COM 600 Psychology Research Paper

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

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Brief documentary-style video, outlining the writing process.

ID: 02-VIDEO-53598cecdd7d4a518d68f19e Writing Process

RECORDED ON

Oct 31, 2014

COPYRIGHT

2014

TAGS

Writing, essay, research, writing structure, writing papers, assignment parameters, plagiarism, thesis statement, CWE

Speakers: Host, Kena Ray, Dr. Aaron Coe, Amelia Boan

HOST: Words. How often do we really think about them? How often do we take words for granted? I know I do often enough. There’s power in words. When I’m not taking them for granted, I think about how even in their most basic solitary state, certain words have the ability to stand on their own.

At one time, we didn’t write words down. At one time, words were carried between communities and histories through oral tradition or pictures. Then parchment showed up. In a century’s long blink, words magically appeared on a screen.

Now we can manipulate them quickly, no longer having to chisel them into stone or toil with an inkwell. Humans. We’re intelligent creatures, capable of transcribing our hopes and stories immediately and indefinitely. Information sharing, reporting, transcribing, storytelling, all at the speed of thought and the stroke of our fingers.

We link words together with purpose. Well, maybe not always. This takes me to my dilemma. I recently had one of those moments in my life when I came face to face with writing a paper and when I set out to do the work, that is turn words into something for an assignment, I realized how long it had been since I’d written a paper, so long in fact that I had forgotten how. Worse yet, I had forgotten where to begin.

So I did what anyone in my situation might do. I asked for help. I didn’t want to just haphazardly throw words together. I wanted to write with purpose and write well. More than anything, I wanted to use a proven writing process so I set out to find a community of people who could clue me in on some resources and offer insight and maybe just maybe I’d learn from them.

This first person that I’m meeting with has worked as a journalist before. Now she’s working with educational content so I’m sure she understands how to get a project underway and completely polished. I’m hoping that she can get me started.

KENA RAY: When you first sit down to do your paper, the very first thing you do is read that syllabus. Read the instructions carefully and make sure that you understand everything that is listed in the assignment requirements.

So check for the topic of course. Figure out what type of paper it’s going to be. Check the word count requirement and see if there are any references required for your paper.

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HOST: It sounded easy enough. I had to read over the assignment, choose a topic if it hadn’t already been chosen for me, and I was pretty sure the kind of paper it was meant to be could lead me to identify a problem of some sort, right? Word count and references, simple enough.

KENA RAY: Generally when you’re writing a paper, you need to figure out who your audience is. A lot of the times it’ll just be your facilitator, your classmates. Those are the people who will be reading it but sometimes you’re asked to write a paper from the perspective of a CEO of an organization or something like that.

When you know your audience, you can adjust your tone, vocabulary, and point of view.

HOST: Audience, got it.

KENA RAY: It may be helpful to set some short-term and long-term deadlines. For instance, a short-term goal would be to write your first draft by Tuesday if your paper is due Friday. If you break it into chunks like that, it makes it a lot less daunting to sit down and write.

HOST: Yeah, I think this is where I get stuck. My life gets pretty busy.

KENA RAY: Yeah, consider your schedule. Think about when you do your best work. If that’s in the middle of the night, that’s awesome. Write then. Or if it’s first thing in the morning before your kids wake up, do it then too. Whatever works for you.

HOST: At this point I have my what, the topic, and my when, the timeline, but I really need my how. It’s time to do some research and really learn about my topic. This next person is sure to help me.

HOST: Okay, so topics and subtopics. The outline follows. That made sense but I started to wonder about my thesis statement.

You start to shape what it is you want to say about it and as you do that, begin to draft a thesis out. It doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect the first time but really think about what you want to say and write it down.

HOST: Writing it down seemed like a good idea but I started feeling a bit overwhelmed with keeping everything organized. Fortunately, Aaron had it covered.

HOST: It was all starting to come back to me. I had my main points, my thesis statement, and the message I wanted to convey to my audience was coming together rather nicely.

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There was that piece I had mentioned about wanting to do it well though. My paper needed to be authentic.

You can start really general, an encyclopedia or your textbook, and really what you need to look at is what are their sources? Where did they get their information? So you can start with the textbook but really dig in. Where did that textbook get its information and where did those sources get their information and begin to create a little research trail to get to the beginning point because if you can get to that beginning point, then you can begin to articulate your story based on the actual evidence related to the topic.

When you’re citing sources, you really want to avoid citing non-academic resources. Don’t just use Google on the internet. Go to the University Library and search in there and look for resources that are actually found in the library because more often than not, those are really going to be good academic sources.

You know, the University Library is great because you can really use the library to search for the resources that you need and find the specific topics that you’re looking for and subtopics.

HOST: Okay, legitimate research. I had to remember everything the library offered and keep it academic. I was also glad that he had brought up citations. That is definitely one of those areas that I had always found a little intimidating. I wanted to stay organized from the start.

Plagiarism is very serious, particularly in an academic world. You know, we don’t want to take other’s work. We don’t want to take credit for other peoples’ ideas. So the safe bet is always to go ahead and cite your work.

HOST: Okay. Taking credit for someone else’s work; I definitely didn’t want that. I figured if I was citing way too much, my facilitator could always tell me to tone it down. Better safe than sorry. Also I could see how the research could influence my work, that I could just adjust topics and subtopics as necessary just as long as I wouldn’t veer from my actual assignment.

HOST: The assignment requirements; I had to remember those. I also appreciated the way he kept referring to the outline which will become the backbone of my process.

So it’s going to take work, it’s going to take time, but it’s worth it in the end because you learn not only about something but how to articulate something and tell a story about what it is that is going on.

HOST: I’m starting to feel my confidence return. More than that, I’m feeling inspired. I have my timeline, my outline, and my research. I feel like this is all leading me to do some

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serious writing but I am counting on this last person to show me how. After all, she is the one who knows about writing around here.

AMELIA BOAN: You just follow the outline. You just expand on the points and just start writing. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you write. You can revise later. You don’t want to worry too much about word count. It is important but at this point content is much more important. You can write as much as you want. You can always edit it out later.

HOST: It sounded too easy but it also sounded just right. I had my framework so I had to fill it in with my own voice. The research was there to guide me too.

AMELIA BOAN: Your research is definitely important and you do want to incorporate that into your first draft because it’s what is going to support your thesis statement for your paper. The reason you want to use your citations even in your first draft when you’re writing your paper is so that you don’t forget to include them in your final draft. You want to make sure that all of your material is attributed to the proper source.

HOST: I could see then what she was getting at. Everything that Kena and Aaron had talked about was getting pulled together and bonded with the writing. I had a plan thanks to my help. At that point, I knew what to write.

AMELIA BOAN: The next step after you finish your first rough draft is just the reviewing and the rewriting phase. What you want to make sure to do is allow yourself the time to do the rewriting and editing and don’t be afraid to ask for help because you’re actually not alone in this process.

No matter what time of the day or night, there are resources for you to use on your student website. You can reach out to classmates and colleagues and you can even ask your instructor for help.

Now that you have a final draft, go back to your assignment directions and see if you covered all of the points.

HOST: I’m glad she mentioned that. I remember writing projects from way back and how I thought they were ready. I had felt relieved, too relieved, and just turned the projects in without checking or I had simply ran out of time. I had to remember to leave time for this, especially for all of the final checkpoints before turning it in.

AMELIA BOAN: I had mentioned that there are some resources available on the student website. There is an APA sample paper to help with formatting, plagiarism checker to make sure that all of your sources are in order, and grammar and writing guides.

HOST: That was it. I was in a better place. Also, I wasn’t alone in it. I had found the process and the guidance to take my paper where it needed to go. Oh yeah, I couldn’t forget to turn it in too. I just needed to make the time to get the work done which brought me back to some of the last thoughts my friends had shared.

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KENA RAY: Don’t wait until the last minute. Don’t wait until the night before or the day it’s due. I know you’re a busy student and sometimes that might be all the time that you can imagine that you have to write your paper but that is why it’s important to read ahead and work ahead.

I know from experience, I turned in so many late papers as a student. I submitted so many unfinished articles when I was a journalist just because I didn’t give myself enough time. Typically I need about five days at least to write my paper from brainstorming to drafting to revising and to perfecting it at the end so that it’s a complete paper when I submit it.

AMELIA BOAN: Just remember writing is a process. It’s going to take work.

KENA RAY: It is a lot of work but it’s worth it.

HOST: When I set out to write my paper, I was more concerned about just getting it done and admittedly maybe landing a good grade with little preparation but things are different now. Learning about process and purposes led me to write, I don’t know, maybe for some level of posterity. What have I learned?

Well, there is power in community. I have also learned that when words are linked into content, no matter the style or context, almost any content can tell a story of some kind even if that story happens to be something like how atmospheric pressure affects the tides or the difference in migration habits of specific birds.

So the story goes on but not all at once. Like most everything, successful writing involves time and process. Now fortunately, I see the steps. It’s going to take some work and that’s okay. This process, it can vary from person to person. That’s the beauty of it. However, there is one common thread, the drive to share something in words, a theory, a thought, a story, information perhaps, methods, ideas, research, ways to improve something. Whatever it is though, it must be written and rewritten.

There is power in process and this process is about practice. Speaking of practice, I have often heard how practice makes perfect but what if I could live differently? Maybe I’ll choose to believe that practice makes better. Maybe I’ll share that thought or maybe just maybe I’ll write about it.

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