work you need to do in this phase of your research. If you do not understand how researchers are using the ideas, data, and analyses to make arguments, you risk cherry picking data to support your own views and misunderstanding the positions of researchers. If you do not recognize how arguments are positioned with respect to one another, you also risk overestimating the certainty and consensus of the field, and underestimating the degree of reasoned controversy.

Critical Reading and Note-Taking Strategies During her earlier research, our student researcher, Emma, built a strong set of articles— ones she believes accurately represent the substance of the research conversations to which she has been listening. Now is the time to start to read the articles systematically so that she can construct a structural model of the relationships among the ideas she finds in the articles she is reading. Before we continue with Emma’s research project, let us take some time to understand the differences between reading for information and reading to write about a topic. Along the way, we will collect some concrete strategies for reading more critically.

To get the most out of your time spent reading, you should set ambitious reading goals; Table 4.1 lays out some of the key differences between basic and advanced reading goals.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

Table 4.1: Basic and advanced reading goals

Basic Reading Goals Advanced Reading Goals

Read to store and retrieve information

Read to be conversant—to be able to speak about the details (and the relationships among them) and general effect of a text without referring to it

Read passively Read actively—take notes, ask questions, make connections, paraphrase key points

Read to absorb Read to explore, inquire, consider, question, criticize, analyze

Read to understand Read to do something to/with the text—evaluate, synthesize, create, write

Read for the gist Read to understand nuances and to assess views, to locate gaps in the conversation, to find places to comment and respond

Read each text in isolation

Read texts as part of an intertextual dialogue or field

Read impressionistically Read systematically

Read to agree or disagree

Read to understand a position that is different from one’s own

Analyzing and Interpreting In order to read to fulfill these more advanced goals, you may need to alter your reading habits. In particular you will need to take an analytical approach to reading your sources in order to interpret them. By interpretation, we mean the process by which you have come to see the significance, meaning, or implications of the ideas, data, and questions with which you are working. Analysis and interpretation are notoriously fuzzy terms. But it is not hard to be concrete about the process used to do these activities. Let us begin by under- standing what it means to read analytically. To read analytically is to attend to, under- stand, assess, and comment on

1. The sequence of moves a writer uses to make an argument; 2. The relationship between claims made and the evidence and logic used to

support them; 3. The significance and implications of specific keywords or phrases a writer

chooses to convey his or her view; 4. Patterns in data, ideas, methods, or perspectives; 5. Anomalous data, ideas, methods, or perspective once a pattern has been

established; and 6. The explicit or tacit organizing binaries or oppositions in the piece.

Reading analytically also means

7. To uncover and reveal the tacit values and assumptions that anchor a writer’s perspective;

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

8. To understand the larger contexts in which specific data or phenomenon are relevant; and

9. To explore and reveal the implications of the data, ideas, or methods.

While it may seem that reading analytically requires you to pay attention to a lot, the following sections provide you with some strategies for a step-by-step reading and note- taking process that will maximize your chances of reading analytically.

Approaching the Text With the Right Mindset in the Right Environment It can be easy to check out of a reading that on first blush seems dull or irrelevant, is hard to follow, or is on complex subject matter. Do not let yourself take the easy way out! It will make your life as a writer considerably more difficult if you do. So, try to focus hard, knowing that the work you put in up front will pay off with time saved, less stress, and better results at the end of the project. Work actively to pay attention, understand, and respond to the material being presented. Concentrate on understanding what is being conveyed, whatever the deficiencies of the piece of writing. Try to connect what you are reading to what you already know (through personal experience or other reading you have done on the subject). Think about how what you are reading possibly changes what you think about the topic on which you are working. Assess the uses and limits of the ideas which you are reading for your own writing project.

Using Pre-Reading Strategies Survey the reading and develop questions and interests to guide your reading. Activate what you already know about the topics, whether from other reading or life experiences. When you survey a text, you scan the table of contents, introduction, chapter introduc- tions, headings, or summaries to pick up a shallow overview of the text. From your sur- vey, develop a small set of initial questions or thoughts that you will to try to answer or think through as you read. Also, locate areas of particular interest (topics or subtopics, but also specific page ranges) to which you will give your best attention.

Before reading the text carefully, consider what you already know (or think you know) about the topic of the text. By creating expectations about what you are reading, you will notice when the writer’s line of thought diverges from your expectations and see those moments as interesting, puzzling, troubling, ambiguous, or suggestive—as moments about which you will need to write.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

Marking Up Your Texts The simple act of making marks on a reading focuses your atten- tion and promotes an active and dynamic approach to your reading that is absolutely essential if you are to write effectively about what you read. Unless you have a late model tablet that accepts input from a sty- lus, and a good piece of “ink on PDF” software (such as PDFill’s PDF Ink), it is best to mark up a reading using a pencil or pen.

In the next paragraph, we will describe some basic marks and types of margin comments. But before we do, we want to prompt you to notice how they focus your attention more on the flow of the intellectual conversation, rather than on the specific pieces of information or materials the writers use to have the conversation. Remember, you are reading to further the conversation, not merely to acquire and retain information. To participate in the conversation, you have to be able to use the words on the page to map the exchange of ideas embedded in the text.

Use the following marks and margin comment types to help you make the conversation in your set of research texts come to life (see Marked Up Text: Sam Anderson, “In Defense of Distraction” for an example):

• Underline essential and supporting questions and label which supporting ques- tions go with each essential question;

• Circle key concepts, and then define concepts and terms in your own words in the margin;

• Double-underline compelling passages and make margin notes about how you could use them in your own project;

• Draw a block around passages that are complicated, challenging, or hard to understand, and then on a separate sheet of paper, try to paraphrase them until you understand them;

• Jot down the ideas, examples, and lines of inquiry that occur to you as you read;

• Draw lines or make cross-references to forge connections and comparisons between sections of the reading, or between the current reading and others you have read previously; and

• Make margin notes about the uses and limits of particular concepts or pas- sages for your own work.

Corbis/SuperStock Marking up a source helps reinforce your engagement with it, regardless of which method you choose to make notes and annotations.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

It is particularly important to track the writerly moves the writer is making. When you track a writer’s moves, you are paying as much attention to the purpose of each para- graph as to the content of it. When you attend to the writer’s purpose of a paragraph, you better understand how he or she wants you to synthesize the ideas, exhibits, and argu- ments he or she is presenting into a larger argument. When you understand how a writer is making his or her argument, you can better evaluate it. Table 4.2 below presents some common writerly moves for which to be on the lookout.

Table 4.2: Common writerly moves

Offering background Countering another writer’s argument

Analyzing an exhibit Making an argument

Interpreting an exhibit Defining terms

Borrowing expert authority Describing a method

Extending another writer’s argument Criticizing another writer’s method

Presenting another writer’s argument Revealing tacit values or assumptions

Keeping track of a writer’s moves will enable you to better see the conversation in his or her text. By understanding how the author is making use of his or her sources, you can distinguish between what the sources say and what the author is saying in response. Then you can consider your response to all the voices in the text.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

Marked Up Text: Sam Anderson, “In Defense of Distraction”

The prophets of total attention meltdown sometimes invoke, as an example of the great culture we are going to lose as we succumb to e-thinking, the canonical French juggernaut Marcel Proust. And indeed, at seven volumes, several thousand pages, and 1.5 million words, Á la Recherche du Temps Perdu is in many ways the anti-Twitter. (It would take, by the way, exactly 68,636 tweets to reproduce.) It’s important to remember, however, that the most famous moment in all of Proust, the moment that launches the entire monumental project, is a moment of pure distraction: when the narrator, Marcel, eats a spoonful of teasoaked madeleine and finds himself instantly transported back to the world of his childhood: Proust makes it clear that conscious focus could never have yielded such profound magic. Marcel has to abandon the constraints of what he calls “voluntary memory” the kind of narrow, purpose- driven attention that Adderall, say, might have allowed him to harness in order to get to the deeper truths available by the distraction. That famous cookie is a kind of hyperlink: a little blip that launches an associative cascade of a million other subjects. This sort of free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of mindfulness.

My favorite focusing exercise comes from William James: Draw a dot on a piece of paper, then pay attention to it for as long as you can. (Sitting in my office one afternoon, with my monkey mind swinging busily across the lush rain forest of online distractions, I tried this with the closest dot in the vicinity: the bright-red mouse-nipple at the center of my laptop’s keyboard. I managed to stare at it for 30 minutes, with mixed results.) James argued that the human mind can’t actually focus on the dot, or any unchanging object, for more than a few seconds at a time: It’s too hungry for variety, surprise, the adventure of the unknown. It has to refresh its attention by continually finding new aspects of the dot to focus on: subtleties of its shape, its relationship to the edges of the paper, metaphorical associations (a fly, an eye, a hole). The exercise becomes a question less of pure unwavering focus than of your ability to organize distractions around a central point. The dot, in all other words, becomes only the hub of your total dot-related distraction.

This is what the web-threatened punditry often fails to recognize: Focus is a paradox; it has distraction built into it. The two are symbiotic; they’re the systole and diastole of consciousness. Attention comes from the Latin “to stretch out” or “reach toward”,’ distraction from “to pull apart.” We need both. In their extreme forms, focus and attention may even circle circle back around and bleed into one another. Meyer says there’s a subset of Buddhists who believe that the most advanced monks become essentially “world-class multitaskers,” that all those years of meditation might actually speed up their mental processes enough to handle the kind of information overload the rest of us find crippling.

The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus the inability to be distracted can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with “attentional shift” is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. Its been hypothesized the ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments.

Analysis

interrpret- ation

I need to try to paraphrase this

Borrowing a

Concept

Argument

Argument

paradox? need to figure this out

Exhibit

distraction can

be a precursor

to creativity

Distraction can reveal truth?

Purpose: Their own evidence shows theY’ve missed

something valuable

about distraction

Q - Can distraction be useful?

SiMon, Meyer, Gallagher

Its hard to see how. I suppose you might be more aware of diverse stimuli, but how well could you respond to it?

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

You should also keep track of your intellectual response to the reading: Are you skeptical of some of the ideas or arguments presented? Does some way of approaching a problem or object of analysis seem particularly interesting or puzzling? Is something confusing or suddenly particularly clear? Write it all down. Keep track of the questions, ideas, prob- lems, potential forwards/counters, and personal experiences that percolate in your brain as you read. These will be the foundations on which you come to terms with the piece.

When you are finished reading, immediately write a healthy paragraph right on your print- out (or on the first or last page of your chapter, right in the book if you own it) documenting both the basic substance of the writer’s contribution to the conversation and your initial intellectual responses to it. Record the essential ideas, concepts, or claims that you want to forward or counter, and explain how and why. Describe how reading this text changed your thinking (furthered it? nuanced it? redirected it? complicated it? confused it?).

Transfer your margin notes to a word-processing program or note-taking program (such as Evernote) after reading. We recommend transferring notes only after you read, rather than as you go, because the act of transferring your notes from the page to the word pro- cessor helps solidify your encounter with the text. You will remember more of what you read and develop a deeper, more sophisticated response to the text by revisiting your margin notes in the act of transfer.

You do not need to transfer everything. In fact, you want to be selective to start winnow- ing important stuff from trivial (even if interesting) stuff. Start by transferring everything that went into your “healthy paragraph.” When you wrote that paragraph, you started to develop your own response to the material. You began to integrate new ideas and infor- mation with old, and started to think about how your own project will be impacted by engaging this particular text in conversation. As you revisit your notes in light of other readings and further work on your own piece of writing, you will add to, revise, rethink, and respond to this initial response (so be sure to record the date of your initial reading, and each time you revisit your notes). By tracking the development of your thought as you revisit and rethink your response to a reading in light of further readings and think- ing, you will have a history of your engagement with the ideas and lines of thought that are the substance of the conversation you and all the other writers are having. When you write your paper, you will rely on the history of your encounter with other conversation- alists to formulate your own entry into the conversation.

After transferring that first “healthy paragraph,” transfer only the most important con- cepts (especially ones named with specialized terms), conversation-changing insights, passages, examples, and lines of thought you might want to emulate or deploy in your own writing projects. Do not worry about capturing data or statistics—they are on paper and easily retrievable. If you need one or two specific pieces of information, go back and make a note on the first page of the reading indicating where exactly in the essay the data is (page number) and—here is the crucial step—explaining the meaning and implications of the data. Unless you write down what the data means to you, you will surely forget what you found interesting, useful, or troubling about the data.

This intensive approach to reading is necessary because you are not just reading to under- stand a fact, remember it, and select the right option on a multiple choice exam. You are reading to respond to this text (and others) in writing. You need to cultivate and record

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

a complex intellectual response to the text in order to write about it in an interesting and compelling way.

Synthesizing Once you implement this reading process and do some initial reading in your source set, you should start to see connections between your sources. Likely they will be pursuing some of the same questions, using similar kinds of exhibits or illustrations, and circling around a small set of explanations. When you read for research purposes, it is important not to treat each text in isolation. Instead, try to understand how the texts are talking back and forth to one another on a small set of issues.

In order to demonstrate one way to systematically represent the structural relationships in a conversation, let’s review a visual representation of the research conversation repre- sented in Sam Anderson’s New York magazine piece “In Defense of Distraction” (2010). In it, Anderson reviews the scientific literature on distraction and multitasking with the pur- pose of challenging the notion that we are mired in a “crisis of attention.” While Anderson admits that opportunities for distraction abound in our media-saturated society, he argues that mindful distraction can be a source of creativity and insight. Anderson’s article dis- cusses 10 different writers’ views on the subject. That means he has condensed 10 or more different articles and books into several paragraphs of text to arrive at his own synthesis of their ideas. No researcher, not even a professional like Anderson, can hold the details of 10 complicated texts in mind. So as you learn more, it becomes important to develop some efficient means of representing a lot of material in a clear efficient way. One way to do this is to create a synthesis table, where the views of several different writers on a single topic are entered. Table 4.3 illustrates part of one Anderson might have made.

Table 4.3: Synthesis table

Writer Name Question: What are the causes and characteristics of the “attention crisis,” and what can be done about it?

Herbert Simon We live in a society where we have access to too much information. Too much information “consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently” (Anderson, 2010, para. 3).

David Meyer Multitasking is a myth. Our brains process information across many different channels. When we “multitask” we’re rapidly switching between channels. When a channel gets overloaded, our brains become “inefficient and mistake-prone” (Anderson, 2010, para. 12).

Linda Stone The prevalence of networked mobile computing/communication devices means that we are frequently in a state of “continuous partial attention,” which makes it hard to sustain focus (Anderson, 2010, para. 14).

Winifred Gallagher

While the world constantly intrudes on our attention, paying attention is an act of will. We should be able to choose to focus (Anderson, 2010, para. 15). Because the capacity of our attention is limited to 110 bits of information per second, we must choose to spend our attention on worthwhile things (para. 21). When we do not choose to spend our attention wisely, we should blame ourselves (para. 22).

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

While a synthesis table enables you to see the divergent views of the concept at a glance, it does not easily capture the relationships among the views. A concept map does a much bet- ter job. Figure 4.1 shows what a concept map based on Anderson’s synthesis might look like:

Figure 4.1: Concept map of Anderson’s synthesis

causes

causes

have

have

creates

inefficiently allocate

convey

thinks

the prevalence of networked mobile communications devices

easily distracted people

is is

the state of “continuous partial attention”

What is the “poverty of attention” thesis?

weak executive function

only themselves to blame

a myth

errors and inefficiencies

rapid switching between channels

in the brain

multitasking

too much information

ATTENTION

thinks

thinks

Linda Stone

Herbert Simon

consumes

Winifred Gallagher

by

creates

cope with

David Meyer

people

Thinking creatively about concepts and questions—including using concept maps—helps to sort out your ideas and notes and synthesize the information in a useful way.

Concept maps are designed to answer single questions—in this case, “What is the ‘pov- erty of attention’ thesis?” The thoughts of each writer are color coded so that you can eas- ily see which ideas belong to each writer, and where their ideas overlap. As you review the concept map, you will see how much detail it conveys, as well as gaining a sense of which writers agree with one another, and which dissent from the others.

To better understand how to create concept maps, visit the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition website at http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/conceptmap.html. For now, remember this: However you decide to take notes on your reading, when it comes time

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

to synthesize, be sure to capture areas of disagreement as well as agreement. Being able to acknowledge that there are alternative ways of thinking about your questions and responding to them fairly and thoughtfully is a prerequisite for joining the conversation of researchers in your essay.

Once you understand who is saying what in the conversation, you can use your synthesis table or concept map to write a sequence of paragraphs in which you synthesize what you have learned from the literature. As we explained in Chapter 1, writers of syntheses weave together significant strands of previous research to create a bigger more useful picture of what the research community knows. More than summary, synthesis is an inter- pretive account of the literature. By “interpretive account,” we mean that as you explain what other writers have written, you also explain what you think is the significance of the meaning of the literature. Here is an example of what a synthesis might look like in Emma’s essay. Notice that while much of the first two paragraphs are straightforward description of other writers’ ideas, the final two paragraphs evaluate the utility of the pieces of research discussed. Paragraph 3 explains what Emma thinks her sources have gotten right. Paragraph 4 details what she thinks they have gotten wrong.

Para. 1: There has been a lot of hand-wringing going on in the last 5 years about what “kids these days” are doing on the Internet, and what the Inter- net is doing to kids. Parents, teachers, clergy, and a host of commentators fear that the generation technology writer John Palfrey (2008) deems “born digital” is categorically different from previous generations because of how deeply their lives are intertwined with communications technologies. Teth- ered to one another via mobile phones, Facebook, and IM/texting, well- equipped teenagers are undeniably what linguist Naomi Baron (2008) calls “always-on,” inseparable both from their gadgets and one another (p. 8).

Para. 2: For Baron, Palfrey, and Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein, the fact that teens live at least partially in a virtual world is trou- bling. Baron worries that all this online writing that teens do is weakening their ability to use written language effectively. Palfrey is concerned that the sometimes risqué traces of Digital Natives’ personal lives posted on Facebook, in forums, and other public places online expose them to both humiliation and danger (2008, p. 7). Bauerlein thinks provocatively that today’s online teens are “the dumbest generation” yet, precisely because their online connections to one another wrap them in a growth-stunting “generational cocoon” (2008, p. 10).

Para. 3: It is undeniable that today’s teens (well, those with the financial wherewithal to afford pricey smartphones and data plans) live in a media/ technology–rich environment that is shaping who they are, how they think, and what they see as their purpose in life. Bauerlein is correct that teens’ virtual activities reflect their powerfully absorbing interest in the dynamics and culture of teen life. John Palfrey gets it right when he writes that “new digital technologies—computers, cellphones, Sidekicks—are primary mediators of human-to-human connections. They have created a 24/7 network that blends the human with the technical to a degree we haven’t experienced before, and it is transforming human relationships in

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

fundamental ways” (2008, pp. 4–5). What is more, their digital connected- ness is transforming how knowledge is created and distributed, and how teaching and learning happen.

Para. 4: But Baron, Palfrey, and Bauerlein are wrong to view this moment of admittedly transformative change in human communications as a his- toric cusp, a moment threatening the collapse of reason, economy, and civic virtue. Despite what Palfrey writes, we are not “at a crossroads.” There are more than “two possible paths before us—one in which we destroy what is great about the Internet, and one in which we make smart choices and head towards a bright future in a digital age” (2008, p. 7). While Palfrey is almost right that the “choices we are making now will govern how our children and grandchildren live their lives in many important ways,” it is important not to think about the transformations that come with our move into the digital world in the either/or terms of moral panic (2008, p. 7).

When you write your synthesis, remember to attribute ideas to the researcher from whom you borrowed them. In the four paragraphs above, notice how many times the names Baron, Palfrey, and Bauerlein are repeated. Also, notice how the credentials of each researcher are presented at least once in the sequence. You will also want to use the spe- cialized language that you find in texts you are synthesizing. Whenever possible, weave the quoted passages into sentences of your own, as Emma does throughout her synthesis. If you use these strategies, your reader should be able to easily distinguish between the views and ideas of other writers and yours.

Using Research to Answer Supporting and Essential Questions With her project definition, well-designed set of sources, reading notes, and synthesis maps, Emma is ready to begin to try tentatively answering her supporting questions using the ideas, concepts, cases, and interpretive frameworks she finds in her sources. Her first step is to use these resources to formulate specific answers to her supporting questions. She should try to answer her questions as definitively as possible, presenting support- ing data and analysis to be persuasive. She must also convey the full range of informed opinion represented in the conversation—including divergent points of view, alternative explanations, and areas of controversy, as well as the data and analysis supporting these alternative views. As she is answering her supporting questions, she should also start thinking about what these tentative answers suggest about elements of her essential ques- tion. Periodically, she should try to answer her essential question by writing a holistic account of her research and the conversation to which she has listened.

As Emma tries to explain what she thinks is happening when teen girls use Facebook within the context of their friendships and romantic relationships, she will develop ideas of her own and begin to recognize gaps in her research. For example, Emma has no peer reviewed research explaining the developmental dynamics underpinning teen girls’ for- mation of friendships and romantic relationships. While Emma has much research remain- ing, from here on out, the research work of Phase II is to repeat the process detailed above as her ideas evolve and gaps appear. Eventually, as she refines her stock of ideas, cases, and interpretive concepts; tests varying explanations; and develops her set of sources, she will arrive at a conviction that she knows why, in developmental terms, teen girls use the Inter- net to socialize with peers and romantic interests. She will be ready, that is, to formulate

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Working With Sources—How to Review the Literature

a thesis-driven argument. You will learn much more about thesis-driven research argu- ments and the characteristics of good theses in Chapters 5 and 6, but to begin it is sufficient to understand that a thesis must do more than prove a point. It must be formulated as a response to one or more researchers’ positions on issues driving the existing conversation.

Formulating a Thesis In order for Emma’s thesis to be responsive to the discussion, her work must be situated in the arguments of others. So far, Emma has decided that the “addiction” explanation of teen social network site usage obscures more than it reveals. She has also decided that a multidisciplinary explanation rooted in teen psychology and sociality and the affordances of social network sites reveals a lot about why and how teen girls use social network sites such as Facebook to seek status, try on identities, and mediate relationships. Her thesis paragraph would need to capture these elements of her thinking. Here is what the lead-in to her thesis might look like.

Lead-In: While early researchers and popular articles understand teen use of the Internet in terms of addiction, recent studies by sociologists danah boyd [sic], Sonia Livingstone, and others have proposed an explanatory model that suggests that the affordances of social network sites such as Facebook are enabling teens to meet developmental needs. The value of this research is that, unlike previous research, it is based on surveys, inter- views, and direct observation of teens.

Now that she has declared her dissent from the addiction model, and her consent for a developmental model, the next step is for Emma to establish how her own line of inquiry responds to an active question in the literature. It might look something like this:

Line of Inquiry: Since empirical research on teen use of the Internet is rela- tively new, most studies treat both teen boys and girls. In order to bet- ter understand the specific nuances of teenage girls’ use of social network sites, I will synthesize the current literature on teen girls’ developmental imperatives and the affordances of social network sites to explain how girls use the affordances of social network sites to navigate the challenges of teen friendships and romantic relationships.

With this, Emma narrows her focus, establishes her method of research, and forges a key connection between the technology and teen girls’ developmental imperatives. Next is to issue her thesis statement:

Thesis: Whereas parents and journalists explain teen girls’ Internet use in terms of addiction, I argue that the multimedia affordances of Facebook (Timeline, status updates, links, photo posting, and tagging) feed into a gender-specific imperative for teen girls to “compose” an image of them- selves that responds to their own needs and the expectations of their peers. Further, I argue that this image both reflects an ideal image of themselves and the way individual girls are seen by their peer group. Finally, I argue that parents who view their daughters’ images misinterpret this online self-image, seeing them as documentary images instead of peer-negotiated projections.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.3 Plagiarism and Responsible Use of Sources

The last part of the paragraph is to explain the significance of the thesis.

Significance: If my arguments are correct, then we can better understand the gender-specific challenges teen girls face as they seek to establish an emerging adult identity for their peer group, and work to separate from the self rooted in the family setting. Moreover, we can better help parents interpret their daughters’ Timelines in light of the developmental impera- tives they express.

Having reviewed the literature well enough to formulate such a thesis, Emma is ready to begin using her project description; answers to essential and supporting questions; and her reading notes, synthesis tables or concept maps, to draft an essay. Later chapters in this book will track Emma’s progress through the drafting, revision, and editing stages of the project.

By the end of this phase of the research project, you will have equipped yourself to be a knowledgeable participant in discussions on your topic. You should have well-formed questions, plenty of examples and cases to draw on as evidence, multiple partners-in- inquiry (including those who may disagree with you), and an interpretive framework to help you determine the significance and meaning of your analysis. Chapter 5 will go much more into depth about theses and their structures.

4.3 Plagiarism and Responsible Use of Sources

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use by a writer of words and ideas originating with other writers. In many ways, we live in a time when such use is easier than ever before. Previously written material about almost any subject is available with the click of a mouse. Unethical paper writing services prey on students who cheat themselves out of the benefits of their own education. To complicate matters, as the Council of Writ- ing Program Administrators reminds us, “In some settings, using other people’s words or ideas as [one’s] own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents)” (2003, p. 3).

It is no wonder that a majority of college students now view the Internet as a source of free information to be used without acknowledgment as they see fit. As the Council for Academic Integrity found,

How to Write a Thesis Paragraph

1. Establish the part of the conversation you want to work in with “lead-in” sentences. 2. Establish your own line of inquiry as a response to the conversation. 3. Articulate your thesis as a response to conventional wisdom and established research. 4. Explain the significance of your thesis—why does it matter if you are right?

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.3 Plagiarism and Responsible Use of Sources

Internet plagiarism is a growing concern on all campuses as students struggle to understand what constitutes acceptable use of the Internet. In the absence of clear direction from faculty, most students have concluded that “cut & paste” plagiarism—using a sentence or two (or more) from dif- ferent sources on the Internet and weaving this information together into a paper without appropriate citation—is not a serious issue. While 10% of students admitted to engaging in such behavior in 1999, this rose to 41% in a 2001 survey with the majority of students (68%) suggesting this was not a serious issue. (as cited in Schreyer Honors College, 2013, para. 3)

According to academic integrity researchers Donald L. McCabe and Patrick Drinian, “[S]tudents blame the pressure to succeed—the need to meet the expectations of their families, graduate schools, and pro- spective employers” for cheating (1999, p. B7). But in college and uni- versity settings, such unacknowl- edged use is taken very seriously. Why? Because making false claims about authorship transgresses the scholarly values that make institu- tions of higher education able to do the important work of educating students and creating knowledge. Plagiarism by scholars at any level— whether students or faculty—under-

mines the standards of fairness, open-mindedness, and truth seeking that academic endeavors require.

Plagiarism also undermines the value of your education. Students who submit the words and ideas of others as their own harm their education and the education of others. When you do not do your own work, you miss the opportunity to increase your knowledge and develop your skills. And when employers doubt the integrity of your college or univer- sity, your own knowledge, skills, and integrity will come into question.

Not all unacknowledged use of sources is intentional. As the Council of Writing Program Administrators argues, “[S]tudents may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts” (2003, p. 2). And they may not “know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their research” (2003, p. 3). In this last section of this chapter, you will learn how to integrate your ideas with others and how to take careful and fully documented notes during research.

Best Note-Taking Practices to Avoid Plagiarism One reason students get accused of plagiarism is that they do not always use note-taking practices appropriate for academic purposes. Whenever you take notes for an academic paper, you must be sure to:

iStockphoto/Thinkstock Today’s technology makes it easier than ever to simply “copy and paste” data from your sources. However, be extremely careful to cite each source, as plagiarism can have very serious consequences.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.3 Plagiarism and Responsible Use of Sources

1. Record all bibliographic data for the source. Include author name, publication date, and title of the publication. For books, also write down the publisher of the book and the geographic location of the publishing company. For jour- nals, record the journal title and volume and issue number.

2. Enclose all words taken directly from the source in quotation marks. 3. Record the page or pages on which the passage or idea appears. 4. Attribute all words and ideas to their correct author, taking into account that

academic writers often quote other writers in their texts.

Ways to Signal When You Are Borrowing Words and Ideas To avoid plagiarizing, you must clearly signal when you are using words borrowed from another writer. First, be sure to enclose any words that you borrow from another writer in quotation marks. Second, use an attributional phrase to signal that the ideas and words you are conveying originate with another writer. Frequently encountered attributional phrases include ones like the following:

• According to _____, . . . • As _____ claims, . . . • _____ argues that . . . • In an article titled “____,” sociologist _____ examines . . .

Use attributional phrases even when you are summarizing or paraphrasing other writers’ ideas, as well as when you are quoting them directly.

Besides acknowledging authorship, attributional phrases often give information about the writer’s expertise and authority to write about her subject. Here’s an example (the attributional phrase is in boldface):

According to pop culture analyst Liz Colville, “We give ourselves anxiety try- ing to decipher the tone of a text or the meaning of a tweet’s punctuation”(Colville, 2009, para. 13). Reference: Colville, L. (2009). Surfing alone: Is digital tech- nology destroying relationships? Pop Matters. Retrieved from http://www .popmatters.com/pm/column/94800-surfing-alone-is-digital-technology -destroying-relationships/

In addition, do not allow quoted passages to stand alone as complete sentences. Instead, always embed quoted passages in sentences of your own composition, preferably ones that go beyond simple attribution to provide context to your readers:

In an article asking whether digital technology is undermining face- to-face relationships, pop culture writer Liz Colville explains that our devotion to digital communication may be eroding our willingness to invest in fully embodied relationships: “Technology has established it as a luxury, rather than a disorder, that we do not as often have to deal with the physicality of people” (2009, para. 13).

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CHAPTER 4Key Terms

Finally, provide readers with an in-text citation containing abbreviated publication infor- mation. All of our citation examples so far have included such a reference in parentheses at the end of the sentence containing the quoted passage. In APA style, parenthetical refer- ences include the author’s last name (when not included in an attributional phrase), the year of publication, and the page or paragraph number where the passage appears. Do not forget that research papers require a reference page listing all of the sources you used in alphabetical order. Chapter 8 introduces the other types of style guides (MLA, Chicago style). Each style has unique procedures for references and other paper components.

Chapter Summary It may take practice to implement the concepts, strategies, and tools presented in this chapter, but the benefits are well worth the effort. When your source set is well designed to support your research needs, you can spend your research time analyzing and inter- preting sources, and making connections among ideas, rather than worrying about whether you have “enough” sources. Likewise, when you read critically to understand how researchers are conversing with each other, rather than to record information, you become aware of areas of disagreement, as well as consensus, enabling you to formulate your own reason-based judgments and advocate for them in your essay. When you see research articles and books as artifacts of human minds in pursuit of the truth, rather than repositories of information, you become motivated to use their ideas responsibly, avoid- ing the risk of plagiarism.

Key Terms attributional phrase A phrase such as “according to Alvarez” or “as Johnson writes,” which signals to readers that the words or ideas that follow have been bor- rowed from another writer.

concept map A visual representation of ideas, their components, and the relation- ships among them.

partners-in-inquiry Researchers who are asking questions similar to your own and thinking about issues that concern you.

plagiarism The unacknowledged use by a writer of words and ideas originating with other writers.

survey While actively reading a text, the action of scanning content to pick up a shallow overview of the text.

synthesis table A means of represent- ing the similar and contrasting views of a group of scholars in table form.

writerly moves The set of frequently used strategies that a writer uses to convey his or her argument.

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CHAPTER 4Web Sites for Further Reference

Web Sites for Further Reference http://prezi.com/3bsfvefiq-ht/untitled-prezi/ This Prezi by Caroline Eichholz presents the mechanics of APA citation style in an appealing manner. Content derived from Temple University’s Online Writing Lab.

http://cmapskm.ihmc.us/rid=1064009710027_1483270340_27090/CmapTools%20-%20 Concept%20Map%20About%20Concept%20Maps.html . This concept map by the Institute for Human Machine Cognition provides a step-by-step process for making concept maps. To better understand what concept maps are and how they work, see this concept map example.

http://wpacouncil.org/node/9 This article by the Council of Writing Program Administrators defines plagiarism and offers recommendations for avoiding it.

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/RES5e_ch09_o.html Bedford/St. Martin’s exhaustive online APA citation guide.

http://academic.ursinus.edu/writing/signal.html This Ursinus College Writing Center web page offers a helpful list of verbs to enable you to construct signal phrases that provide “information about your source authors’ atti- tudes or approaches” (para. 1).

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