Source Use Part 2: Styles for Blended Voices (Friday, May 19, 2023)

This session was the second workshop in a series of two on research and source use, in support of the ENG 12 CLO, “Compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those of other texts.” While in the first workshop, faculty discussed the range of research sources appropriate for ENG12 in view of students’ interests and purposes, this second workshop focused on the actual demonstrating of research as “voice” and “blended style.”

The session started with faculty observations around students’ typical use of research and research writing styles. Question: What do students think they are doing as they incorporate research into their writing? It was apparent that students see the research endeavor as something weighty, mechanical, or academic. Donna-lyn noted that students feel involved in “learning something my teacher wants me to learn about,” where students are abstracting research as a thing in itself. Ashiza shared that students are providing “extra support” that “proves” they know what the author is talking about. Hermina shared that students may focus on a discovery process where knowledge—the best article, the best knowledge—is something to obtain. John related students’ sense of acquiring “tools” of the academic trade, with databases as a gateway to academic community and belonging.

All these perceptions made sense in light of how research is required, isolated, and taught in college (and, likely, going back to high school), where it may be hard for students to hear our emphasis on attaching meaning and purpose to their writing.. To get even closer to students’ ideas about research, Hope suggested investigating our students’ writing to understand how they are actually using research, and to what extent they are resonating a “voice” of their own.

Hope shared two samples of students using research. In one, it was possible to see the student imitating some very strict notion of conveying research, sans any investment of real purpose or voice. In the other, the approach was more allusion-like, with the student lightly pointing to research while keeping their voice and concerns at the center. The first example was essentially just a string of disembodied claims, based on several articles, which made the research feel cramped.  It felt like a “claims show and tell.” One instructor raised the possibility of ChatGPT in this case, which similarly demonstrates faceless writing. (The writing had actually been revised to tie-in unique concepts from the course.) The other example, from a similar assignment, was personal experience supported by some details from a small-town online newspaper from where the experience took place. Just a bit of research, as context, rounded out and enriched the telling of experience.

The two approaches to research brought out differences not only in supporting voice and purposes, but also in creatively imagining where support for one’s ideas might be searched for and found.

As we talked more, we realized that voice and purpose in writing were really about transparency of a writerly self, and that instructors might use the question of “seeing the student in the writing” to foster this value. Certainly, there is a place in academic writing for paragraphs that are a “show and tell” of claims, and students may find such examples in articles from the sciences and social sciences. (Elaine asked in fact whether the student of the more mechanistic writing was a science major.) There’s room for discussions of source use according to various disciplines.

Instructors agreed, however, that they want to emphasize a more slowly-paced, thoughtful, personally meaningful style to source use. Laura spoke of those days visiting the library with students where instructors and students worked together to find sources.

Thinking of transparency in writing also led us to consider empathy; often empathy is implicit in the way invested writers interpret sources (ChatGPT, not so much), and also maintain voice. To notice and value the implied empathy of students’ source use, when it happens, means valuing both “objective and subjective understanding” of knowledge—a distinction Donna-lyn made. Donna-lyn gave us a wonderful question: “How are [students] keeping their voice prominent?” and offered, “Connecting up the dots is more skillful than their demonstrating” this or that research point.

Thinking ahead to the self-assessments students must write for ENG12 portfolios, we acknowledged it may be too late to talk about research process once they’ve already completed a writing project—they may have already jumped the “show and tell of claims” line. So it’s important to help students process their research before submitting a first or second draft.

Some takeaways: 1. Help students see their choice of sources as something unique and helpful to their purposes for writing; 2. Offer that students may choose one or two sources rather than several; 3. Make it possible for students to process what the source is about, where it converges with their interests, and how it could be effective in their writing; 4. Build in reflection related to research throughout the term.