If you have taken ENGL 6730: Issues in TPC: Secondary Research, you are already aware of the importance of a comprehensive and critical research process. As technical writers and scholars, we are responsible not only for writing with good style and appropriate organization, but also for presenting accurate information and a balanced treatment of our topic.
In fulfilling these responsibilities, we face two challenges: relying too little on our sources and relying too much on our sources.
Ask most non-writers what the job of a writer involves and you'll probably hear about the process of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), filling up the blank page with words in meaningful order. Some enlightened souls will also note that the writing process also involves painstaking revision, multiple drafts, collaboration with editors, and perhaps even attention to audience needs. But this vision of the writing life ignores all the work that precedes the construction of the text itself. It assumes that the writer starts off in possession of all the necessary content knowledge and then simply molds that knowledge into its final textual form.
If we already possess some knowledge of our topic, we may be tempted to depend upon what we already know. Especially when we choose our own projects, it's tempting to rely on our prior knowledge to the exclusion of alternative perspectives or information sources. We ignore the fact that we ourselves are one of our "sources"--perhaps a very good source, but still in need of critical scrutiny. Like any singular source, our perspective is inevitably partial. First, we must acknowledge that our vision of the topic or project is incomplete. Even if we're authorized to choose our own projects (as you have done for project 3 of this course), we are still responsible for ensuring that the project's scope and emphasis is appropriate not for ourselves but for our audience. Second, we must recognize that our knowledge is based on past sources, whether written, verbal, or experiential. Our knowledge of a topic has accumulated over time, probably without much critical scrutiny; by now, it may have achieved the status of "common sense," making it seem as if there is nothing more to ask.
Our personal knowledge has value; we shouldn't discard it simply because it's personal. However, we need to treat our prior knowledge critically rather than depending upon it blindly. Since we may have thoroughly naturalized this knowledge, it is all the more important to test it against different sources drawn from alternative perspectives.
It is also tempting to assume that we have covered all our bases simply by accumulating information from reliable sources. Students often ask this telling question: How many sources do I need? This question may simply point to the peculiar "hybrid" status of course projects (as both research projects and class exercises, with different formal expectations in each case); however, the question also implies a misunderstanding of the research process itself. It assumes that research is merely accumulative--a process of stacking up information like firewood until the pile is measurably high enough. From this perspective, the sources themselves mean nothing--they merely contain information that can be extracted by the researcher and ultimately put into a new text.
But the research process is not just an accumulative process; it is also, and far more significantly, an interpretative process. When we conduct research on a topic, we are exploring the terrain of the topic, seeking to understand its topography rather than simply accumulating bits of value-neutral information. We judge the credibility of each source. We read with the source to determine its agenda and its contributions, but we also read against the source to determine how its agenda (like all agendas) is partial, influenced by a local (not a universal) perspective and motivated by specific needs.
The most important thing that we can draw from each source is a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of our topic. We have done enough research when we are able to understand our topic from several different perspectives, and when these perspectives reveal a "three-dimensional" object, not simply a cardboard cut-out of our topic--a reduction of the real object into a flat, convenient representation.
In short: use several sources, representing as many perspectives as you can determine. But do not assume that a stack of sources will automatically reveal "the truth" about your topic. Your sources will require critical interpretation. They will represent perspectives that may clash with each other, but that shouldn't be rejected simply because they clash. If you've gathered a good collection of sources, then you'll find yourself forced to interpret each source in light of the others, not simply stack them up to form a completed project. Your project will emerge, somewhat alchemically, out of your critical interpretation of the available material. You will be relying on your sources because they provide you with good material to interpret, but you won't simply let the sources themselves determine what is true and important about your topic.
You are surely already aware of some of the research sources that you might use in a project. Here I simply list several types of sources to consider:
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Secondary Documents |
Articles or books in which prior writers have conducted research on your topic (or a related topic), then represented a view of that topic based on their research. This type of source is valuable because it offers a representation--something pre-digested by a researcher, and thus possibly easier to understand than primary documents. Secondary documents may also attempt to consider multiple perspectives on a topic, giving you some insight into the topic's nuances or key problems. |
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Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) |
People who have research or experiential expertise with your topic: doctors, scholars, previous writers, and perhaps even members of your target audience may be able to provide insight on your topic. Often, SMEs may be speaking from a perspective that is indirectly rather than directly related to your topic. For example, if your topic is "diabetes treatment methods," then a doctor specializing in diabetes treatment may be able to provide the most direct perspective. But others--including nutritionists and diabetes sufferers themselves--would certainly provide valuable perspectives as well. |
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Primary Documents |
Reports, articles, and other documentation produced as a direct outcome of primary research, or as a direct record of an event or object. The difference between "primary" and "secondary" documents is a matter of degree; all documents are representations, and all must be interpreted critically. Documents produced as a direct result of experimentation, or as a record of an event, may provide a useful perspective because they are less "pre-digested" than later secondary accounts. However, the primary account is often harder to interpret. |
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Artifacts |
Site documents, brochures, news articles, ephemera, product labels, photographs, artistic representations, and other objects (documentary or physical) that provide clues about a topic or problem. "Artifacts" may be things that represent the topic or problem without necessarily having been created in order to do so. |
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Examples of the Genre |
While the other source categories focus on topic, you may also benefit from finding examples of projects on different topics but responding to similar rhetorical situations. For instance, if you are writing a newspaper article on a scientific discovery, you may benefit from reading newspaper articles on other scientific discoveries to learn how the genre of the news article accommodates (or fails to accommodate) scientific discovies for a newspaper audience. If you are writing informational literature on a disease, see how others have written about different diseases to learn what works and what doesn't. |
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