Composition: History & Theory: 1990 - 1999
Kairos, Volume 8, No.1: 1999
Description
“Research Writing in First-Year Composition and Across Disciplines: Assignments, Attitudes, and Student Performance”
by Daniel Melzer and Pavel Zemliansky
Melzer and Zemliansky’s article is a hyperlinked piece with about seven separate pages. This is typical for many of the articles in Kairos. Melzer and Zemliansky begin with stating the objectives of the studies they are discussing, answering two questions: 1) “When a writing program introduces new ways of teaching research, what are students’ expectations of and reactions to these new types of research assignments?” and 2) “To what extent have the new ideas about researched writing penetrated other disciplines and what kinds of research assignments are students in those disciplines being asked to do?”
The authors go on to provide background information on the discussions concerning the research paper:
- 1982 - In “The ‘Research Paper’ in a Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing,” Richard Larson criticizes the generic research paper because it implies that other kinds of writing do not require research.
- Other critiques of the assignment of the last decade include Douglas Brent’s in Reading as Rhetorical Invention (1992) and Robert Connors’ in Composition-Rhetoric (1997). They accuse the traditional research paper of being a-rhetorical and tedious, both for teachers and students, and call for new ways of teaching researched writing. They call for less efficiency and more exploration in student research. Students can make ideas from research; they don’t have to simply recite them.
- Melzer and Zemliansky’s research of disciplinary writing supports Jennie Nelson’s assertion that the research paper is “one of the most institutionalized forms of college student writing…[and] one of the most common writing assignments college students can expect to encounter in their undergraduate careers…” (1994, 65). They also provide support for an argument against teaching the traditional research paper, hoping that students become better thinkers and knowledge-makers and teachers have new perspectives on old subjects.
The study shows that, as a whole, students adjusted to the new assignments successfully despite some significant problems caused by preconceptions about research and negative experiences with assignments in the past. Students were surprised to learn that interviewing, surveying, and other primary research methods were legitimate in school research papers. Among other problems many students faced when conducting secondary research were the use of unreliable sources, failure to read secondary sources critically, and so on. 2000, 3Cs article by Davis and Shadle, “‘Building a Mystery’: Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Art of Seeking."—Alternative research writing values inquiry, exploration, and personal engagement with the subject rather than an emphasis on expertise, certainty, and detachment (let’s say lack of social finesse).
Conclusions of the studies
- Students “equate research with finding and reporting information and not with development of new knowledge and creativity”
- Students are more involved and interested in primary research (surveys, interviews, etc.) and have continued negative attitudes towards secondary research in college.
- Finding and reporting information does little to prepare students for the diverse genres and modes of thinking they will engage in as they encounter research writing in the disciplines. Research writing across the curriculum often calls on students to do much more than regurgitate information in a templated format.
ADDITIONAL TITLES: Beasley, Amy and Chismar, Connie. Are Students Getting What They Need From a Composition Course? Kairos 5.1: 1999. Discusses the use of virtual classroom space (the VTT project) and the positive impacts it has on teaching writing as process, working collaboratively, consider audience in their writing, learn how to use and be critical of technology, and viewing knowledge as shared rather than possessed by individuals. Bishop, Wendy. On Teaching with Technology. Int. Bagby, Sonja. Kairos 7.3. 2002. Discusses the benefits and drawbacks of using the web in a creative writing classroom, the importance of computer literacies and acknowledging them, teaching collaborative work, and using blackboard to work collaboratively. Alexander, Jonathan. A Review of The Emerging Cyberculture: Literacy, Paradigm, and Paradox. Kairos 6.1: 2000. This is a fun, interactive book review with lots to discuss about how literacy works in and through any medium and the importance of following the literacies through technologies.
Date of Upload
3/15/09