Group Presentation January 20, 2011

1. Group PresentationJanuary 20, 2011 Kars Petersen Philip Beard Nathan Prouty Beau Seigfreid

2. What is Research? • Gathering information to answer a question • Information comes from research that other people wrote up in anticipation that someone else could have their same question • Things we accept as fact are based in research that other people have done • Research is crucial to changing and improving our world

3. Writing to Remember • Start at the beginning of the project • Listing sources, assembling research summaries, keeping lab notes, making outlines

4. Writing to Understand • Writing allows for arranging and rearranging of data which creates new connections, contrasts, complications, and implications between ideas • Helps plot and visualize relationships between multiple ideas • Brings larger ideas to the surface

5. Writing to Gain Perspective • Seeing thoughts on paper helps to structure an argument • Notes, outlines, summaries, commentary • Writing allows you to see what you’re thinking more clearly • Create an organized and coherent form of thought

6. Formal Constraints • Conforming to formal constraints of a research community allows you to answer readers questions • Rhetorical community • How have you evaluated your evidence? Why do you think it is relevant? How do your claims add up? What ideas have you considered but rejected?

7. Affects of Formal Research • Forces writer to see their thoughts in the light of readers understanding and expectations • Changes the way you think • Allows you to learn about yourself and test your ideas against others

8. Importance of Forms • Help anticipate predicted questions from reader • Each community has a different way of reporting data, forms help to meet expectations of reader in each community • What counts as good work is the same in every form

9. Research Overview • Writing with others in mind forces critical attention to the way ideas are being portrayed along with disentangling them from your own wishes and thoughts • Doing research on something you care about will result in a much better final product

10. Chapter 7Making Good Arguments • Even in casual conversation, you tend to do five things: • Make a claim. • Support that claim with reasons. • Support those reasons with evidence. • Acknowledge the opposition and respond. • Justify connecting your reasons to your claim with principles.

11. “The Claim” Claim: any sentence that asserts something that may be true or false and so needs support. The main claim of your report can also be called your thesis. (For example, if you wrote a report about the temperature rising, the sentence stating that would be your report’s main claim)

12. “The Reason” Reason: sentence supporting a claim, whether or not it is the main claim. A reason must often be supported by more reasons, which in turns makes it a claim in itself (a sentence can be a claim and a reason at the same time).

13. “The Evidence” • In casual conversation, we tend to overlook the lack of evidence • In writing, one can’t expect readers to accept reasons without evidence. Claim because of Reason based on Evidence

14. “The Opposition” As a writer, you must anticipate as many questions from the audience as you can, and acknowledge and respond to the most important ones. Problems researchers have is not in responding to the audience’s questions and objections, but in anticipating them.

15. “The Warrant” Though readers may accept that a reason is supported by evidence, they may not see it as relevant to your claim. Warrants are principles that allow us to make general assumptions reasonably.

16. “The Ethos” Largely unnoticed, but very important to your argument. You want to seem trustworthy to your audience. How can you convince them to have the same opinion as you if they can’t trust you?