In my opinion, I found chapter 6 of the Bedford Book of Genres to be very helpful. When writing a research paper, it is important to make sure you are using credible sources, that will benefit the paper. Sources can be found on google, databases, people, books, etc. There are sources everywhere. For my research topic, since it concerns a lot of medical work on genetics and children, I will use a lot of sources from databases, academic journals, and people. Primary sources may be an option too, if I want to analyze someone who has genetically chosen their child, or was genetically engineered by their parents. The chapter goes into further explanation about knowing if the source is a good source to use. By asking yourself when reviewing a source what the rhetorical situations are, the purpose, and who is the audience are all ways to decide if the source is useful for the paper. Also, when picking a source, it is helpful to have some background of who the author is. For example, it might be better to use a source written by a doctor for a medical research paper, rather than someone who is not associated with the medical field at all. Evaluating whether or not a source is a good choice is done by asking questions like, is the source relevant to my topic? What is the authors credibility? Is the authors purpose to persuade, inform, or to tell a story? Questions like these help students evaluate their potential sources in depth. By using the strategies talked about in chapter 6, students are able to find well known, credible sources that will make their future research papers successful.
Throughout chapter 1 of “The Bedford Book of Genres,” I learned that there are a variety of ways to improve one’s writing. Several writers tend to get carried away while writing that they forget who their audience is and what message they are trying to deliver. This is when one must ask themselves what their purpose of writing is, do they want to present a narrative/ tell a story, inform, or persuade. After figuring out ones purpose they must choose a genre to be able to shorten their idea and be concise. In order for this to occur one must know the basic qualities and agreed-upon rules about the genre they are composing. Once one makes those decisions they move on to the rhetorical situation which mainly explains the idea. This allows the writer to provide support on their purpose such as saying what is great about it or provide statistics, which will automatically make their writing more interesting for the audience to read, as well as, get t...
I completely agree, knowing the author and their purpose is the first step in deciding whether something is reliable, without bias.
ReplyDeleteI like that you mentioned how to use primary/secondary/tertiary sources in reference to your own paper. I also found the text to be very helpful.
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