3.4 Preparing to Join the Conversation

^[1]When you are searching for sources to help you support your argument, resist the impulse to look only for documents that pertain to your exact subject matter. Sometimes, students will be frustrated because they have searched exact terms, such as “Occupy Wall Street” AND “Facebook,” and have come up with nothing. However, remember that you are creating your own unique argument. Trying to find papers that have made exactly the same argument you want to make will nudge you towards the “patchwork” model and away from the opportunity to put together something new and interesting of your own.

Instead, look for papers on similar subjects or on the broader categories into which your specific discussion fits. Other writers interested in social media and its use in protest movements will have produced papers on the subject. Exploration of this material can be very profitable for you.

Corroboration, contrast, and contextualization will all give you ways of approaching your subject matter that would remain inaccessible to you if you limited yourself to a close reading. The secondary works you consult will provide factual information you would not otherwise have, as well as analytical ideas that come from perspectives that might not otherwise have occurred to you. You do need to be careful that you are engaging with these works instead of merely replicating them.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Using Your Essay to Look Forward

Reflecting on his own considerable and influential body of work, Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” When we reflect on Newton’s output in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and physics, it becomes apparent that Newton was himself a giant whose broad shoulders are forever crowded by thousands gazing into a distance he has made visible. As Newton’s own self-assessment reveals, he became a giant not through some solitary moment of inspiration, but through joining and furthering the ongoing conversation.

Discourse—the respectful reception of other ideas and the reflective response to them—is the lifeblood of all scholarly disciplines, all universities and colleges, and all university and college courses—such as the ones in which you are currently enrolled. Your research essay, like all research essays, is a vital contribution to this discourse. Universities and colleges exist primarily as a space to foster the ideas that the works of others inspire in you, the responses to these works that you develop, and the dialogues between you and others as you consider complementary and contradictory responses.

One of the goals of this text is to prepare you to enter this conversation and make sure your contributions are taken seriously at this level. One of the key components of a meaningful essay at this level is the proper balance of your ideas, the examination of primary evidence, and the elevation of your investigation through the proper use of scholarly sources. You are using secondary sources to elevate and complicate your opinion/claim, not replace it. Your claim always drives your analysis. Your claim determines how sources are applied to your argument and what inferences you derive from that application.

You make these selections because discussion of both in the light of each other will result in an elevated understanding of the topic and a useful extension of the scholarly discourse. You cannot join an ongoing discourse by waving vaguely and making generalizations. You can join an ongoing discourse by examining a specific idea in detail and in the light of how it extends and further complicates the scholarly conversation.

Joining the Scholarly Conversation: Using Your Primary and Secondary Evidence

Your essay will use several sources, but for the purposes of brevity, we are going to pretend that we have our primary claim and one scholarly secondary source.

We find that one of the best approaches for students preparing to write a research essay using evidence is to imagine taking part in a conversation—perhaps an introduction of two people you know very well but who do not know each other. In this conversation, you will have to take a leading role, but you are hoping that the people you are introducing will hit it off and begin conversing with each other as well. Two mistakes students make when facilitating this scholarly conversation are:

2. Dominating the conversation to the point that neither their argument nor the secondary sources contribute meaningfully.
3. Being a passive conduit and contributing very little in the hope that the sources will somehow carry the conversation all by themselves.

Dominating the Conversation

Let’s look at some examples of these mistakes and then examine ways to remedy them.

The first mistake involves acting like a domineering, interrupting, and inattentive conversation partner—the sort of person who finishes other people’s sentences, most often in ways the interrupted person did not intend. This sort of mistake most often manifests itself in essays in which the student paraphrases the sources, making them say things they are not really saying for the sake of proving their own argument, or using minimal, even one-word citations and plugging them into their own argument out of context. In this way, the writer ignores what either source is saying because the primary concern is making the conversation arrive at the desired conclusion no matter what the cost. Here is an example of this sort of “bullying” of sources using our primary claim and our secondary article:

Here, we see the author using McCosker and Johns’s article as if it is about the Occupy Wall Street page, which it is not, and as if it agrees with the author’s assessment of the primary evidence. This secondary source is misused to support what the author wants it to say about the subject. Also, the citations are short snippets used without context. Exactly what are McCosker and Johns referring to when they describe “aggressive antagonistic behaviour?” Exactly what are they referring to when they discuss “angry, adversarial and provocative speech?” And what is the context of each of the harsh phrases the author has lifted from the comments page? If you review McCosker and Johns’s article, you’ll see there are several times here where the author has clipped a citation to make it serve the desired argument. McCosker and Johns’ point is a little more qualified when describing the “volatile debates erupting online.” They write of the “dense and volatile debates erupting online,” implying a more nuanced reading of online discussions than simply pointing at their potential for danger. The author needs to decide how to convey the primary claim then determine if McCosker and Johns’ argument as it exists in their essay can support that point.

Passive Conduit

The second mistake occurs when the writer hopes that the sources will somehow speak to themselves and arrive at a meaningful conclusion without much help. In these sorts of conversations, the student has become a non-contributor, sitting passively as the sources speak at each other rather than speaking to each other in light of the conversation the student is trying to facilitate. This sort of non-conversation occurs in papers in which the student quotes large passages from one or several sources with minimal purpose or interaction. It is as if the student has said, “Source A, meet Source B,” then departed quickly rather than get in the way of the magic that will hopefully happen as these two sources make a meaningful connection. Using once again our primary evidence and our secondary article, here’s what happens when the student hopes the sources will speak to and for themselves:

To borrow Tara Lambert’s metaphor, I think we can see the “seeds” of the argument the author of this paragraph is trying to make, but the author relies far too much on large citations from the primary and scholarly sources. Neither source is being put to use and the author’s intention is not clear. This author needs to inject purpose into this paragraph and use the evidence to support the claim.

Purposeful Conversation

Now that we have looked at the mistakes made most often when trying to create this sort of conversation, let’s use the same information and develop a more useful, more purposeful conversation. Remember to let these sources speak, but also that the purpose of this conversation is all yours. Secondary sources allow you to gain a richer, more informed, and complex vantage point on your primary claim. However, you must avoid relying on  secondary sources to act as your “answers.” You are using secondary sources to support your claim. Your claim should always drive your analysis. Your claim determines how sources are applied to your argument and what inferences you derive from that application. Here’s an example of how we elevate our own argument by utilizing sources so that it becomes part of a larger scholarly discourse:

In this example, there is a fine balance between this author’s intent and the sources used. Neither overwhelms the other. The author keeps an eye on both purpose and context here, using but never altering the meaning of the sources, to support and complicate a deeper reading of the Occupy Wall Street Facebook page.

You will need to keep these aspects of an academic conversation in mind as you read your own sources and prepare to utilize them in your upcoming academic, scholarly arguments.