Source Use: Emphasizing Purpose in Source Use for Better Research (Friday May 5, 2023)

This workshop addressed the course learning outcome of ENG 12 composition courses, “Compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those of other texts.” Instructors discussed their concerns around teaching research and source integration, which may in some cases take the focus away from students’ purposes for writing in the effort to demonstrate research according to academic conventions. The session emphasized how to keep students’ purposes for writing central in writing projects that include research.   Early on, instructors stressed the academy’s overshadowing influence on student dispositions toward research as it can feel overwhelming and alienating in the overall context of a writing project. It is possible for students to resist research if it disrupts other priorities for writing and thinking and feels too academic.   To this point, much of the session cultivated ideas for connecting students to their purposes for writing. These include: integrating research into personal essays (and building out from the personal); having students develop inquiry projects that prioritize research as a process; having students note and work from questions that arise for them organically; encouraging students, as part of research, to write from their social communities perspectives as a way to share with others social trends and dynamics they see happening (but which are not yet part of academic discourse).   Our discussion took up the notion that situating students at the center of their research process includes making room for a wide range of sources that can be considered research. Often databases and New York Times-level sources are emphasized, but in an information age, what constitutes a “source” can and should be expanded, including video, artwork, excerpts from interviews, social media posts, and even other students’ writing.  While instructors might wish to stress a source’s reliability, students can be helped to wonder about a much wider variety.  For example, students may opt for sources that reflect social trends, cultural norms, and personal experience. While these sources might fall outside the range of “reliable,” depending on the project and its aims, they still speak to the need for sharp and analytic contemporary observations.   This point led us to think about the research process much more broadly. One example: a neighborhood resident might “research” how neighbors are working to follow NYC’s new mandates for curbside garbage collection by walking around the blocking, doing some noticing, and drawing conclusions. It is possibly to document in a Works Cited nearly every sort of source consulted. (It nearly always captures students’ attention when they see that correct MLA Works Cited form exists even for tweets.) Good research method should help students to see themselves and others as constant creators of new knowledge and thus sources of and for research.   Instructors agreed that more time for students to explore and share their research process during particular projects was essential, and students should be encouraged to reflect on the research process in its increments. As Daniel noted, students should also be permitted to change the direction of their writing, and their topics altogether, due to the discoveries of their research, and that such opportunities depend on students being helped to understand that research must fit their purposes as writers. Doreen shared the sense of excitement around research that an instructor’s own research position may also convey. Instructors reviewed a helpful template for reflecting on research: transactional and rhetorical annotations, a rubric by Greg Bruno.   Overall, instructors shared a more expansive understanding of what it means for students to do and include research and source use in their work, a key link between research and purpose in writing.