doin’ research
We’re in the library computer lab today doing research on “issues related to Afghanistan” and different genres of media — a topic and method I have left intentionally broad. Students keep asking me, Caitlin, and Meghan — “Now what exactly am I supposed to do??” and I keep turning the questions back to them — what do you think you are looking for? What is a good blog? How do you know your resource is a good one?
I think there is this assumption by faculty and students alike that when you get to college you can just “go do research” on a topic. This usually involves going to Google and using the first couple of hits. But good research is something else entirely. First of all, sometimes the first hits under Google aren’t good ones. The question of whether or not you should be able to use Wikipedia is still out — and how do you evaluate other sources when .org can be purchased and at least at one point whitehouse.com was a porn site (whitehouse.gov is the actual site — and I haven’t checked in many years if the other one is still porn so maybe it isn’t anymore).
Real research means using different search engines, finding something in one place and checking in other places to see if it is true, triangulating different resources — online news, blogs, video with “traditional” newspapers or television news. What about talk radio? What about cable news shows? Who or what is a valid source and why should we check — if it’s out there, can’t we trust it? What are the sources and means of production of information now?
These are big questions for anyone to wrestle with — and beginning college students, and busy college faculty already have a lot on their plates. Now we’re talking about shifts in the nature of information and learning between when faculty were students and their students’ sitting in front of them and that almost means retraining yourself all the time in what’s out there, how to trust it, what to think. No easy feat, especially in the dog days of July.
And why do so many sayings relate to dogs, anyhow? : )
July 10th, 2008 at 3:06 am
I just want to tell you that I really enjoy what we’ve been doing in class and that I’m working really hard to try and do well. I’m really glad that your my first professor in a college class because your extremely down to earth and I feel like I can talk to you as a person and look up to you as a professor. So even though the class isn’t even half way over I want to say thank you and I hope to talk to you about my school because its an amazing place