Analysis of Literacy Practices

All of my papers, hypothetical or written, begin with contemplating the topic and potential thesis. I tend to use paper and pencil to sketch out my initial thoughts, but do the majority of my research and writing on the computer. I think Borges’ treatment of and interest in juxtaposed or warring communities (such as the Japanese/German characters in “The Garden of Forking Paths” or the Hasidic Jews/Hispanic communities in “Death and the Compass”) would make an interesting topic for a paper and lend itself to an effective thesis, so that’s what my paper would focus on.

As an English major I’ve done a number of annotated bibliographies, but don’t tend to use them unless they’re assigned. However, since beginning my academic career as an undergraduate I’ve become increasingly aware of the importance of varied research, and so my approach to beginning this paper would start with collecting as many relevant sources as possible from different places. In the past, I’ve relied on the books from Winthrop’s Dacus library in addition to online databases such as JSTOR, Ebscoe, and the International MLA Bibliography, and so that’s where I would get the majority of my peer-reviewed articles and essays.

From a writing standpoint, it is imperative in my process to have a working thesis and outline before I begin heavy research. I take the preliminary notes that I’ve written by hand, and transfer them to a word document. After accomplishing those goals, I would move on to focusing on the research aspect of the paper. I tend to enjoy gathering materials through online resources because of the ease of accessibility. I would use one of the previously mentioned databases and implement a variety of Boolean searches in order to narrow down the criticism into a manageable selection of relevant articles. Some search terms I would use would be the following: Borges AND New Historicism, World War II AND The Garden of Forking Paths, symbolism AND (Borges AND The Garden of Forking Paths). After I have a small pool of fifteen to twenty articles, I would go through and read the abstracts and the first few pages in order to determine which arguments would lend themselves most effectively to my thesis. Once I’ve narrowed it down to five or seven I would most likely print them out, because I enjoy being able to highlight and annotate on a physical text. I would repeat the Boolean search process with the database of books at the Dacus library, and I typically use two to three books for an eight to ten page paper.

After I’ve got my two to three books and my five to seven relevant articles, I would go through each and pull out quotes that would be useful in supporting my argument and add them to an outline of my paper. While I do prefer to annotate by hand, I would add these quotes to an electronic outline in a pre-existing word document. By doing this, it’s easier for me to know how I can incorporate quotes and sources into my paper so I’m using the resources effectively. From this point onward, I would be working on developing my outline into a full-fledged paper that uses my research in a way that is supportive.

Up until this point, I’ve thought that my process was similar to most of my peers, if not a bit more focused. However, after reading Nicholas Carr’s article, I realized that my version of “collecting” was actually in line with what his article describes as “bouncing around.”  In addition, I can remember from previous research papers counting out how many pages I had left to read, and looking for the shortest scholarly articles possible. I don't think that my wandering attention stems from a lack of interest, but instead from an increasing reliance on instant gratification in the form of Wikipedia, Google, and Yahoo! Answers when I'm desperate.
I would agree that research (at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional level) is being influenced by the changes mentioned by Carr. As a current undergraduate student, I worry that my papers won’t be able to compete with others around me because of my lack of focus or tendency to rush through searches and sources. From a teaching perspective, since I plan on going into academia and teaching at the collegiate level, I worry that these changes will effect the overall integrity of research by progressively decreasing a student’s ability to put focused time and energy into a final product (in this case, a paper).