EDUCATION: Writing and Research

From an e-mail from Professor Stephen Ersinghaus, a.k.a. The Great Lettuce Head:

“If you follow the GLH series on research you will note that I do have a subtle plan developing. I will be posting on how to use tools for researching and controlling info. Watch over the next few weeks.”

It’s becoming a subject of great concern to teachers throughout the country, I am sure, and one that Professor Ersinghaus is tackling head-on. I’ve mentioned his postings before, but I suggest you do keep up with his thoughts and even add your comments to the site. The latest, Research and Writing: Part VI covers the student’s selection of subject for a thesis, and this seems to be one of the most difficult points to overcome, even before leading into the methods of researching it.

I realize that although MLA citations were stressed in English Composition, proper research methods were not really dealt with in depth. As deadlines approach, a teacher’s “I’ll help you” is nice, but students don’t usually like to admit their problems at such a late date as it reveals their lack of foresight and efforts. I do remember getting into just a tiny bit of library science back in high school, and the cataloging of books that helped understand the system—basic, but believe me, one can be overwhelmed by what’s in a library just as by what’s on the internet.

In a prior posting I mentioned the difficulty of separating the wheat from the chaff in research (or I meant to, anyway) and the necessity of taking courses that will in no way ever be used before they are completely forgotten; the main purpose instead is to learn a different perspective and logic that studying the subject requires. Proper research methods, logical and well-planned, are tools that can apply to almost everything else we face in life, and that is why it is so important to learn, and to teach in a classrom.