Primary Research and Writing: People, Places, and Spaces [1 ed.] 1138785571, 9781138785571

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Primary Research and Writing

Developed for young academic writers, Primary Research and Writing offers a fresh take on the nature of doing research in the writing classroom. Encouraging students to write about topics for which they have a passion or personal connection, this text emphasizes the importance of primary research in developing writing skills and abilities. Authors Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Michelle F. Eble have built a pedagogical approach that makes archival and primary research interesting, urgent, and relevant to emerging writers. Students are able to explore ways of analyzing their findings and presenting their results to their intended readers. With in-text features to aid students in understanding primary research and its role in their writing, chapters include special elements such as: • • • • • •

Communities in Context—profiles of traditional and digital communities that help students understand the characteristics of communities and group members Profiles of Primary Researchers—spotlights on professionals, giving an illuminating look into the role primary research plays in real-world research and writing Student Writing—examples of exemplary student writing that demonstrate how research can be relevant, engaging, and interesting, with annotations Invention Exercises—exercises designed to help students locate primary investigation within communities that they already understand or find appealing Writing Exercises—writing exercises that offer students practice in exploring communities and investigating primary materials Readings—annotated readings with questions to guide analysis, pulled from a variety of rich sources, that give students inspiration for undertaking their own research projects

This text has a robust companion website that provides resources for instructors and students: www.routledge.com/cw/gaillet Primary Research and Writing is an engaging textbook developed for students in the beginning stages of their academic writing careers, and prepares its readers for a lifetime of research and writing. Lynée Lewis Gaillet is Professor of English at Georgia State University where she directs the Writing Studio and Lower Division Studies. Michelle F. Eble is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Communication at East Carolina University where she serves as Director of Graduate Studies.

Primary Research and Writing People, Places, and Spaces

Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Michelle F. Eble

Publisher: Linda Bathgate Editorial Assistant: Ross Wagenhofer Development Editor: Craig Leonard Production Editor: Gail Newton Marketing Manager: Eric Rose Text Design: Karl Hunt, Keystroke Copy-editor: Janice Baiton Proofreader: Jackie Dias Indexer: Kate Legon Cover Design: Gareth Toye Photo and permission researcher: Rona Tuccillo Companion Website Developer: Candace Nadon Companion Website Designer: Lauren Nauheimer

First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis The right of Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Michelle F. Eble to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gaillet, Lynée Lewis. Primary research and writing : people, places, and spaces / Lynee Lewis Gaillet, Michelle F. Eble. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Composition (Language arts) 2. Community education. 3. Research--Methodology. I. Eble, Michelle F., 1974- II. Title. PE1404.G34 2015 808.02—dc23 2014035428 ISBN: 978-1-138-78556-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-78557-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-76756-7 (ebk) Typeset in Melior by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton Additional materials are available on the companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/gaillet

Contents in Brief

Preface Acknowledgments PART I PRIMARY RESEARCH AND RHETORICAL TOOLS 1 2 3 4

Introduction to Primary Research Defining and Engaging with Communities Identifying a Research Topic and Thinking Like a Researcher Becoming an Authority on a Topic

PART II METHODS FOR INQUIRY AND CONDUCTING ARCHIVAL RESEARCH 5 6 7 8

Beginning Archival Research: A Practical Guide Fieldwork and Ethnographic Observation Interviews: Researching People Surveys: Researching Beliefs, Opinions, and Attitudes

xvii xxiii 1 3 29 57 85 107 109 141 177 203

PART III WRITING AND DELIVERING YOUR RESEARCH

227

9 10 11 12

229 257 283 315

A Rhetorical Approach to Research and Writing Reporting and Delivering Research Findings Documenting Your Research: MLA Documenting Your Research: APA

Appendix Index

341 349

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Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

xvii xxiii

PART I PRIMARY RESEARCH AND RHETORICAL TOOLS

1

1

Introduction to Primary Research Defining Primary Research 5 Locating Primary Materials 8 Family Archives 8 Government Records 9 Libraries 10 Organizations 11 Digital Spaces/Records 13 Communities in Context: Rate My Professors.com 14 Creating an Archive 15 Highlighting the Role of the Researcher in Archival Research 15 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Amanda Gable: Historical Fiction Writer 17 Reading: “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker 19 Chapter Summary 26

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2

Defining and Engaging with Communities Defining Community 29 Community Components 29 Types of Communities 30 Communities in Context: Global Surfers 30 Personal/Family Communities 31 Geographical Communities 33 Academic Communities 34 Reading: “UND nickname still point of discussion/NCAA: American Indian nicknames are ‘hostile and abusive’” 35 Social Communities 37 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Andrea Kitta: Folklorist 37 Organization or Business Communities 39

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Engaging with Communities 41 Reading: “1910 Time Capsule Opened at Cleveland Elementary” by Jill Tucker 41 Student Writing: “Los Latinos en Marietta” by Nico Augsburger 47 Understanding Communities Through Research 48 Archival Research and Artifacts 49 Observation 50 Interviews 50 Surveys and Questionnaires 50 Secondary Research 51 Researching an Online Community 52 Student Writing: “IGN.com Archive” by Christopher Snipes 52 Chapter Summary 54 Appendix: List of Select Online Community Archives 54

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3 Identifying a Research Topic and Thinking Like a Researcher Curiosity and Inquiry 57 Student Writing: “The Evolution of Healthcare in North Carolina” by Ruth-Ann Styron 59 Invention Strategies and Heuristics 63 Freewriting 64 Student Writing: “Reasons Why (or Why Not) to Join a Sorority?” by Helen Gaillet 65 Clustering 65 Cubing 67 Burke’s Pentad 69 Reading: “Lessons Not Learned: A Year After the Gulf Oil Spill, Oil Remains, But New Permits are Granted” by Ethan Goffman 70 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Becky Needham: Chamber of Commerce Membership Manager 74 Exploring Your Personal and Academic Interests 75 Communities in Context: Reddit.com 76 Thinking Like a Researcher 77 Reading: “James Todd, From Anthropologist to Researcher of NASCAR and Southern Culture” by Mark Emmons 78 Chapter Summary 81

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4

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Becoming an Authority on a Topic Developing a Research Question 85 Becoming an Expert 86 Reading: Our Lady of the Angels Firefighter Dies 89 Communities in Context: Firehouse.com 91 Moving Between Primary and Secondary Research Sources 95 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Caitlin Hale: Newspaper Journalist/Editor in Chief 95 Incorporating Research Findings 96 Quoting 97

CONTENTS

Summarizing 97 Paraphrasing 98 Plagiarism 98 Student Writing: “Out of the Ashes” by Robert Brennan 100 Chapter Summary 106 PART II METHODS FOR INQUIRY AND CONDUCTING ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

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5 Beginning Archival Research: A Practical Guide The Unexpected Find 109 Selecting and Describing an Artifact 110 Student Writing: “Boots Made to Last” by Sgt. Pugh 111 Communities in Context: Galveston, TX 115 Investigating Contemporary Reception 116 Researching Primary Materials 117 Conduct Preliminary Research Online 117 Cultural Context 119 Student Writing: “Researching Photographs Project” by Alison Carter, Rachel Smith, and Tiffany Watkins 120 Contact the Librarian or Curator 123 Student Writing: Sample Student Letter 123 Compile the Necessary Documents 124 Student Writing: Sample Student Project Description 124 Make a List of Equipment You Will Need 125 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Shelby Reap: Architectural Historian 125 Corroborating Primary Investigation Through Secondary Research 127 Student Writing: “Scrapbooks to Speeches: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Public and Private Writings of Harriet Morehead Berry” by Elizabeth Garrard 128 Chapter Summary 137

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6 Fieldwork and Ethnographic Observation Defining Ethnography and Fieldwork 142 Profile of Primary Researchers: Jenna Burrell, Heather Ford, Tricia Wang, and Rachelle Annechino: Ethnographers 144 Reading: “A Day in the Life: 3-wheeled Vehicle-based Fruit Vendor” by Zach Hyman 145 Ethnographic Research Methods 156 Observation and Thick Description 157 Communities in Context: MiniForum.com 157 Field Notes 158 Analyzing Field Notes 159 Reading: Observation of Piedmont Park 160 Storytelling 161 Reading: Excerpt from “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston 162

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Student Writing: “The ER Can’t (and Probably Won’t Without Insurance) Put Humpty Dumpty Together Again” by Benjamin Harris 163 Researcher’s Point of View 166 Student Writing: “Gold’s Gym: Observation of a Fitness Community” by Brandon Bragg 169 Chapter Summary 174 7

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Interviews: Researching People Why Interview 177 Who to Interview 178 When to Interview 178 Asking for an Interview 179 Structuring the Interview 179 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Wade Mahon: Editor of Issues in Writing Designing Interviews and Formulating Questions 181 Closed Questions 182 Open-Ended Questions 182 Conducting Interviews 184 Listening 184 Types of Interviews 185 Oral History 185 Reading: “Good Will Hunting: An Oral History” by Janelle Nanos 186 Communities in Context: StoryCorps—Every Voice Matters 189 Informational or Expert Interviews 190 Reading: “Business is People” by Chet Cooper 191 Research Ethics 196 Student Writing: “Profile Assignment” by Samuel Martin 198 Chapter Summary 200 Interview/Oral History Digital Resources 200

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Surveys: Researching Beliefs, Opinions, and Attitudes 203 Generating Research Through Surveys 203 Reading: “Survey: Instant Messaging will Surpass Email” by Mitch Betts 204 Types of Surveys 204 Evaluation/Assessment Surveys 204 Attitude/Belief/Behavior Surveys 205 Quality of Life Surveys 206 Marketing Research Surveys 207 Usability/User-testing Surveys 207 Communities in Context: Research Access 208 Writing and Designing Surveys 209 Student Writing: “Hurricane Katrina Survivor Movie: Response Survey” by Wendy Goff 211 Writing Survey Questions 214 Assessing Questions 215 Survey Delivery and Sampling 217

CONTENTS

Managing Survey Results 221 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Mandee Foushee: Analyst for a Survey Research Center 222 Reading: Community Land Use Survey 223 Chapter Summary 226 PART III WRITING AND DELIVERING YOUR RESEARCH

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9 A Rhetorical Approach to Research and Writing Deliberative Rhetoric 229 Judicial Rhetoric 230 Ceremonial Rhetoric 231 Reading: “Commencement Address” by Tom Brokaw 231 Communities in Context: American Rhetoric, The Power of Oratory 234 The Elements of Rhetorical Situations 235 Writer 235 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Kristin English: Public Relations 236 Purpose 237 Audience 237 Context 239 Genres and Delivery 239 The Rhetorical Appeals 241 Ethos 242 Student Writing: Analyzing Ethos 242 Pathos 243 Student Writing: Analyzing Pathos 243 Logos 244 Student Writing: Analyzing Logos 244 Analyzing and Incorporating Primary Materials 245 Reading: “Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention” by Institute of Medicine committee 248 Chapter Summary 254

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10 Reporting and Delivering Research Findings Gathering Research Findings 258 Analyzing and Interpreting Research Findings 258 Profile of a Primary Researcher: Emma Buchanan: Quality Investigator 259 Research Tools for Analysis 260 Matrix 260 Spreadsheets 260 Graphic Organizer 263 Communities in Context: Pew Research Center 264 Moving Through the Writing Process 265 Determining Your Writing Process 266 “Writing Up” and Reporting Your Research Findings 267

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Drawing Conclusions 268 Making Recommendations 268 Adding to an Archive 268 Moving from Pre-writing to Drafting 268 Organizational Strategies 269 Chronological Organization 269 Hierarchical Organization 270 Spatial Organization 270 Comparison and Contrast Organization 271 IMRAD Organization 272 The Introduction and Conclusion 272 Reading: “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamont 273 Framing Your Research Findings 276 Revision Strategies 277 Student Writing: “Occupational Writing in Wildlife Biology” by Stephen Parker 278 Engaging in Reflection 280 Chapter Summary 281 11 Documenting Your Research: MLA In-Text Citations 283 Work with One Author 284 Basic Entry: Author Named in In-Text Signal Phrase 284 Basic Entry: Author’s Name in Parenthetical Citation 285 Two or More Works by the Same Author 286 Two or More Authors with the Same Last Name 286 Work with Two or Three Authors 287 Work with More Than Three Authors 287 Part of a Work 288 Organization as Author 289 Indirect Source (Author Quoting Someone Else) 289 Multivolume Work 289 Work Cited By Title 290 Works Cited 291 Non-Periodical Print Sources 291 Book with One Author 291 Book with Two or Three Authors 291 Book with More Than Three Authors 291 Organization as Author 292 Unknown Author 292 Two or More Books by the Same Author 292 Author and Editor Both Named 292 Editor, No Author Named 292 Encyclopedia or Dictionary Entry 293 Work in an Anthology 293 Two or More Items from the Same Anthology 293 A Translation 293

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Book with Both Translator and Editor 293 Edition or Translation of a Book by a Non-specified Author 294 Book in a Language Other Than English 294 Edition Other Than the First 294 One Volume of a Multivolume Work 294 Preface, Foreword, Introduction, or Afterword 294 Book as Part of a Series 294 Republication (Newer Edition of an Older Book) 295 Book with a Title within the Title 295 Government Document 295 Sacred Text 295 Brochure, Pamphlet, or Press Release 295 Periodical Print Sources 296 Article in a Journal 296 Article in a Magazine 296 Article that Skips Pages 296 Article with a Title within a Title 296 Newspaper Article 296 Letter to the Editor 297 Review 297 Electronic and Web Sources 297 Archives Online 297 Manuscript or Other Unpublished Work 297 An Entire Work: Online 298 Literary Works: Online 298 Visuals Included in the Text 298 Article from a Database 298 Article in a Magazine: Online 299 Online Book 299 Online Report 299 Online Editorial or Letter 299 Online Review 299 Entry in an Online Reference Work 300 Part of a Website 300 Entire Website 300 Citing Online Archives: Websites 300 Academic Course Web Page 300 Entire Web Log (Blog) 301 Post or Comment on a Web Log (Blog) 301 Post to a Discussion or Newsgroup 301 Entry in a Wiki 301 Electronic Message 301 Other Common Sources 302 Film or Video 302 Television or Radio Program 302 Broadcast Interview: On Air 302

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Unpublished or Personal Interview 303 Sound Recording 303 Musical Composition: Not a Specific Recording 303 Lecture or Speech 303 Live Performance 304 Podcast 304 Work of Art or Photograph 304 Map or Chart 304 Cartoon or Comic Strip 304 Advertisement 305 Published Proceedings of a Conference 305 Dissertation, Thesis, or Abstract 305 Transcripts 305 Published Interview 306 Letters 306 Legal Source 306 Creating and Citing Notes 306 Sample Student Paper Using MLA Documentation 307 Student Writing: “From Vines to Wine: The Story of Duplin Winery” by Daniel Jerome Fussell 307 12 Documenting Your Research: APA In-Text Citations 315 Work with One Author 316 Basic Entry: Author’s Name in Parenthetical Citation 316 Basic Entry: Author Named in In-Text Signal Phrase 317 Two or More Works by the Same Author 317 Two or More Authors with the Same Last Name 318 Work with Two Authors 318 Work with Three or More Authors 319 Part of a Work 319 Organization as Author 320 Indirect Source (Author Quoting Someone Else) 320 Multivolume Work 320 Work Cited By Title 321 Creating and Citing Notes 321 List of References 322 Non-Periodical Print Sources 323 Book with One Author 323 Book with Two or More Authors 323 Organization as Author 323 Unknown Author 323 Two or More Books by the Same Author 323 Author and Editor Both Named 324 Editor, No Author Named 324 Encyclopedia or Dictionary Entry 324

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CONTENTS

Work in an Anthology 324 A Translation 324 Book with Both Translator and Editor 325 Book in a Language Other Than English 325 Edition Other Than the First 325 One Volume of a Multivolume Work 325 Preface, Foreword, Introduction, or Afterword 325 Book as Part of a Series 325 Republication (Newer Edition of an Older Book) 326 Book with a Title within the Title 326 Government Document 326 Sacred Text 326 Brochure, Pamphlet, or Press Release 326 Periodical Print Sources 327 Article in a Journal 327 Article in a Magazine 327 Article that Skips Pages 327 Article with a Title within a Title 327 Newspaper Article 327 Letter to the Editor 328 Review 328 Electronic and Web Sources 328 Manuscript or Other Unpublished Work 328 Literary Works: Online 328 Visuals Included in the Text 329 Article from a Database 329 Article in a Magazine: Online 329 Online Book 329 Online Report 330 Online Editorial or Letter 330 Online Review 330 Entry in an Online Reference Work 330 Part of a Website 330 Entire Website 331 Post or Comment on a Web Log (Blog) 331 Post to a Discussion or Newsgroup 331 Entry in a Wiki 331 Electronic Message 331 Other Common Sources 332 Film or Video 332 Television Program 332 Broadcast Interview: On Air 332 Unpublished or Personal Interview 332 Sound Recording 333 Lecture or Speech 333 Live Performance 333

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Podcast 333 Work of Art or Photograph 334 Map or Chart 334 Cartoon or Comic Strip 334 Advertisement 334 Published Proceedings of a Conference 335 Dissertation, Thesis, or Abstract 335 Transcripts 335 Published Interview 335 Letters 335 Legal Source 336 Sample Student Paper Using APA Documentation 336 Student Writing: “George H. Sutton: The Portrait of a Billiards Expert” by Brian Lee Havens 336 Appendix: Archival Resources Index

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Preface

A New Approach Primary Research and Writing: People, Places, and Spaces offers a new approach to writing based on a very old and commonsensical premise: research and write about what interests you by first observing, creating, and studying primary materials, then writing up your findings with a specific community in mind. In our personal and workplace communities, seldom are final written projects simply a compilation of secondary research, although conducting background investigation is usually necessary to ground new information. In this volume, we discuss ways to blend secondary and primary research in ways that lead to more interesting and novel projects. We have found, through our own writing and the composition experiences of our students, that writers are more engaged when they: • • •

care about the subject matter believe they have something to contribute to the subject at hand target their work for real audiences (rather than write for the nebulous “they” or “public”—groups hard to picture).

For us, the key to enjoying writing is investigating topics ourselves, becoming primary researchers who collect data that does not already exist instead of taking on the role of editor or research assistant in charge of compiling available information about an assigned topic. Original investigation is often labeled primary or archival research, the kind of real-world investigation that characterizes publishable and workplace writing. We think learning how to conduct primary research and presenting those findings to a community prepares students for later academic writing, interdisciplinary investigation, and the kinds of research and writing tasks required in the workplace and daily life beyond the university. More importantly, primary research and writing for communities is interesting. Who doesn’t want to put his or her own spin on writing projects?

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Understanding the Differences Between Primary and Secondary Research The premise for this textbook is based upon understanding the differences between primary and secondary research. We find it a bit ironic that nearly all students from elementary school through college understand concepts and practices associated with secondary research better than those of primary investigation. In fact, when we first introduce our students to primary research practices, they are often confused and unclear about what we expect of them, or they associate primary inquiry only with materials housed in special collections or rare book rooms. If we define archives as sources for generating writing topics, as places for finding not only ideas but also information, and as research storehouses, then writing becomes immediately more interesting and easier to manage. Furthermore, in selecting an archival topic to investigate—one originating in a community that already holds interest for the writer—students can more easily demonstrate authority on a subject. Like professional researchers and writers, in classes based on primary investigation, students learn how to select topics that appeal to them, follow a list of steps and suggestions to find archives (both physical and digital), visit collections, and explore ways to analyze findings and introduce the results into existing conversations for specific communities of readers. Students examine their reasons for conducting research and personal beliefs and biases throughout this process. Students may initially be unsure about exactly where they are headed, but most are embracing the opportunity to blaze meaningful trails, and the resulting writing is engaging, unique, interesting, and—perhaps most importantly—inspired.

Making Research Exciting and Interesting As teachers, we need to make research exciting, interesting for both the researcher and the audience, and tailored in terms of methods of inquiry, subject matter, and the researcher’s goals. For students (and us as researchers/writers), choosing topics in which we are personally vested is rewarding, easier to research and write up than assigned or “commissioned” writing. This book avoids pitfalls of plagiarism and boredom in the writing class, and teaches writing and research skills that are transferable across the curriculum. It also prepares students for both academic and workplace writing, and makes writing personally meaningful for students at every level of the undergraduate curriculum. For example, examining community and family archives, some of our students write about famous people from their hometowns (a famous politician, a Pulitzer-winning novelist); local events that had larger significance (fire code reform in one instance and changes in industry practices in another); and personal artifacts that held appeal for the public (a large collection of European stamps, maps that suggested other ways to interpret historical events in one county). In taking on these projects, students find their voices and become experts on local matters. In our wildest dreams, we would never come up with the fabulously interesting research topics that students select based on their own interests and access to archives, including: origins and significance of cigarette cards; history of a local winemaking enterprise; analysis of early surgical tools used at army field hospitals;

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history of prosthetics; bridge building; analysis of family recipes/receipts. Projects like these (discussed throughout this textbook) hold great personal interest for the students. They are proud of their research, are happy to write up their findings, and in the process learn skills that are foundational to workplace and academic writing: how to conduct primary investigations, make original meaning, and contribute their findings to a community. Our students engage in traditional secondary research to discover background information about their topics, but they also conduct interviews and surveys, transcribe oral histories, and engage in observation and ethnographic research to create knowledge. They never cut and paste information from somebody else’s published work into their papers. Instead of quoting experts, they become the experts on topics in which they are vested.

Enthusiasm Beyond the Classroom Finally, perhaps our favorite part of writing courses based on archival research occurs at the end of the term. We sponsor a mini-conference during the last class meeting time or the scheduled final exam. The students set up poster sessions, display artifacts, make videos, or plan digital slide presentations in which they share their research findings. On occasion, the students bring in family members or representatives from their research communities to hear their talks—or even participate in the presentation. We invite other students and instructors to attend as well. Without fail, students demonstrate an unprecedented enthusiasm about their topics and findings, and they share future plans for disseminating their research or extending their projects beyond the confines of the course at hand. The nature of primary research projects implies an audience beyond the classroom teacher. Student researchers usually have a target audience in mind, often family members, collectors, like-minded community members, fellow academic majors or employees, or folks from the geographical region/place under investigation. They want to talk about their work, “publish” it when possible, and continue investigation. Students are rarely bored with this pedagogical approach; they aren’t likely to commit plagiarism (difficult to do when working with primary materials); and they never complain that the writing class has nothing to do with their majors or interests—reasons enough to consider adopting primary research in undergraduate writing classes.

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Features of the Book In each chapter, you will find the following features: •

Communities in Context: Our text locates archival research within local, defined communities, broadly defined. You will find profiles of traditional communities along with digital groups and websites that focus on community interests. This feature profiles a community and asks students to describe the characteristics of the group members. CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Communities in Context Rate My Professors.com

Invention Exercise

The following screen shot is from a website that you may recognize. Rate My Professors is

Locating Personal Archives—Ideas for Generating an online community of college students that Project Topics archives candid student feedback about professors in a format that is searchable by state, school, and/or professor name. Professors Try department, locating family artifacts and original documents that might provide inspiration for your can also submit to student comments, research. Here are rebuttals some ideas for getting started: and some even post entertaining response videos “Professors Strike Back” page. 1. under Makethe a list of your hobbies, things you find interesting about your family or commu-

nity, questions you would like to have answered. 2.

Interview a family member, religious leader, teacher, local politician, librarian, etc. about past events and local issues.

3.

Write down stories that have been handed down in your family, school, workplace, community, or religion.

4.

Consult past issues of local newspapers or organizations’ newsletters for interesting Website homepage for Rate My Professors.

articles that might glean topics about which you wish to know more. 5.

Source: www.ratemyprofessors.com

Peruse family archives that are perhaps uncollected but readily available: wedding and baby albums, scrapbooks and yearbooks, letters and diaries, certificates and diplomas, religious relics and family records.

•

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 2 3 4 5 6

Q research in their for Analysis Profiles of Primary Researchers: How do professionals useat primary If you are having troubleQuestions finding a personal archive to describe, you might try your hand describing one of the over 250 archival collections found at the Online Education Database: 1. What is the shared goal of this community? work? We interview a range of professionals, asking them to share the role archives http://oedb.org/library/features/250-plus-killer-digital-libraries-and-archives. 2. Does this community use specific language that is unique to the group? play in their research and3. writing. Who are the members of this community; that is, who is the intended audience of this feedback? 4.

How is this online community distinct from or an extension of the classroom community?

5. Can you uncover some unspoken rules or guidelines for how the members of this Profile of a Primary Researcher community interact? 6.

Considering the unrestricted rating process, how can you determine the ethos or

Amanda Gable

credibility of members interacting in this community?

Historical Fiction Writer Amanda Gable writes historical fiction. We asked Amanda to talk about the role primary

14

investigation plays in researching her subjects and the ways in which archival materials lend authenticity to her fiction. In creating my fiction, archival research frequently inspires me. Not all fiction writers work this way, but for me, reading history and doing research in the archives are catalysts for

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•

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Writing About/Within Disciplines: To illustrate writing and research principles and concepts, we use examples from across the disciplines (arts and humanities, business, science, social sciences, health and medicine, technology, etc.) so that students may see how research and writing practices differ depending on the disciplinary community.

PREFACE

•

Invention Exercises: Throughout this text, we adapt traditional heuristic exercises for investigating primary materials. We believe that choosing an interesting and personal topic leads to more informed writing, but picking a topic isn’t always an easy task for students. These invention exercises are designed to help students locate primary investigation within communities they already understand or find appealing. CONTENTS

•

•

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 21 32 43 54 65

Invention Exercise Locating Personal Archives—Ideas for Generating Project Topics Try locating family artifacts and original documents that might provide inspiration for your research. Here are some ideas for getting started: 1.

Make a list of your hobbies, things you find interesting about your family or community, questions you would like to have answered.

2.

Interview a family member, religious leader, teacher, local politician, librarian, etc. about past events and local issues.

3.

Write down stories that have been handed down in your family, school, workplace, community or religion.

4.

Consult past issues of local newspapers or organizations’ newsletters for interesting articles that might glean topics about which you wish to know more.

5.

Peruse family archives that are perhaps uncollected but readily available: wedding and baby albums, scrapbooks and yearbooks, letters and diaries, certificates and diplomas, religious relics and family records.

If you are having trouble finding a personal archive to describe, you might try your hand at describing one of the over 250 archival collections found at the Online Education Database: http://oedb.org/library/features/250-plus-killer-digital-libraries-and-archives.

ofexercises a Primaryin Researcher Writing Exercises: TheProfile writing this text illustrate our pedagogical approach and offer students practice in exploring Amanda Gable: Historicalcommunities Fiction Writer and investigating primary materials. In manyAmanda cases, these exercises suggest topics for larger assignments and essays. Gable writes historical fiction. We asked Amanda to talk about the role primary

6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 2 3 4 5 6

investigation plays in researching her subjects and the ways in which archival materials lend

CONTENTS

authenticity to her fiction. In creating my fiction, archival research frequently inspires me. Not all fiction writers work this way, but forExercise me, reading history and doing research in the archives are catalysts for Writing my imagination. Though my resulting fictions may include historically correct information Take a moment to consider a teacher or professor who you particularly enjoyed. Would you recommend this teacher/professor to friends? How might that differ from leaving feedback on an online community like Rate My Professors? How is giving professor feedback in an

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online community different from sharing feedback in person? Take a moment to write a few sentences about the choice to participate in an online community like Rate My Professors. Consider a reviewer’s purpose in posting feedback; how might that change if her opinion of the professor is positive versus negative. Consider a reader’s goal in researching that feedback; how might the message be interpreted if the reader is a student or a professor? How might this online community affect future classroom communities?

Creating an Archive

an archive is a foundational component of primary research, particularly when existReadings: We Creating selected readings, images, and screenshots that will lead to understanding information is scant, you want to apply a specific theory to a local population, your topic is new or unexplored, or you are investigating a specific person or group. Here are common ing communities through archival research and analysis. We used past student writing ways to generate new information or access information to supplement archival materials: along with newspaper articles and other published pieces to provide a variety of exam• Observe and record your findings about people, places, and events if you want to gain an objective view of people, events, or specific locations/organizations. This method ples. Readings are either annotated or followed by questions to guide analysis. involves taking detailed notes of what you see. Chapter 6 provides more information CONTENTS

• 1 2 3 4•

on fieldwork and ethnographic observation. Conduct interviews/focus groups with individuals or in small groups. Interviews are useful when you want to find out current opinions, historical interpretations of events, or get an expert’s opinion on a topic. Chapter 7 provides more information on Reading interviewing. Create and administer questionnaires and surveys want originally to find out the opinions The following reading, “Everyday Use” bywhen Aliceyou Walker, appeared in a collecof a larger of people orIn want to gain information on a subject. Questionnaires tion group of short stories, Love andspecific Trouble, in 1973. Since that time this work has been and surveys are usually less open-ended than interviews follow-up widely anthologized. We include this fictional pieceand heredon’t as aninvolve illustration of several cenquestions. Chapter 8of provides more information cultural on surveys questions. communities, viewing tral principles this text: understanding andand geographical

5 6 7 8 familial relationships as a type of community, and understanding and analyzing artifacts. 9 Through character depictions, descriptions of place/space, and contrasts between real life 10 Highlighting the Roleofof the Researcher in insiders and outsiders of the and television portrayals family, Walker clearly delineates 1Primary cultural and familial communities that she is describing. She also contextualizes artifacts as Research 2 representations of the cultural/familial communities under scrutiny: the swept yard in the 3 opening paragraph; the characters’ clothes, jewelry, sunglasses; the food, research butter dish, churn Because a person’s personal connection to their research is key, archival 4 and dasher; and most importantly hand- and machine-stitched quilts. “Everyday Use” relies helped me develop my writing skills by allowing me to practice establishing “my role 5 on cultural and archival materials to tell the tale of one family’s shifting heritage as the researcher.” This type of practice allowed me to unpack any biases that I may in light of 6 larger cultural events and movements. bring to my research, as well as any prior knowledge I might have. 7 Adrienne Grant, a student 8 9

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•

Supplements: Accompanying the book is a full companion website consisting of both instructor and student resources. Instructors will find sample syllabi, lecture outlines, a list of class resources, and additional annotated student papers. Students will have access to a resource guide with links to online archives and databases, peer review/ response guides with PDF printouts, and annotated student papers illustrating various types of archives.

The folowing icons in the text direct readers to materials located on the book’s companion website www.routledge.com/cw/gaillet

This icon references the online resources guide

This icon indicates writing resources

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Acknowledgments

This work represents a twenty-year labor of love and persistence. Given our own frustrations with traditional first-year writing instruction, we sought a pedagogy that more ideally suited the needs of both teachers and students, gave students both a voice and a vested interest in their projects, and encouraged writing across the curriculum. We informally tried out many of the ideas found in this textbook years ago when Lynée first served as Director of Lower Division Studies and Michelle was a Teaching Assistant at Georgia State University. Subsequently, we talked to anyone who would listen about our pedagogical ideas, presented our teaching theories and plans at a wide range of conferences and workshops, and engaged teachers across the country to share related teaching plans with us. We wish to thank the instructors who tried out the chapters under construction in their classrooms and offered us suggestions, assignments, and student work to include Candace Nadon, Jordynn Jack, Amanda Gable, Diana Eidson, Alexis Hart, and Mathew Sansbury in particular. The student writing in this book is engaging and inspiring—perhaps the best feature of this text—and we thank students from across the country for their patience in learning about the value of primary research, revealing so much of themselves through sharing information about their personal archives and community involvement, and then so graciously granting us permission to include their work. We also thank the professionals who contributed profiles to each chapter. They kindly answered questions about their careers and job responsibilities, their research and writing practices, and in the process helped us create a meaningful textbook feature that provides insight into real-world applications of primary research practices. We thank Meredith Zaring and Stephanie Horton, graduate research assistants at Georgia State University who tirelessly worked on the reference chapters, and Emilia Johnson, graduate research assistant at East Carolina University, for her assistance in editing and compiling content information. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Linda Bathgate at Routledge for her graciousness, wit and enthusiasm, support and belief in this project, and her willingness to come in at the eleventh hour and save the day. Along with Ross Wagenhofer, she has brought this project to fruition and restored our faith in textbook publishers. Most importantly, this book would have never seen the light of day without Craig Leonard, our development editor, who taught two neophytes how to write a textbook. He patiently stuck with this project over the years and knowledgably provided us with specific feedback and smart reworking advice to help us put our vision into words, pictures,

xxiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

features, and print. Although we haven’t met Craig in person, he holds a special place in our hearts and minds.

Lynée I wish to thank my colleagues at GSU for serving as sounding boards throughout this project and the many teaching assistants over the last fifteen years who willingly tried out archival assignments in their classrooms. In particular, I appreciate the scores of students who didn’t know when they signed up for writing classes that they would be asked to take a leap of faith, share so much of themselves in their writing, and trust me with both their past lives and plans for the future. I thank Cheryl Glenn for her long-time sponsorship of this project and her graciousness in attending so many workshops that I led on archival pedagogy—always asking the right questions. I thank my husband and children for their continued support and years of listening to passionate rants about the value of archival investigation. In particular, Helen, an undergraduate student during the crafting of this text, was our guinea pig for assignments; she wrote for us, contributed pictures and ideas, introduced us to her teachers and mentors, and even met with publishers. Thank you, sweet girl. And, finally, with humility and enormous gratitude, I thank Michelle for coming along for the (unexpectedly long) ride.

Michelle Thanks to my smart colleagues and friends at ECU for providing enormous encouragement and support for my writing projects and ideas. I also want to thank all of my students. With each semester that passed, students taught me about the communities and artifacts they cared about by doing extensive research and writing. They also reminded me how important topic exigencies and authentic audiences are in writing instruction. I love that some of their writing and experiences are featured in this book. I thank my partner, Shane, for his unwavering support and patience in everything I do, but especially this project. Due to the learning curve of administrative work in the early years of this work, much of the early drafting/writing took place on our weekends. Thanks also to sweet Helen, as she began and graduated college during the duration of this project. I’m as thankful and proud of her as her Mama. And truthfully, there isn’t enough space to express my deepest gratitude for Lynée’s presence in my life, but her dedication to this project and including me in it will always be a highlight in my professional career. Thanks, Lynée, for asking me to come along for the ride. As long as we were in it together, the length of the ride never mattered.

xxiv

Part I Primary Research and Rhetorical Tools

Introduction to Primary Research

1

Figure 1.1 Primary research

What comes to mind when you see the word cloud in Figure 1.1? We created this visual representation of primary research to introduce archival materials useful for investigating an issue or answering a research question. Facebook pages are familiar representations of how we use archival materials to represent ourselves to friends and family members. The compilation of pictures, links, slogans, bumper stickers, “about me” lists, likes and dislikes on our walls represent the profile we wish to create. Likewise, the screenshots in Figure 1.2 from the popular Salt Lake City Public Library Community Page illustrate how a community page captures the tone and content of a personal page in order to connect with group members on a more familiar and personal level. The enormous popularity of Pinterest offers another illustration of the ways archival materials can be assembled and annotated to create a portrayal of the pinner. These digital

3

Figure 1.2 These screenshots were taken from the very popular Salt Lake City Public Library Facebook Community Page. You can see that the “wall” includes links to photographs, videos, events, and other information related to the community of Salt Lake City. Source: Salt Lake City Public Library

spaces archive photos, music, comments, recipes, videos, posters, and stories of interest to you and the people or communities who “follow” or “friend” you. What information do you “Pin” or “Post” to your Facebook wall or Twitter account? If you don’t have a Facebook page or a Twitter or Pinterest account, what digital tools do you use to organize online content or communicate with others in your personal and professional communities? These online archives are composed of primary data; however, many people think of archives as only old documents stored in attics or cold manuscript libraries. Sometimes that is exactly what archives are, but more often than not you can find original collections of primary materials and artifacts online, in your mother’s bookshelf, in your closet, and in storehouses (both physical and digital) at work. In many cases, primary research may not yet exist; the researcher must generate information about a subject or community through a variety of collection methods such as surveys, interviews, and observation. Contemporary scholars think of archives as any primary material that might serve as either inspiration for research and writing or evidence in support of a theory or line of inquiry. More importantly, primary materials can help us understand individual communities and rhetorical actions aimed at a particular group of people. By examining and conducting original or primary research, rather than piecing together the ideas of others, researchers can create new interpretations and solutions and join their voices with other thinkers, activists, and performers. What defines primary documents or archives for students? One student, Basil Paul, explains primary research this way: “Archives in my mind are no longer defined as dusty old boxes (although some of those do contain really cool things as I’ve learned in the class) but rather as muses. I can draw inspiration from a memo at work as I write about the culture that produced it. Or I can see a different perspective of a local neighborhood playground depending on the time of day.” We very much like Basil’s characterization of archives as

4

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

“muses”—inspiration for finding a topic, an angle to explore, a way to put our personal mark on the subject. Let’s be honest, however. Yes, it’s interesting and fun to take control of your writing, to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to selecting a topic, establishing your own lens for viewing the material, and making it personal for both yourself and your intended audience, but those tasks are a bit more daunting than having someone assign you a topic, tell you exactly what to do, and return the writing back to you with a grade. Lauriel Paylor, another student, says, “It’s not every day that you walk into a classroom and you’re asked to guide your own learning experience.” Although many of our students are at first dubious and even a bit mistrustful sometimes of what we’re asking them to do, most of them in the end agree with Lauriel: “Having the opportunity to put into practice the things we [are] learning [is] both practical and interesting.” Getting started is especially challenging when approaching a new task, particularly a writing project, so we will start with the basics. In this chapter, we will define our uses of the term “primary research” and contrast that act with secondary investigation, introduce common categories and locations of primary materials, highlight the specific role and responsibilities of the researcher in primary research, and introduce you to strategies for finding/developing a primary topic to investigate—strategies that we will explore in depth in later chapters of this text. We conclude our discussion here with a “peer-to-peer sharing” bibliography of information about primary materials. These entries are collected and annotated by our students and indicate the range of materials that might be considered primary.

Defining Primary Research How do we define “primary” materials in order to begin understanding the kind of research methods that this book advocates? Some definitions of the term suggest that a primary source or archive is a physical or virtual place, a repository for locating information. Other definitions stress the historical nature of an archive, a collection of things from the past— and still others focus on the rare value associated with an archive. We think of primary collections in much broader terms, as collections of materials (or even single artifacts) that serve as inspiration and support for writing. In addition, primary materials often can help tell a story or document a past or current act, place, movement, culture, or community. As one of our students states, “[Through this kind of writing,] I learned how to use my own research, observations, and data to support claims. I learned how to create a style of my own instead of piecing together the findings of other scholars and adding a sentence or two.” Writing with primary materials can: 1.

2.

3.

Provide inspiration for choosing a topic that interests you. Our students have examined local library collections to find inspiration, including: Southern Labor Archives, a movie poster collection from the 1950s, a collection of primitive surgical tools, a cookbook archive, and blueprints for public buildings. Inform understanding and explain situations or circumstances. One of our students conducted interviews and onsite observations to determine the differences in ways men and women behave at the gym. We have included his research in a later chapter. Offer an alternative reading of an event.

5

4.

5.

6.

7.

Occupy Wall Street received extensive news coverage, but interviews with participants, police officers, and local residents reveal alternative views of the events. Generate knowledge about a specific person’s influence or a community movement. An extensive collection of community cookbooks provided one of our students with the means to investigate the roles Junior League organizations play in different geographical regions of the country. Recover people, events, artifacts, or actions in the past that might have gone unnoticed. One of our students came across a collection of cigarette cards. Neither of us knew anything about this artifact until our student provided a background story to explain the historical significance of these cards. Revise a common story given new primary materials. Another student garnered new information about the famous writer Alice Walker by interviewing Walker’s high school classmates and reading unpublished hometown stories written by one of Walker’s contemporaries. Suggest an alternative solution to an existing problem. A recent campus magazine article highlighted a group of our students’ work within a local prison initiative. The students interviewed inmates and based on what they learned about the institution’s past practices and inmates’ desires, the students designed an improved teaching curriculum and tutoring schedule for the inmates.

Most importantly, writing with primary materials ensures that writing is original and contributes to ongoing conversations. Susan Thomas, librarian at the Borough of Manhattan Community College/City University of New York, created Table 1.1 to explain and illustrate the differences between primary and secondary research within the disciplines.

Table 1.1 Primary vs. Secondary Sources

6

Humanities

Sciences

Primary Source

• Original, first-hand account of an event or time period • Usually written or made during or close to the event or time period • Original, creative writing or works of art • Factual, not interpretive

• • • •

Secondary Source

• Analyzes and interprets primary • Analyzes and interprets research sources results • Second-hand account of a historical • Analyzes and interprets scientific event discoveries • Interprets creative work

Report of scientific discoveries Results of experiments Results of clinical trials Social and political science research results • Factual, not interpretive

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Examples Humanities

Sciences

Primary Sources • Diaries, journals, and letters • • Newspaper and magazine articles (factual accounts) • • Government records (census, marriage, military) • • Photographs, maps, postcards, posters • Recorded or transcribed speeches • • Interviews with participants or witnesses (e.g., the Civil Rights Movement) • Interviews with people who lived during a particular time (e.g., genocide in Rwanda) • Songs, plays, novels, stories • Paintings, drawings, and sculptures Secondary Sources

• • • • •

Biographies Histories Literary criticism Book, art, and theater reviews Newspaper articles that interpret

Published results of research studies Published results of scientific experiments Published results of clinical trials Proceedings of conferences and meetings

• Publications about the significance of research or experiments • Analysis of a clinical trial • Review of the results of several experiments or trials

Specific Examples Literature

“Song of Myself” (poem)

Journal article about the poem’s historical importance

Psychology

Results of clinical trial to treat ADD by modifying diet

Book about ways to treat childhood ADD without drugs

Politics and Government

U.S. Census Statistics

Book about suburban population changes in U.S.

History

Recorded interview with Choctaw American Indian

Journal article about Native Americans who served in WWII

Social Science

Diary of Anne Frank

Book about diaries kept during the Holocaust

Art

Photographs by Diane Arbus

Magazine article about 20th-century female photographers

Source: Susan Thomas, adjunct librarian at the Borough of Manhattan Community College/City University of New York, http://lib1.bmcc.cuny.edu/help/sources.html

7

The following examples of primary and secondary sources found in business and health sciences were compiled with the help of our students: Business

Stock Prices, Regulations/Policies

Annual Report, Business Proposal/Plan

Health Sciences

Vitals/Symptoms, Lab Results

Clinical Trials Results, Health Plans

The above sources provide places for getting started as a primary researcher, for finding data that you can interpret and use to make and support new claims, rather than cutting and pasting what others have said about your topic.

Locating Primary Materials In this chapter we briefly introduce categories of materials that we will explore fully throughout the book. Below we provide further definitions and illustrations of primary research and locate them within particular communities and (physical and digital) spaces. The focus of this list is to help you find primary materials. The last entry discusses creating primary data—particularly when existing information is scarce or you want to investigate an issue that is new or local.

Family Archives Family archives include records that are handed down from generation to generation (such as letters, pictures, stories, family genealogies, and information recorded in diaries, baby books, wedding albums, or family holy books). Familial projects are interesting to tackle because you naturally have a vested interest in what you might find out about your ancestors and yourself. These projects are also of interest to other communities outside your familial one when you connect what you find to public issues or historical periods. For example, one of our students, Adrienne Grant, investigated a 1950s doo-wop band of which her father was a member. Her research began with examining family pictures and investigating family stories about her dad’s band that she had heard mentioned throughout her life. Although her father is deceased and no one in the family offered much detail about the group or that time period, she knew the name of the band and that they had once played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Through primary research on the Internet and correspondence with fans outside her family circle (through surveys and questionnaires), she put together a well-researched profile of the band that is not only personally fulfilling but also appealing to communities of music fans, historians, and readers interested in political issues associated with artists’ rights in the 1950s. So where do you get started researching family documents? •

8

Ask older relatives to tell you family stories; write down “oral histories” you have heard repeated around the kitchen table or at holidays.

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

•

Search bookshelves, attics, basements, lock boxes, top closet shelves for letters, pictures, high school yearbooks, family albums, cookbooks, and birth/wedding/death certificates; these are key resources for discovering primary family information that may also have a wider audience appeal.

One of our students gained excess to her grandparents’ correspondence during WWII. Upon finding the documents, she then collected oral histories by interviewing family members who wrote and received these letters. In these letters and interviews, she learned much about her family but also more general information about the loneliness and intermittent boredom of a young man stationed on a ship far away from home.

Government Records Government records (whether town, city, county, state, or federal) are physical records that provide evidence for some sort of government purpose. For example, birth and death records, marriage records, budget documents, bills, annual reports, acts, research reports, and regulations, to name just a few. These documents provide another rich source for exploring both personal and public issues associated with a specific community. Government records can help you find: birth, wedding, and death dates along with copies of last wills and testaments; property ownership and tax payments; current and historical maps and building plans; and census and immigration information. Government-sponsored educational, social, and political programs leave behind a rich trail of detailed and historical information. Government records are often referenced by those interested in preserving property, bridges, and other cultural resources important to a community’s history or locale along with those in community and economic development. Government records also play a large part in moving forward current projects, as in land acquisitions or obtaining building permits. A great example of personal applications of public records is illustrated in the 2006 PBS series “African American Lives,” narrated by Professor Henry Louis Gates. This series is the culmination of extensive genealogical searches of prominent African Americans, including composer and producer Quincy Jones, talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, and comedian Chris Tucker. According to promotional materials about the series, “Reaction to the show spurred thousands of black Americans to begin or renew the search, especially with the help of DNA testing, to find their origins.” Professor Gates and PBS teamed up for a sequel (2008) that profiled lives of additional celebrities, including Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Tom Joyner, Maya Angelou, and Don Cheadle. To become familiar with government documents, consider: • •

going online and investigating local government agencies in your community; making a list categorizing the kinds of documents and information housed in each local (town, city, or county) government branch or agency you research.

One of our students consulted government records and maps that she found at City Hall to research the growth and changes in her hometown community over the last twenty years—comparing current maps to historical ones. Another student investigated public legal documents and county records from the 1950s and 1960s to make claims about gendered

9

Subjects

(~ •NATIONAL ARCHIVES

•ew••

Subjects covered include, but are not limited to

Blogs i BookiMrk/SMre l eont!>CIUs

I SearchAraiRecord5

• Indian agencies

• national parks and forests

About our Arch ival Records

CooUcttl1eArd1""'

What is a Record Group?

• mmmg

Home>NiliK>MIA.rchM!S~IDenver>A.rchM!SDMSIOn

At our Denver facility, we have nearly 50,000 cubic feet of original archival records dating from 1847to the 1990s

• wyoming

• public administration • political science

Subjects covered include, but are not limited to • homesteading

• law W hat is a Record Group?

• ethnology • genealogy

Figure 1.3 This is the homepage of the National Archives at Denver, which is one of the National Archives’ eleven regional sites. It provides links to more information about its services and archival holdings.

Figure 1.4 The second screenshot shows the “About our Archival Records” page of the website, which describes the kinds of records and subjects covered within the archive. Source: www.archives.gov/rocky-mountain/ and [email protected]

Source: www.archives.gov/rocky-mountain/ and [email protected]

labor practices during that time—and to see how much (or little) hiring practices had changed in that local county. Government documents sometimes serve as the “muse” for inspiring new projects that Basil discussed, but more often government records prove (or negate) claims, support (or refute) hypotheses, offer ammunition for putting forth original suppositions and help document your beliefs and findings. While some government records can be accessed online, most will require a physical visit. Consult websites to access finding aids and archive guides before deciding which archive to visit. The website pictured in Figures 1.3 and 1.4 for the “National Archives at Denver: Rocky Mountain Region” provides information about the primary materials of federal records from the mid-1800s to the late 1900s gathered from federal agencies and courts in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Resources like this one are critical to investigating historical events and legal decisions affecting geographical communities.

Libraries Libraries are rich repositories for a wide range of primary and archival holdings. Many people associate archives with manuscript libraries/museums or rare book rooms—rightly so. However, navigating library holdings is not always an easy task, in part because libraries are tied to other political and monetary overseers that don’t always provide necessary funding and staffing for collating, organizing, and creating finding aids necessary to researching archival collections. And sometimes primary materials addressing a particular topic may be spread across several libraries that all hold a mutual interest in retaining control of the

10

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

records, especially when more than one collector/donor is accumulating primary documents on a subject or figure. Despite these concerns, libraries are invaluable resources for finding repositories of local and regional issues and figures, institutions and populations, architecture and literature. For example, a school’s important professors and administrators upon retirement may donate their papers and books to the institution where they worked, and local politicians, writers, and celebrities also often bequeath their personal archives to their hometown libraries. Often a figure’s associations with local communities serve as a guide for locating records. Be forewarned, however, that in other instances, archival collections may be housed in locations that seem quite illogical, in part because the owner(s) of a collection can bequeath his or her materials to anyone willing to accept them, or a professor may accumulate materials connected with a personal research interest that may not have local ties. For example, the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University (clearly on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War) ironically houses the papers of Union general and later president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. When working with library collections, it is important to first investigate the institution’s holdings online, then contact the archival librarian directly to arrange an meeting to find out exactly what is included in the collection. Doing your homework can take the guesswork out of researching a library’s archival holdings.

Organizations Organizations (both corporate and non-profit) are groups of people with a specific purpose, usually to meet a particular need (like feed the poor) or pursue common goals (like the Lion’s Club). Organizations are a great repository for finding primary information about specific communities. In the above case, the Ulysses S. Grant Association is responsible for assembling copies of Grant’s correspondence, military and government papers, and other important materials in one location and then finding a home for those materials where a renowned professor oversees their collation—in this case at Mississippi State University. Hundreds of other organizations have championed the cause of a particular figure or movement and then assumed responsibility for collecting, collating, maintaining, and housing associated archival materials. For example, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies house archives that include patient records and manufacturing histories; these storehouses provide excellent sources for conducting research. This archival information could provide glimpses into past patient care or pharmaceutical research practices. Other organizations include civic and business-minded ones. Most companies maintain historical, transactional, and accounting records that in many instances come from decades of collecting. Additionally, local Chambers of Commerce provide a great resource for investigating communities. Community civic and military organizations, such as Kiwanis, Jaycees, Rotary Clubs, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Lion’s Clubs, Masonic Temples, Shriners, Junior Leagues, all appoint a historian to collate and maintain organizational records. Keep in mind that the historian documents current activities of the organization—including committee reports, the organization’s plans, and current membership rosters. Current information that will become the organization’s collective history. National organizations, from fraternities/sororities to lobbyists to religious organizations, keep records of legal, social, political, and economical involvement and developments. One of our students investigated the Suntrust Bank corporate records to trace the historical changes in the organization’s logo

11

and promotional advertising. Another student accessed Domino Pizza’s computer records to recommend changes in staffing procedures. Collecting past records related to fundraising in non-profit organizations lets you know if your donors give annually or make a one-time contribution. Many of these records are available to the public. In other cases, you may have to petition the organization to be granted access to documents. To get started examining local organizational records: • • •

begin with organizations to which you already belong (religious, civic, military, workplace). If you are a member, access to records should be easy; ask to see the organization’s records, scrapbooks, or photo albums; interview the historian for the community or group.

The website for the American Red Cross, for example, offers a wealth of information about the organization’s founding, influential figures, historical records, artifacts, and exhibits. One of the online exhibits includes ten posters produced and circulated from 1918 to 1951 to raise awareness of the American Red Cross mission (Figure 1.5). The site also includes educational materials for teaching children about the efforts of the organization. This thorough, digitized site is easy to navigate and represents a best-case example of researching an

REDCROSS.ORG

I TOURS I

REDCROSS.ORG STORE

JOBS

•

CONTACT

MUSEUM • EXPLORE OUR HISTORY Images of Hop e .Ainerican Red Cross Posters, 1918 - 1951 .., Previous Page ... Museum Home History A Brief History · 100 Significant Oates ·

Posters were a popular and effective communication medium in the era before the television and the Internet. Posters were designed to provoke an immediate

response from their audience and they were widely circulated in towns and cities across the land. They urged their viewers to buy, to sell, and for the American Red Cross, ''to join." Many distinguished artists and illustrators produced memorable works that defined the American Red Cross as the leader in providing hum anitarian service. Artists such as Howard Chandler Christy, James Montgomery Flagg, Norman Rockwell, and N.C. W yeth created works for the annual Roll Call membership and fund raising campaigns. Their w ork was w idely distributed across the nation, and literally became pan of the changing cultural landscape of America.

Topics ·

Timeline · People

Clara Barton · Charles Drew · Jane Delano · Roll Call · more ·

Collections Exhibits · Red Cross Archives ·

For Students and Educators

War Relief.Give ! F. Sands Brunner, 1940 The American Red Cross W ar Relief Fund was launched in May 1940. Wor1d W ar II had begun in Europe in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. By the following year, the Low Countries (Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg) had been overrun by the Germans, and Britam w as under aenal attack. The Americ an Red Cross responded by providing food, clothing, surgical dressings, medical supplies, and plasma the war-torn countries. F. Sands Brunner created this moving poster w hich conveys the misery and hardships faced by millions of European refugees, especially orphaned children. The poster was widely distributed throughout the country, and it stimulated financial and public support for the W ar Relief Fund. Although the original goal was $ 10,000,000, Americans responded with characteristic generosity. By ear1y September, 1940 over $20,000,000 had been raised, fifteen months before America entered the war. ,. ... Previous

,. Next...

Figure 1.5 This poster depicts an orphan girl from a war-torn country in an effort to increase donations for the War Relief Fund. Images of Hope, American Red Cross Posters, 1918–1951 Online Exhibit. Source: www.redcross.org/museum/exhibits/posters.asp and American Red Cross

12

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

organization; however, you are likely to find similar records for local groups—with a little digging and interviewing. At the “Explore Our History” link on the Red Cross website, you will find information about the organization’s origins, a timeline of Red Cross events, important figures associated with the work of the organization, and a digitized collection of exhibits and artifacts illustrating both the history and the work of the Red Cross.

Digital Spaces/Records Digital spaces/records represent the most accessible form of archival information. Increasingly, libraries and organizations are making their collections, or parts of them at least, available electronically, through sites such as Google Books. Many difficult to find, fragile, and older monographs are now available for searching—all from the comfort of your home. Just like with most things electronic or digital, while accessing archives that wouldn’t ordinarily be available is a boon, there are also potential drawbacks to studying electronic holdings. For one, the materials aren’t in 3D; you can’t ascertain the true color, shape, size and even smell of materials, and handwritten notes in the text’s margins and other markings may be too faint to read. Storage problems and long-term availability are also eventually a problem as technology becomes dated and morphs from one form to another (i.e. vinyl recordings to eight-track tapes to compact discs to digital downloads). Material may still be available, but data readers and outdated hardware may make assessing archives difficult if materials are not loaded onto new electronic formats—think about current difficulties trying to access recordings on vinyl, read newspapers on microfiche readers, and pull up materials stored on large floppy disks. Additionally, organizations must maintain electronic space on the web for housing their documents. We’ve all had the experience of searching for information and finding a potentially useful link that is no longer available. Online searching makes investigating a topic so much easier than in the past when one had to depend on card catalogs and the grace and goodwill of librarians, but in many ways archival research still depends to some degree on face-to-face contact with archivists maintaining collections in a bricks and mortar setting, in part because viewing documents online takes materials out of their contexts and their relationships with other items housed in a collection. Given these caveats, however, online resources make hunting down quick information infinitely easier than in the past, particularly when searching for public records and statistics. Keep in mind: • •

online finding aids and descriptions of collections shortcut your work in determining what a collection might hold fully digitized archives serve the same functions as physical artifacts.

Our students often refer to national digital galleries for inspiration and research. The National Park Service has a wonderful website complete with historical photofile (nps. gov.); the Library of Congress has a detailed website including music, letters, pictures, and maps that document the American Experience (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/ index.html) and an incredibly comprehensive and useful “Prints and Photographs Online Catalog” (www.loc.gov/pictures/).

13

Communities in Context Rate My Professors.com The screen shot on the right is from a website that you may recognize. Rate My Professors is an online community of college students that archives candid student feedback about professors in a format that is searchable by state, school, department, and/or professor name. Professors can also submit rebuttals to student comments, and some even post entertaining response videos under the “Professors Strike Back” page.

Website homepage for Rate My Professors. Source: www.ratemyprofessors.com

Questions for Analysis

Q

1.

What is the shared goal of this community?

2.

Does this community use specific language that is unique to the group?

3.

Who are the members of this community; that is, who is the intended audience of this feedback?

4.

How is this online community distinct from or an extension of the classroom community?

5.

Can you uncover some unspoken rules or guidelines for how the members of this community interact?

6.

Considering the unrestricted rating process, how can you determine the ethos or credibility of members interacting in this community?

14

INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Writing Exercise Take a moment to consider a teacher or professor who you particularly enjoyed. Would you recommend this teacher/professor to friends? How might that differ from leaving feedback on an online community like Rate My Professors? How is giving professor feedback in an online community different from sharing feedback in person? Take a moment to write a few sentences about the choice to participate in an online community like Rate My Professors. Consider a reviewer’s purpose in posting feedback; how might that change if her opinion of the professor is positive versus negative. Consider a reader’s goal in researching that feedback; how might the message be interpreted if the reader is a student or a professor? How might this online community affect future classroom communities?

Creating an Archive Creating an archive is a foundational component of primary research, particularly when existing information is scant, you want to apply a specific theory to a local population, your topic is new or unexplored, or you are investigating a specific person or group. Here are common ways to generate new information or access information to supplement archival materials: •

•

•

Observe and record your findings about people, places, and events if you want to gain an objective view of people, events, or specific locations/organizations. This method involves taking detailed notes of what you see. Chapter 6 provides more information on fieldwork and ethnographic observation. Conduct interviews/focus groups with individuals or in small groups. Interviews are useful when you want to find out current opinions, historical interpretations of events, or get an expert’s opinion on a topic. Chapter 7 provides more information on interviewing. Create and administer questionnaires and surveys when you want to find out the opinions of a larger group of people or want to gain specific information on a subject. Questionnaires and surveys are usually less open-ended than interviews and don’t involve follow-up questions. Chapter 8 provides more information on surveys and questions.

Highlighting the Role of the Researcher in Primary Research Because a person’s personal connection to their research is key, archival research helped me develop my writing skills by allowing me to practice establishing “my role as the researcher.” This type of practice allowed me to unpack any biases that I may bring to my research, as well as any prior knowledge I might have. Adrienne Grant, a student

15

The role of the researcher—you—becomes extremely important when engaging in primary research. You need to ask yourself why you chose the subject, what preconceived ideas or prejudices about the materials you bring to the project, how you can in some cases take a personal topic or interest and make it appealing to a general audience, and what is your relationship to the community under investigation. We ask our students to select topics that they want to know more about, to think about unique ways they might blend their personal interests with primary information or archival research. In many cases, students write about their families, organizations to which they belong, employment sites, or hobbies. In essence, they write about communities, and sometimes communal research involves generating information (through observation, ethnographic inquiry, surveys, and interviews), not just examining what is already available. And in every class, we find one or two students who are sitting on archival projects just ripe for unique exploration. Adrienne is one of those students, as she explains: [One day in class,] as the discussion progressed and everyone had a clear idea of the requirements, a few of my classmates began to talk about archived items that were a part of their family etc. After listening to everyone else’s brilliant and heroic tales of how they could incorporate those materials into their research, I offered into the discussion how my father was a doo-wop singer in ’50s. My professor looked at me and said, “Bingo Adrienne! There’s the topic of your archival project.” I was excited! But I told [my] professor that my father was deceased, and although I had tried to look for archival information in the past, the information that I came across was very limited. The next thing my professor told me changed the entire scope of how I ever looked at [archival research]; she told me to “be the archivist!” Since then, I have become an archivist in the quest to investigating the doo-wop group The Jesters. Although I am researching the success of The Jesters as a doo-wop group, I am particularly inquisitive to the individual contributions of Noel Grant, my father. Adopting a researcher’s stance, Adrienne proceeded to locate digital and physical pictures of The Jesters. She posted messages on listservs whose members were interested in doo-wop bands. A fan who had vinyl copies of her father’s recordings responded; he was both willing to give the records to Adrienne and consented to be interviewed by her. In addition, she found a paper trail of her father’s 1957 performance at the Apollo Theater, along with brief internet references to the group. Adrienne was afforded a unique opportunity to not only study archives but also create an archival collection, and although she learned more about her father, one of her motivating factors for taking on this project, her research has far greater appeal for fans of The Jesters. She is currently compiling her findings into a collection, one that she will write about herself and eventually donate to an interested library. Furthermore, when interviewing the white collector of her father’s records, Adrienne asked him if he had attended one of The Jester’s performances. He explained that a white man couldn’t attend a concert at the Apollo during the 1950s. As a result of her primary investigation, Adrienne included a research question addressing reverse discrimination in her study—extending her investigation to include other communities during the research timeframe.

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INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Invention Exercise Locating Personal Archives—Ideas for Generating Project Topics Try locating family artifacts and original documents that might provide inspiration for your research. Here are some ideas for getting started: 1.

Make a list of your hobbies, things you find interesting about your family or community, questions you would like to have answered.

2.

Interview a family member, religious leader, teacher, local politician, librarian, etc. about past events and local issues.

3.

Write down stories that have been handed down in your family, school, workplace, community, or religion.

4.

Consult past issues of local newspapers or organizations’ newsletters for interesting articles that might glean topics about which you wish to know more.

5.

Peruse family archives that are perhaps uncollected but readily available: wedding and baby albums, scrapbooks and yearbooks, letters and diaries, certificates and diplomas, religious relics and family records.

If you are having trouble finding a personal archive to describe, you might try your hand at describing one of the over 250 archival collections found at the Online Education Database: http://oedb.org/library/features/250-plus-killer-digital-libraries-and-archives.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Amanda Gable Historical Fiction Writer Amanda Gable writes historical fiction. We asked Amanda to talk about the role primary investigation plays in researching her subjects and the ways in which archival materials lend authenticity to her fiction. In creating my fiction, archival research frequently inspires me. Not all fiction writers work this way, but for me, reading history and doing research in the archives are catalysts for

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my imagination. Though my resulting fictions may include historically correct information gleaned from my research, they are meant to convey a different sort of truth from formal history. As much as I strive in my fiction to provide readers with accurate details and facts, I also mix in fabricated details and facts to tell the complete narrative or truth that I envision. Because the main character of my first novel is obsessed with the American Civil War, to write the book, I needed to learn more of that history, and I turned not only to books, but also to museums, battlefields, and archives. I loved reading soldiers’ memoirs and civilian accounts of the war years and also made a point to read young adult books about the war published in the 1950s and 1960s that my character could have read. In my novel, the main character mentions owning or reading several of these titles, which in part shows how she uses history to help her make sense of the chaos of her life. Along with reading, I traveled to all the battlefield parks I thought my main character and her mother might visit on their journey in the summer of 1968. I even obtained from the AAA archives a photocopy of a 1968 road map to aid me in plotting the route. In my travels, I learned facts about the Civil War, but more importantly, I saw the landscape, buildings, and museum exhibits that my characters would have experienced on their journey. I didn’t know exactly what details might help me write more vivid scenes about my characters and their difficult journey, but I did know that a computer search of Google Earth from my desk chair would not have given me the type of complicated sensory spur I needed. For example, during my travels a bus tour I took on the Gettysburg battlefield unexpectedly gave me an organizing structure for a number of scenes in my novel. Equally serendipitously, I viewed a soldier’s diary in a battlefield museum. This small black leather notebook opened to an entry in faded ink helped me visualize an entire relic shop where my main character is both fascinated and frightened by what she learns there talking to the owner and his assistant. And my role as a tourist led me to understand that the tourists my daughter and mother duo encountered on their trip belonged in the novel. At the Atlanta History Center, which is local to me, I went many times to their permanent Civil War exhibit. Though the physical artifacts there, including such items as weaponry, uniforms, a supply wagon, playing cards, and photographs, all carefully labeled with facts and context, gave me a better historical understanding of the war, I can’t point to a specific detail from the displays that went into the novel. But my numerous visits to the exhibit, sometimes taking notes and other times just staring at objects for long minutes, had a more significant influence. After the novel was published, I realized that all my time in museums had connected me palpably to my character’s immersion in Civil War history. I thought I had been acquiring the facts my character knew, but I actually had been kindling my creative process, which allowed me to write the book. Archivists and historians, especially through their work in museums and archives, continue to make a difference in my work by helping me find materials, such as a nineteenthcentury Atlanta street map, that answer my specific questions, but also by introducing me to materials I don’t know I need that propel me down fresh imaginative paths.

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INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Reading The following reading, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, originally appeared in a collection of short stories, In Love and Trouble, in 1973. Since that time this work has been widely anthologized. We include this fictional piece here as an illustration of several central principles of this text: understanding cultural and geographical communities, viewing familial relationships as a type of community, and understanding and analyzing artifacts. Through character depictions, descriptions of place/space, and contrasts between real life and television portrayals of family, Walker clearly delineates insiders and outsiders of the cultural and familial communities that she is describing. She also contextualizes artifacts as representations of the cultural/familial communities under scrutiny: the swept yard in the opening paragraph; the characters’ clothes, jewelry, sunglasses; the food, butter dish, churn and dasher; and most importantly hand- and machine-stitched quilts. “Everyday Use” relies on cultural and archival materials to tell the tale of one family’s shifting heritage in light of larger cultural events and movements.

Pre-Reading Questions As you read “Everyday Use,” think about the following questions. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Make a list of the cultural artifacts Walker includes in this essay. How does Walker’s use of artifacts help the reader understand cultural and geographical communities? In what ways are familial relationships viewed as a type of community? How do the characters’ reactions to familial archives indicate their loyalty and membership status in various communities?

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house. Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her. You’ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has “made it” is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise,

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of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other’s faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs. Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers. In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue. But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though, she would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature. “How do I look, Mama?” Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink shirt and red blouse for me to know she’s there, almost hidden by the door. “Come out into the yard,” I say. Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground. Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She’s a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red hot brick chimney. Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.

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INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand. Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was. I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don’t ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I’ll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man’s job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in ’49. Cows are soothing and slow and don’t bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way. I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don’t make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we “choose” to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?” She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them. When she was courting Jimmy T she didn’t have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself. When she comes I will meet—but there they are! Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. “Come back here,” I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe. It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath.

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“Uhnnnh,” is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. “Uhnnnh.” Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go “Uhnnnh” again. It is her sister’s hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears. “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!” she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with “Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!” He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin. “Don’t get up,” says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without mak’ing sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead. Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie. “Well,” I say. “Dee.” “No, Mama,” she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!” “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know. “She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.” “You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born. “But who was she named after?” asked Wangero. “I guess after Grandma Dee,” I said. “And who was she named after?” asked Wangero “Her mother,” I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. “That’s about as far back as I can trace it,” I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches. “Well,” said Asalamalakim, “there you are.”

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INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

“Uhnnnh,” I heard Maggie say. “There I was not,” I said, “before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?” He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head. “How do you pronounce this name?” I asked. “You don’t have to call me by it if you don’t want to,” said Wangero. “Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “If that’s what you want us to call you, we’ll call you.” “I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero. “I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again.” Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn’t really think he was, so I didn’t ask. “You must belong to those beef cattle peoples down the road,” I said. They said “Asalamalakim” when they met you, too, but they didn’t shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight. Hakim-a-barber said, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style.” (They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.) We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn’t eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn’t effort to buy chairs. “Oh, Mama!” she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. “I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,” she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee’s butter dish. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it. “This churn top is what I need,” she said. “Didn’t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?” “Yes,” I said. “Uh huh,” she said happily. “And I want the dasher, too.” “Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?” asked the barber. Dee (Wangero) looked up at me. “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash,” said Maggie so low you almost couldn’t hear her. “His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.”

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“Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,” Wangero said, laughing. “I can use the chute top as a centerpiece for the alcove table,” she said, sliding a plate over the chute, “and I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher.” When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived. After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War. “Mama,” Wangro said sweet as a bird. “Can I have these old quilts?” I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed. “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?” I asked. “These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.” “No,” said Wangero. “I don’t want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.” “That’ll make them last better,” I said. “That’s not the point,” said Wangero. “These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!” She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them. “Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn’t reach the quilts. They already belonged to her. “Imagine!” she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom. “The truth is,” I said, “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.” She gasped like a bee had stung her. “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” “I reckon she would,” I said. “God knows I been saving ’em for long enough with nobody using ’em. I hope she will!” I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old-fashioned, out of style. “But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” “She can always make some more,” I said. “Maggie knows how to quilt.”

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INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY RESEARCH

Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. “You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!” “Well,” I said, stumped. “What would you do with them?” “Hang them,” she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts. Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other. “She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. “I can ’member Grandma Dee without the quilts.” I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn’t mad at her. This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way she knew God to work. When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open. “Take one or two of the others,” I said to Dee. But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber. “You just don’t understand,” she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. “What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know. “Your heritage,” she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it.” She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin. Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed. From Alice Walker’s In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman. New York: Harcourt, 1973.

After Reading 1.

Q

List examples where Walker uses character depictions, descriptions of place/space, and contrasts between real life and television portrayals of family to delineate insiders and outsiders of the cultural and familial communities that she is describing.

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2.

How does Walker contextualize artifacts as representations of the cultural/familial communities under scrutiny?

3.

“Everyday Use” relies on cultural and archival materials to tell the tale of one family’s shifting heritage in light of larger cultural events and movements. Do you think Walker draws on personal experience as inspiration for this story? Why or why not?

4.

Walker discusses an important family archive and what can be learned about family relationships and broader cultural concerns by the characters’ responses to and uses of familial and cultural artifacts. Think of the role archives play in your family dynamics. a.

Are certain familial artifacts “holy” to members of your family?

b.

Do they represent larger stories and constructions of your family’s history?

c.

In what ways do personal artifacts hold meaning far beyond their material value for members of a community?

d.

Write a short description of a family or community artifact, first describing the piece for someone who may not be familiar with the object, then explaining the significance of the artifact for community members.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this first chapter, we introduced our concept of writing based on the investigation of primary materials. We think this approach is appealing because it asks writers to explore personal interests, research local communities, and self-identify as an expert on selected topics. Specifically, in this chapter we • • • • •

introduced definitions of primary research; contrasted primary vs. secondary research methods; listed places where one might find existing primary materials and ways to collect primary materials; summarized past student projects generated to illustrate the discussion of primary materials; discussed the role of the researcher and how to generate research topics from the communities to which one belongs.

In Chapter 2, we discuss primary research in relationship to a community’s artifacts, documents, and other primary materials. By contextualizing the materials you research, you gain insight into the history of the artifacts and a greater understanding of the significance of these items for community members.

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Defining and Engaging with Communities

2

In the last chapter, we introduced ways to conduct primary research. This chapter extends that discussion by defining community types, associated artifacts, and primary materials. These first two chapters on primary research and communities serve as the foundation for our approach to writing instruction.

Defining Community Communities are made up of groups of people who share aspects of their lives, including: geographical space, a workplace, interests, language, backgrounds, ethnicity, race, religion, advocacy, hardships, hobbies, or identities. The Oxford English Dictionary defines community as “a body of people or things viewed collectively.” A “community” can also refer to a physical location, such as a workplace location, sorority house, fellowship hall, neighborhood, or university dorm. Other communities are formed based on common or shared interests.

Community Components Communities have a shared set of components that work to form the group’s boundaries and dictate who can and can’t be members. As shown in Figure 2.1, we have defined the four primary components of community groups. A community includes people or members who meet at specific times (or even sporadically) at a physical place or perhaps even online. Some communities are identified through the physical places they occupy within a town or city like a church, firehouse, university, or even a communal living place such as a neighborhood or housing complex. Members of communities share mutual interests or goals, and they often use specific language and have unspoken rules or guidelines for interacting. Becoming a member of a new community involves observing what is expected from members who share rituals, symbols, and a mutual history in order to sustain cohesiveness of the community. Understanding the components of any community can provide a point of entry or inquiry for conducting research and/or contributing to the community in some way.

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CHAPTER TWO

Shared Purpose/ Interests

Place/Time

Interaction (Rituals, Language, etc.)

People Community

Figure 2.1 Community components

Types of Communities Throughout your life, you belong to a variety of communities, from your family to your school or work to any organizations or interest groups of which you are a part. You may also belong to online groups related to activities you find interesting; for example, social events, design, travel, fitness, sports, or gaming. Below you will find descriptions of several types of communities; most communities fall into at least one of the following categories depending on the shared components in Figure 2.1. As you read about group characteristics, think about the specific communities in your life that fit these categories, keeping in mind that some communities are primarily online or virtual and others exist physically or face to face. Some of your communities may exist in both spaces: online and face to face. For example, your Facebook or LinkedIn profile may be an extension of physical communities to which you belong (e.g., family, work, and school).

Communities in Context Global Surfers The screen shot on the right is from an online community of people interested in surfing, not an activity commonly associated with virtual communities. At this site, surfers share information about surfing sites, equipment, and other resources. To increase community building, members also upload photos and anecdotes. Website homepage Global Surfers, by surfers for surfers. Source: www.globalsurfers.com

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Questions for Analysis

Q

1.

What is the shared goal of this community?

2.

Does this community use specific language that is unique to the group?

3.

Can you uncover some unspoken rules or guidelines for how the members of this community interact?

4.

What artifacts can you unearth within the site that represent or embody the goals and concerns of the community members?

Personal/Family Communities We are members of our family communities by default based on when and where we were born. Location, religion, class, race, ethnicity, and ancestral background can influence the cohesiveness and characteristics of a family group. If you grew up in certain parts of Pennsylvania, you and your family may identify as Pennsylvania Dutch, which would be quite different from the Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania. Given your birthplace or cultural heritage, you may identify yourself as part of a Midwestern family or one of African American descent—or both. If your family maintains close ties to your ancestry, then you may have a keen recognition of the importance that language and rituals play in community identity. On the surface, these community identifiers may not seem significant, but upon critical reflection, you will find that groups often share rituals, languages, and physical and emotional spaces. For example, holidays, religious observances, and birthdays are often celebrated in very specific ways. Members often share stories about the extended families and monumental periods in the family’s life. In familial communities, younger members are often curious about their ancestors while older generations are proud to pass down traditions and stories. Your communities of friends also fall into this category since they often crossover into this space—especially at events like graduations, weddings, funerals, and birthdays. A common New Orleans wedding tradition includes a second-line parade (see Figure 2.2) from the church to the reception in which the bride and groom lead their family and friends in a dance to the beat of a brass band. At this point in your life, you have probably maintained childhood, high school, and college friends. You may also have made friends through worship, work, summer employment, or social activities. These specific groups are based on a particular place and time, and sustained through mutual, shared interests. A common understanding related to language and how you communicate (e.g., through phone, text, email, tweeting) usually serves as a strong component of these personal communities. However, the language you adopt and ways you interact may be very different with your friends than with your family. Researching information about your personal communities is an easy first step in investigating groups. You are, after all, an expert in this area. The primary documents and artifacts are readily available, and you have a vested interest in your subject matter. A stack of old photos or a photo album can be a starting point for learning about your family (see Figure 2.3). You may have a baby book or a stack of old letters written by family members.

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Figure 2.2 The bride and groom lead their guests in a parade, referred to as a second-line, and dance down one of the streets in the New Orleans French Quarter. Source: Trung Le/Getty Images

Figure 2.3 Page from baby book includes baby’s first haircut and documents milestones. Baby books often archive the first several years of your life. A set of old letters will always take you back to a moment in time and help you understand a past culture of which you may not have been a part. Source: Istock Photo.

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Collecting information and artifacts about your personal communities and reflecting on their purposes and meanings helps you understand how your identity is formed. This understanding of who you are contributes to how you might engage or contribute to larger local issues and also informs what communities you might want to join later or research further. Your research can also benefit the communities themselves by documenting their origins and histories, and by helping others learn about and understand their significance.

Geographical Communities The communities in which you live, go to school, and work are often classified using the terms rural, urban, and suburban. In addition to these broader categories of place or location, these communities can more specifically refer to farms, villages, communes, neighborhoods, buildings, lofts, or co-ops. In other contexts, geographical communities refer more generally to a city or town, county, state, or even a nation, country, or continent. These communities usually depend on people living in proximity to each other and sharing common resources. For example, people living in neighborhoods or apartment complexes share common areas such as parks, pools, playgrounds, clubhouses, tennis courts, and sidewalks. In urban settings, people may share laundry areas, rooftops, hallways, and parking lots. Interactions within these communities are often organized through homeowner or neighborhood associations or arise less formally through conversations in elevators, parking lots, or hallways. In addition to specific geographical communities, cities, counties, towns, and states also have governing bodies that regulate shared purposes and interactions of much larger communities. Municipal entities sometimes have complex histories and are responsible for enhancing the communities in a number of ways, such as through building or maintaining parks, historic districts, downtown revitalization, economic development, public welfare, and continuing community development. Government communities have offices or divisions dedicated to preserving archival records related to the history and administration of communities. They also keep important records related to births, deaths, deeds, marriages, and taxes. Geographical communities provide rich primary materials from which you can glean writing topics and gather research. Investigating geographical spaces provides a focused research agenda. These neighborhoods, towns, and cities have sources that are often easy to access and provide a long list of possible research topics. As a member of a local community, you may find interesting the information about the governing structure of your community or how increasing bike lines will enhance the community and increase wellness. You may be curious about the community’s park, sports and recreation options. Your interests will lead you to possible areas in which you would like to become involved, and your research could produce valuable community-building interest stories and resources to your neighbors. A city website, like the one shown in Figure 2.4, is a good place to begin researching a geographical community.

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Figure 2.4 Northfield, Minnesota community website. The mission of this site is “to create an electronic commons that strengthens the fabric of community in the greater Northfield area.” It publishes stories and lists events “from any and all” community members. Source: Northfield.org/Northfield Citizens Online

Academic Communities Simply by attending a school (at any level from preschool to graduate education) makes you a member of that specific educational community. After graduation, you become a member of the alumni group, so you are often forever a member of this community. As a new member, you might have been welcomed into the community in some way, whether through an official ceremony or simply through acceptance by existing members. Initiation ceremonies are sometimes a part of such communities. In addition to keeping up with your academic studies, as a member of an academic community you learn the school’s colors, mascot, and specific traditions related to sports, exam time, and perhaps holidays. In schools, readymade communities exist according to the classes you take, the major you choose, and the places you live as well as the student organizations you join. Many of the specific traditions of a university or college especially related to football are often articulated on school websites. Go check your school website to find out about local traditions and rituals. Academic communities also document their origins and history. You can find materials related to these historical moments in the school’s archives located in the library or recorded in yearbooks, trophy cabinets, and newspaper articles about the institutions. Your interest in a specific student organization can lead to these materials and help you identify existing faculty or groups of people to interview in order to learn more. Investigating an aspect of your academic community—for example, a department, student organization, or mascot—can provide insight into why certain events are held annually. Researching the name of a building or the origins of a statue may reveal significant historical information and remind you of the legacy of people who came before you. Through your research and writing, your documents become a permanent contribution to the community for future students.

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Reading In the article below, the writer explains the dispute between University of North Dakota, the North Dakota legislature, and the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) regarding the school’s nickname and logo: the “Fighting Sioux.” Team names, logos, and mascots become pivotal and important representations of school communities—students and alumni.

UND nickname still point of discussion/NCAA: American Indian nicknames are “hostile and abusive” BISMARCK, N.D.—State senators voted Friday to force the University of North Dakota to keep its Fighting Sioux nickname, but the school’s president said he would take his orders from the Board of Higher Education instead. The Senate’s 28–15 vote, following last month’s overwhelming approval in the House, sets up a confrontation with the NCAA and the state education board, which asserts that it has the final say on whether the nickname stays or goes. A spokesman said Gov. Jack Dalrymple would sign the bill requiring the nickname to stay in place. The legislation says UND and the board may not “take any action to discontinue the use of the Fighting Sioux nickname or the Fighting Sioux logo” and says the law overrides previous decisions to do so. The logo depicts the profile of an American Indian warrior. The NCAA considers both the name and logo offensive. If UND keeps them, the association says the school will be ineligible to host postseason tournaments, and its athletes may not wear the nickname and logo on their uniforms in postseason games. School officials worry the dispute will complicate the school’s plans to join the NCAA’s Division I Big Sky Conference next year. The university’s president, Robert Kelley, said Friday the school will follow the board’s earlier order to retire the logo and nickname in August, unless it gets new directions from the board. The board’s president, Jon Backes, and its vice president, Grant Shaft, did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment. William Goetz, chancellor of the state university system, said he expected the board will meet to consider its next move shortly after Dalrymple signs the legislation. NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson responded to a request for comment Friday with a onesentence statement: “This is a state issue and the NCAA policy remains unchanged.” During debate before Friday’s vote, Democratic Sen. Mac Schneider—a former UND football player whose district includes the university—said Fighting Sioux fans “would not want to sacrifice our student-athletes for the sake of this legislation.”

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Schneider played on UND’s NCAA Division II championship team in 2001. UND played three home playoff games on its way to the title, which Schneider said was crucial to the team’s championship run. Minot Republican Sen. David Hogue said keeping the nickname and logo would “defend our unique North Dakota culture.” “I can’t agree that this bill, and this name, is about student-athletes alone,” Hogue said. “I think it’s much more than that. . . . This is about heritage, and that’s where I see this bill. It’s preserving that heritage.” More than five years ago, the NCAA declared the American Indian nicknames and imagery used by 19 member schools were “hostile and abusive” to Indians. Schools were told they would face sanctions unless they changed the nicknames and imagery or got permission from the affected tribes to keep them. The University of North Dakota challenged the NCAA’s ruling in state court in Grand Forks, where UND is located. It was settled in October 2007. The settlement gave UND three years to obtain consent from North Dakota’s Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes to continue using the nickname and logo. The Spirit Lake Sioux’s tribal council granted its permission to use the name and logo after they were endorsed in a reservation referendum. The Standing Rock tribe, whose council has long opposed the nickname and logo, declined to hold a referendum. When the Standing Rock tribe refused to endorse the nickname and logo, the Board of Higher Education directed UND to drop them. The school stopped licensing new Fighting Sioux merchandise last year and has been planning to retire the nickname and logo in August. Sen. Connie Triplett, D-Grand Forks, said it was “beyond insulting” to argue that keeping the nickname and logo “has any equivalence to the preservation of actual native culture in this state.” “If we cared in this state to preserve the history of the Native Americans who once possessed this land, we would be putting our time and our resources into having conversations of this depth and this length about actually preserving culture and history of Native Americans,” Triplett said. “We would not be talking about logos for university athletics.” Source: The Associated Press, March 12, 2011

After Reading 1.

Q

In addition to the University of North Dakota’s educational community, what other communities have a stake in this issue?

2.

List some of the key components of UND’s community and other communities discussed in the above article.

3.

How might the different histories of the opposing communities help explain how each interprets the “Fighting Sioux” name and logo?

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4.

In the article, Sen. David Hogue asserts that the Fighting Sioux mascot “is about heritage.” Considering your school’s mascot, how does that mascot represent the heritage of your college or university community?

5.

If you decided to write a paper explaining the significance of your educational community’s mascot, or any part of your community’s rituals and traditions, what archives could you examine to help uncover their origins and histories?

Social Communities People who share a common interest, passion, or hobby and provide their group members with opportunities for social gatherings make up social communities. Student organizations on campus usually fall into this category and include fraternities, sororities, academic or sports clubs, service organizations, honor societies, religious organizations, and special interest groups related to ethnicity, diversity, environment, arts, religion, and majors. Organizations affiliated with a school or church setting frequently overlap with the characteristics of the familial or academic communities defined above, but the characteristic of social communities relates to a more specific shared interest or purpose. Other social communities include hobby-focused and faith-based groups. Organized community groups exist for any faith, interest, or hobby that you can envision. There are communal groups for people who read, run, cook, knit, scrapbook, or who collect baseball cards, comic books, or any number of items. Faith-based groups might be aligned with a place of worship and include youth groups and social/study groups for men, women, singles, etc. They can also exist ancillary to any institutionalized religion. Social communities often congregate in face-to-face settings but can also “meet” in online environments. Members share not only a particular interest but also mutual language, jargon (language only understood by the communities’ members), and rituals, which provide an underlying structure for the group. To investigate a social community, you might want to collect artifacts, talk to members, or ask questions about the group’s beginnings.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Andrea Kitta Folklorist A folklorist interviews community members to learn about the customs, beliefs, and artifacts of a particular group of people. Primary research and the study of individual communities serve as the basis for this occupation. We turned the tables on Andrea, asking her to be the interviewee and answer questions so that we could gain insight into her profession and the role primary investigation plays in her job.

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What kind of research do you conduct in order to do your work? In addition to library and archival research, folklorists also occasionally use surveys to identify people to interview. Often, folklorists find interviewees from friends and colleagues and one interview leads to another. I also consider online forums and other internet materials to see how groups form, interact, and transmit information. Where and how do you collect your data? Most folklorists use a combination of observation and interviews. If we are documenting a performance, for example, we would both attend the performance and follow up by interviewing other attendees, the performers, and anyone else involved, including other performers, or even people who were not there, but are knowledgeable about the traditions. Once we have our data, many folklorists will share that data with the original interviewees to see if they have anything else to add and agree with our assumptions, a process known as reciprocal ethnography. Who is the audience for your research findings? It really depends on if the folklorist is working in an academic setting, as a public folklorist, or does applied research. Folklorists may write for academics, museum patrons, researchers in other fields, non-profit organizations, granting institutions, or for the public. What types of documents do you write? Folklorists write a wide variety of documents; some of our research goes into academic journals and books, but we also write grants, promotional materials, museums displays, and provide information for festivals, concerts, and community events.

Invention Exercise 1 Researching Social Communities 1.

Research a social community you are considering joining to learn more about the shared interests of the community members.

2.

Note the community’s origins or how its logo or motto was created.

3.

Why did members choose to become a part of this community? You may need to interview the organization’s leaders or members to gain this information.

4.

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How might this research serve as content for a writing project?

DEFINING AND ENGAGING WITH COMMUNITIES

These sorority sisters are participating in a philanthropic fundraiser at their college. Sorority sisters from chapters across the country support the same cause; the proceeds from these events benefit breast cancer research and awareness. Source: Lara Cerri/ZUMA Press/Newscom

Organization or Business Communities Your chosen career, job, or profession dictates the professional communities, organizations, or associations you choose to join. These communities are important to the creation of new knowledge and the advancement of specific fields and professions. Groups usually hold annual conferences where members come together to interact and participate in panels and workshops, and some organizations publish newsletters, journals, or trade magazines to disseminate news and information. Professional communities often have specialized language and jargon that only members fully understand. Being a member of the community means understanding and learning to communicate using this language. For example, “cammies” refer to the camouflaged uniforms that those in the military wear. In corporations, a SOW refers to a “statement of work,” a SOP refers to a “standard operating procedure,” and a “deck” refers to a PowerPoint presentation that includes several slides. Language “shortcuts” increase community ties and exclude those who don’t understand the

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lingo. Similarly, some professional communities can be quite exclusive in welcoming new members. In many cases, you have to pass an exam or test to become a member of select communities. Professional communities commonly include professions such as medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, educators, engineers, nurses, and graphic designers. To study these communities, you may need to find an insider willing to help you discover information. This category also includes non-profit organizations or businesses where members share common goals and purposes, such as the Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, Junior League, the American Red Cross, Boys and Girls Club, Literacy Volunteers, and Humane Society. The company or organization that employs you—a retail store, restaurant, or medical office— can also serve as a ready-made community. These communities usually have governing bodies, including an executive board of directors who holds the organizations accountable for their actions. Non-profit organizations depend on fundraising efforts and their members for sustaining support, while most businesses, unless small, must depend on their shareholders or their customers to sustain success. These groups sometimes overlap with social and professional communities. The National Health Service Corps illustrates the overlap that often occurs between professional and societal interests as it profiles healthcare professionals who are interested in serving in communities where healthcare options are limited (see Figure 2.5). Researching professional communities and associated artifacts can help you explore possible jobs, careers, or professions you find interesting. For example, you might want to learn more about becoming a lawyer, nurse, doctor, or accountant. Alternatively, you might be interested in the different types of careers available within your chosen major. Getting to know people in these fields and researching their primary documents and artifacts can help you narrow potential employment paths. Working with local non-profit communities gives you a different perspective on the missions and purposes of these organizations, and conducting research within these communities may in turn encourage you to join the organizations.

Figure 2.5 Website for the National Health Service Corps, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Source: https://nhsc.hrsa.gov

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Engaging with Communities As part of researching and writing in/about communities, you will want to think about the concept of rhetorical engagement as a framework for the writing you do in this class. Rhetorical is a term historically used to describe the effective use of language in a specific context or situation. Engagement, within composition studies, refers to participation or the act of becoming involved or occupied. Thus, rhetorical engagement (very simply and for our purposes) refers to the act of using language effectively for a specific situation or context and interaction between a writer and the specific needs of a situation. Communities, then, offer an opportunity to become rhetorically engaged. Throughout this text, we ask you to consider the communities to which you belong, the ones you think you may join one day, and the communities you wish to investigate. We want you to think about possible ways to conduct research and write within, about, or for these communities. For example, you might write about a community to share information with interested readers. If you write to other members of a community to which you currently belong, then you are writing within a community. And in writing for members of a community that you are studying, you may help the group deliver a message to its constituents or promote their services. Consider these research opportunities: 1.

2. 3. 4.

In preparation for a city’s 300th anniversary event, the Chamber of Commerce office seeks someone to help research the city’s origins to produce promotional materials and for event planning. A hospital keeps a database of all patient accidents on the property and wants someone to analyze the information and recommend needed renovations. A university or social organization (fraternity, sorority, sports club, or other student organization) wants new ideas for recruiting members. An organization wishes to trace its history using a series of historical documents.

Each of these scenarios involves a community-writing situation where the writer/researcher must investigate both the community and the specific rhetorical situation of the assignment in order to write effectively. Writers in these situations would need to research both the community’s self-proclaimed identity and primary materials in order to write well for the specific occasion.

Reading The following article by Jill Tucker profiles a specific academic community—both then and now. The community-building event of opening the time capsule brings together students, government officials, citizens, and historians researching the legacy of their town while shedding light on a 1910 community. The artifacts included in the time capsule are similar to ones you may find as you begin investigating communities that interest you.

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Pre-Reading Questions 1. 2. 3.

What is the nature of the artifacts discussed in the following essay? What do you think is the significance of the artifacts for the historical community that archived and stored them? What do you think motivated the 1910 community to write an anonymous letter to future community leaders and citizens?

“1910 Time Capsule Opened at Cleveland Elementary” by Jill Tucker A copper box buried for a century behind the Cleveland Elementary School cornerstone didn’t hold a singing frog in a top hat or a stash of gold coins. But the 1910 time capsule, opened Wednesday in front of San Francisco schoolchildren, teachers and city officials, was full of treasure nonetheless. The beat-up box encased in concrete held preserved pieces of the past, untouched and forgotten inside a school wall as, just a few feet away, generations of children learned and played. A letter, official city and trade union documents and pictures filled the 100-year-old capsule, offering a glimpse of San Francisco four years after the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed much of the city. “To the Honorable Mayor of San Francisco. Whoever he May be. During the period in which this box may be opened,” read the letter’s envelope, the words carefully typed and underlined in blue ink. The letter’s authors were members of the Excelsior Homestead Progressive Association, “an improvement club,” and it suggests they had little hope their words would ever be discovered or be legible if they were. “. . . In the event that these lines are ever brought to light again it may be interesting to the readers to know something of the conditions prevailing at the time of the laying of the cornerstone,” the Sept. 18, 1910, letter said. “The city of San Francisco has just about recovered from the effects of the great earthquake and fire of 1906 and is now on a fair way to greater prosperity than ever.” It would be several generations before the city would see the women’s movement or spell check.

Long forgotten In the intervening years, the copper box was forgotten. Former Cleveland student and now school volunteer John Weidinger discovered the time capsule’s existence while researching the history of the 100-year-old school.

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The capsule was mentioned briefly in a San Francisco Call newspaper story at the time, saying then-Mayor P.J. “Pinhead” McCarthy placed the box behind the cornerstone after the children sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It didn’t say what was inside. “Had I not found that one sentence, maybe we might have lost that part of San Francisco history,” Weidinger said Wednesday moments before he pulled the contents out of the box in front of the students. During the school’s winter break, district carpenters cut around the cornerstone and confirmed the box existed. It took two more days to drill the box out of concrete while protecting the cornerstone. Anxious students eagerly guessed. Third-grader Andy Lopez had given it some thought. “A book,” the 8-year-old said Wednesday before the box was opened. “And a letter inside the book, and the mayor could have written the letter, and it might say, ‘Cleveland is the No. 1, best school ever.’” He was close.

Rules and letters The contents ranged from the mundane, including a pamphlet of the trade rules for the cement workers union, to the sentimental letter addressed to a presumably male mayor who hadn’t been born yet. There were class pictures of children in uniforms on the back of postcards; an invitation to the laying of the cornerstone; a book titled “Courses of Study – Evening Elementary School”; school district fiscal documents; and a 1909 “School Law of California” book. There was also a 1911 Board of Education salary schedule indicating a grammar school teacher would earn $2,460 for the year. Cleveland Principal Kristin Tavernetti said she plans to permanently display the box and its contents in a case at the school and then put another time capsule back in the hole behind the cornerstone for Cleveland kids of the future. In the meantime, she urged Cleveland students in 2011 to savor the present. “I want to let you know this is such a special occasion in your life,” she said. “It’s probably one you’ll never forget.”

100-year-old message in a box The following is the first page of a Sept. 18, 1910, letter found in the Cleveland Elementary School time capsule addressed to the mayor: “These lines are written on the date of the laying of the corner stone of the Cleveland School. The chances are that they may never be read for many years to come; probably if human eyes ever

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gaze on them again, they will be so indistinct from age as to be illegible. Be that as it may, in the event that these lines are ever brought to light again it may be interesting to the readers to know something of the conditions prevailing at the time of the laying of this corner stone. The city of San Francisco has just about recovered from the effects of the great earthquake and fire of 1906 and is now on a fair way to greater prosperity than ever. This Cleveland school is being erected under the administration of the Union Labor party, with Mr. P.H. McCarthy as Mayor. The Excelsior Progressive Association takes upon itself some though not all of the credit of bringing its erection about at this time and in the fine form which is rapidly reaching completion. Other improvement clubs in the same district also share in the honor of having assisted to bring about the construction and the erection of the school. They are also participating in the festivities attending the laying stone ceremony to-day. When completed the Cleveland school will be the only permanent building in the block bounded by Brazil, Athens, Moscow and Persia. Doubtless before these lines are read, the block will be built up solid with fine mansions, as the Excelsior Homestead district promises.” Source: Republished with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc. 1910 time capsule opened at Cleveland Elementary by Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, January 27, 2011; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

After Reading 1.

Q

What is the significance of the archival “treasures” found in the time capsule for the 2011 Cleveland school community?

2.

What lessons might the 21st-century elementary students learn from this “find”?

3.

In what ways do these archives put a human face on historical events?

4.

What research questions might rise from this archival find, not only the preserved artifacts but also their burial in the time capsule?

For our purposes, rhetorical engagement refers to the writing and communication you produce in association with a community through a mutual agreement or interest of some sort. To prepare you to think about primary research and communities in this way, below we define and discuss the nature and range of organized groups. Researching specific communities promotes understanding of both the communities to which you belong and the ones you do not—it also provides practice in analyzing the problems and issues facing groups. Once you understand a community’s conventions (generally defined as agreed-upon characteristics, which can change over time) and purposes, you will be better prepared to select a topic appropriate for that group and discover effective methods for researching and delivering your conclusions.

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Invention Exercise 2 Communities and their Components Make a list of the communities to which you belong or aspire; categorize them according to the types listed below and discussed above. Title the page “My Communities” and save this list in a safe place so you can add to it or reference it as you move through the chapters in this book. •

Family/Personal List communities related to your families and friends and their distinguishing elements. Examples might include: Jewish family, only child; Hispanic extended family including three siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins; family of divorce with two sets of parents. List any religious affiliations here—or you might place those groups under “social” depending on the group’s primary role in your life.

•

Geographical List all of the communities where you have lived, from general to more specific. This might include state, county, city, town, etc. from where you grew up to the one you live in now. You might also list a specific neighborhood, building, or dormitory where you live.

•

Academic List academic communities to which you belong given where you attended school. Note any specific communities you felt a part of through specific classes, sports, or organizational affiliations. Are there specific academic communities you would like to join?

•

Social List communities you voluntarily joined because of social interests. Note the specific student organizations as well as the organizations to which you belong based on personal interests or hobbies.

•

Organization/Business List here any professional organizations you would like to join or a business for which you would like to work. Include in this list places where you volunteer or work part time.

If you feel like a community to which you belong could fall under more than one category, note that. Many communities are fluid and overlap. For example, if you work for a familyowned business, then you may see a more seamless connection among your familial and professional community affiliations.

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Writing Exercise 1 Describing a Community 1.

Choose one of the communities you listed above. You don’t have to be a member of the community; you may wish to select one about which you want to learn more.

2.

Once you have chosen a community, identify and discuss the specific components of the group. •

People—Who belongs to this community? Be general at first but then get more specific in describing the people who make up this community. Note the hierarchy, if one exists, of the group. How many members does it have? What is the demographic make-up of the group (age, nationality, gender, etc.)?

•

Shared Purpose/Mission/Interests—What is the shared purpose or mission of the community? What are the shared interests of its members? What does the community hope to accomplish? What does this group of people have in common?

•

Place/Time—Where does the community exist? Does it have a physical place or location? Does it exist in an online space? Describe how chronology contributes to the community. Are there certain actions that occur according to a timeline?

•

Interaction (Language, Rituals, Rules, etc.)—What community conventions (generally agreed-upon characteristics, which can change over time) govern the behavior of the group? Discuss the type of language used within the community? Is it specialized in some way? Does the group have a set of rituals or behaviors that members are expected to display? What are the unspoken rules related to being a member of this community?

3.

After answering the above questions related to the community you chose, what information do you still want to know about the community? Make a list of questions about the group and its members, places, purpose, and interaction.

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Student Writing The following student essay illustrates ways in which people, shared purposes, locale, and familiar interactions combine to create community. “Los Latinos en Marietta” by Nico Augsburger Ever since the first big wave of immigrants came to America in the 1800’s, people seem to have formed groups or communities in different neighborhoods corresponding to where they had come from. The Italians settled in Staten Island, the Polish in Brooklyn, the Germans in the Yorkville neighborhood, etc. Today everyone is more interconnected, however the same thing happens but on a minor scale. When people move to America from a foreign country instinctively they feel more comfortable around people with the same background, who share the same sense of culture, who share the same interests, who work together, but most importantly who speak the same language. When my family moved from Uruguay to America in 1999, we felt mixed emotions. We had left our families, our friends, our culture, and our lifestyles to try and find our place in this new foreign nation. Since we only spoke Spanish at the time, finding friends was not easy. I would help introduce my parents to the sort of community they were in search of. I had met a kid on my soccer team, Alesh, whose maternal side of the family was Spanish; I befriended him because he was the only person who understood me on the team. During our games, my parents could hear and see a woman who would jump up and down screaming, “Vamos Alesh!!! Tira al acro!!”, which means, let’s go Alesh! Shoot at the goal!! After a few games our parents were introduced and the passionate woman, Carmen, invited us over for dinner to meet her husband, Dirk, and her other son Chavi. Our mothers would become inseparable, and our newfound friends would become part of our family. Carmen insisted that we meet her other friends’ families, they were all “Latinos” and all had kids my age. Their community of friends consisted of the Pachanos; both parents had fled from Venezuela because their parents did not want them to marry, they have two kids. The next family are the Galarzas; two Argentinian parents who had three kids and had bounced around and were ready to settle down in Marietta, just like my family. The Ascensios and the Dimarcos were both from Columbia and had three children, and finally the Bacces, who were from Spain, had only one son. Alesh and I referred to this group as the “Spanish Group.” Every family had a different story of how they ended up living in Marietta, but we all shared two things: a “Latino,” or relaxed lifestyle, and Spanish. The Spanish Group would meet every weekend and usually at a different family’s house or neighborhood. However, whoever was willing to host everyone, could. There was never a specific rotation or schedule; it was very laid back. It did not matter whether we were having lunch or dinner, the event would last for countless hours. If we met for a late lunch, after the parents had finished eating they would converse as they sipped on wine and beer and relaxed. Meanwhile the kids either played games in the yard or destroyed the house inside. When we would meet for dinner, the parents always seemed to get a little drunk and they would do anything from play Pictionary

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to listening to loud music and dance, until the early hours in the morning. The kids would generally play video games or do mischievous things around the neighborhood at late hours because the parents were so oblivious to what we were doing. As the years passed, the kids just as much as the adults had found a group of friends unlike any other. Everyone felt comfortable around one another, and we gave each other happiness. In 2008, Carmen was diagnosed with breast cancer. This unforgiving disease would take everything away from her and her family, including her life. It was painful to see how this disease could diminish her passion, her liveliness, her unique energy, and everything that made her who she was. Her death impacted everyone in our group, but my mother in particular. Carmen was my mother’s best friend; she was the one who had brought her in and introduced her to all of her friends. Carmen was the one who would take care of me if my parents were gone, she was family. Carmen’s death would influence the group to live healthier lives and build up to what it is today. My mother started to enter 5Ks that helped the research for breast cancer. All of the parents in the Spanish Group loved the idea and were all on-board. Now instead of getting together for drinks on weekends, they found themselves meeting early in the morning on weekdays to train for their next event. Now, four years later, not much has changed. Every person in the group continues to run and has now completed at least a half marathon and participated in a triathlon. The parents enjoy mountain biking, swimming, road biking, running and playing tennis together, doing at least two events weekly together. We still meet almost every weekend and do all of the same things that we used to do. The parents now share something else very special; they overcame the death of a close friend and used it as motivation to live a more active and healthy lifestyle. Our Spanish group started just like those in the 1800’s in New York, as a way to live the life we once had in our native countries. All of us in the group at one point in time were alone, missing our friends and families, and struggling to find our niche in this new society. When we became friends a bit of warmth filled a spot in our hearts, which had been vacant since we left our home. So I can understand why people form these groups and communities, but I am still left with questions I cannot answer. I sometimes wonder how many groups like my Spanish group there are and how they came to be. Is there a certain purpose to my Spanish Group? How much impact on other people has this group had? How long will the people in the group stay in contact? Although there are many uncertain things about our community, it is sure that groups like mine will continue to form. Not necessarily on purpose, but because everyone needs people who they can relate to, people to understand them, and as the great Bill Withers song says, “We all need somebody to lean on.”

Understanding Communities Through Research The questions you formulated about a community in the last section can provide a map for conducting research. Consider answering research questions by accessing a community’s archives. Other ways to gather information include interviewing members, participating in or observing events, volunteering your time or services, or serving on a committee. To write about or engage with a community, you will need to understand its history or significance

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and purpose. In order to better understand communities initially (especially ones of which you may not be a part), investigate what others have said about the community through published research, in public documents, newspaper articles, literary portrayals, and other community publications. As a first step, you may choose to observe a meeting of a community or investigate how the group is managed. If possible, access an online community website to learn about the topics important to a group. Collect a number of artifacts and documents in order to create your own archive of primary materials related to the community. To further your investigation, survey and/or interview members about their community involvement. In an ideal research scenario, initially you will have a research question to answer—or perhaps the community may provide a question for you. A well-defined research question guides you to the possible ways to generate a research plan, find answers and/or solutions. As a writer and researcher, you can write about, within, or for a community depending on your interests and curiosities. Your questions and your relationship with the community will dictate which of these purposes your writing and research best serves. Over the course of the book, we discuss at least five ways to learn about and research communities: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Archival Research and Artifacts (Chapter 5) Observation (Chapter 6) Interviews (Chapter 7) Surveys (Chapter 8) Secondary Research (Chapters 11 and 12)

As you begin to formulate research questions about your targeted communities, you will need to create a research plan. However, you don’t have to commit to just one way of learning about a community. Let your curiosity and questions guide you. In a large project, you will use all or some combination of the approaches defined below. Later chapters discuss these research strategies in more detail and provide opportunities to practice them.

Archival Research and Artifacts If you are interested in the history of a community or origin of an artifact, conduct archival research and engage in artifact analysis. Many communities, both physical and virtual, keep and maintain archives and collections of materials. Some professions, like architectural historians, city or town planners, lawyers, and museum curators depend on archival materials to do their jobs. Likewise, if you are the family historian or interested in your heritage or ancestors, then learning about your family community will entail looking at old pictures or letters to tell a specific story about your family. The National Archives has devoted a section of their website to family research and provides guidance on researching these communities. Archival research and artifacts will lead you to other types of research. For example, one of our students chose the first Apple logo, which pictures Newton sitting under an apple tree, to investigate. This choice led him to secondary research on the history of the Apple logo design and an essay on why and when companies should change their logos. Chapter 5 provides a full discussion of archives.

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Observation Observation is a useful research tool if you want to learn about a community by watching people engaged in various activities, including, for example, work practices, conversations, and meetings. The notes you take while observing and the description you write, based on your notes and observations, provide you with information you may not be able to “see” through other research approaches. If you want to observe how a football team behaves in a locker room and what rituals and traditions they display, then you will need to be in the locker room observing players as they prepare for the big game. Although your participation as an observer may affect their behavior, observation remains one of the only ways to see the community in its “natural” state. Observation, descriptive skills, note-taking and description are key components of observation and other types of primary research. Observation allows you to focus on the people, place, artifacts, interaction, and other specific components of a community including colors, logos, signs, actions, motivations, participants’ appearance and body language, physical qualities and uses of relevant artifacts. This approach to research provides a specific focused lens in which to learn and analyze a community and its artifacts. Observation will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 6.

Interviews Interviews depend on interaction between people. Many communities collect oral histories, one common type of interview. If you need to ask others about their community roles and experiences or you are interested in learning from others first-hand, then interviewing is the best research tool. Other types of interviews related to communities include member, customer, or constituent conversations. Your research questions help guide who you interview and the questions you will ask. You’ll also need note-taking and transcribing skills for this approach to research, and you will need to create a set of interview questions. Some interviewees have more credibility than others, so who you interview matters, and you will want to think through the questions you plan to ask in order to receive helpful and useful information about your specific research questions. In Chapter 7, we discuss the interviewing process thoroughly.

Surveys and Questionnaires Surveys and questionnaires are important methods for collecting information from respondents, particularly in cases where you want to learn about a specific community from a wide variety of perceptions. For example, if you want to help a community solve a communication problem or redesign a brochure or website, you need to conduct a brief survey with the communities’ members. Surveys and questionnaires are commonly administered in a wide variety of communities, including opinion polls, preference questionnaires, or marketing research surveys. Communities often use polls, surveys, or questionnaires to justify changes they plan to make or allow their members to give feedback on an issue. We offer advice for creating surveys and questionnaires in Chapter 8.

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Figure 2.6 About Us page of the U.S. Census Bureau. Source: www.census.gov/aboutus/

Perhaps the most famous survey taker is the U.S. Census Bureau. You can see from their “About Us” page (see Figure 2.6) that the Bureau’s central mission is gathering information about communities. In Chapter 8 we fully discuss how to create and administer surveys.

Secondary Research All research agendas include secondary research. Given access to a host of information through the Internet and libraries, you can easily see what others have said about your chosen community or topic. We want you to use secondary sources—what others have written—to inform your own primary research and ideas. Secondary research provides background or historical information on a topic. Other times, it might provide a context for your writing. For example, perhaps you are helping your place of employment with some promotional messages, but before you sit down with members of the group, you need to investigate what similar companies have done, research their best practices, and gather information about persuasive promotional materials. We more fully explore the uses of secondary research in Chapter 10.

Writing Exercise 2 Researching and Writing about a Community In the last writing exercise, you described a community and came up with a list of questions related to finding out more about it. For this assignment, choose a community where you can access its archives online. Using the list in the Appendix at the end of this chapter or through your own preliminary research, select an online community archive that you find interesting. Answer the following questions regarding the archive you have selected.

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1.

For what purpose or purposes were these archives collected? What are the primary and secondary purposes of such a community archive? What are some indirect purposes that might not immediately occur to you? Identify why the community collects these specific materials?

2.

What is the organizing feature or the focus of the materials? Does the archive include one type of artifact or different types of artifacts?

3.

What sorts of things could be learned about the community from such an archive? What questions could be answered using this specific archive?

4.

Determine the primary and secondary audiences of this community archive. Who (directly or indirectly or both) could be affected by these materials? Who may be interested in consulting the archive for research purposes? What might a researcher learn from this archive? Who else might find the archive and its contents interesting or even entertaining?

5.

After answering these questions about the selected archive, what conclusions can you draw about the community based on your answers to the above questions? Provide a description of the community archive and what it tells you about the community? Conclude your writing with any questions you still have remaining about the materials.

Researching an Online Community In the example below, the student analyzes an online archive related to a video game community.

Student Writing “IGN.com Archive” by Christopher Snipes

The IGN archive collects information for every video game released since the conception of the website. During my analysis of the IGN archive, I studied the collected materials, purpose, audience, the organizing features, and what can be learned from this archive.

Collected Materials The materials include information about video games. Every video game released is given an editorial review and these reviews are then collected into the archive. Each review attempts to describe the major details of each game, explain the pros and cons, and then rate it on different qualities. The games are graded on presentation (atmosphere, style,

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options, storyline, etc.), graphics (animation quality, texture design, and frame rate), sound (audio effects, voice acting, and music), gameplay (controls, design, and overall feel of the experience), and lasting appeal (how much time someone will most likely spend playing, which also includes replay value and options such as multiplayer). The games are then given an overall score.

Purposes The primary purpose of the archive is to collect editorial reviews so that someone can decide if they want to purchase a particular game. The video game industry has become oversaturated with content, and these reviews are intended to separate the masterpieces from the money-wasters. Video game players can find games they’re interested in based on the categories and reviews and read second opinions of particular games. The secondary purpose of the archive is to allow users to find new games coming out and get sneak peeks at information surrounding each game before the games are released. The games are archived long before a review is ever completed. Each game is added to the archive the moment it is announced. Up to date news is collected in different documents for each game including rumors, leaked images, announcements from game companies, play tests, and more. The archive also happens to have some indirect purposes. One of these indirect purposes is that users can also write their own reviews. The IGN editors aren’t infallible, and typically fans of a particular series will rate games differently than any given editor. Users can read all of the collected reviews and decide for themselves if a certain game is right for them. Another indirect purpose is that video game designers can read through the criticism and reviews of a variety of games to see what qualities get praised and what fails to work.

Audience The primary audience is video game players. They’re the main users of the site and the type of person most likely to be reading the editorial reviews or updated news on any given game. Reviews for any product are typically intended first and foremost for the people consuming the product, and the video game industry is no different. Secondary audiences include video game designers. Designers typically read reviews for the games they make and the top games in their genre. They research what qualities are praised and what tends to fall short of expectations. These archives provide editorial reviews filled with constructive criticism for designers to see what works and what can be improved. One of the groups affected directly by this archive is the video game industry as a whole. Games given higher ratings in reviews tend to sell better than those with lower scores. IGN reviews are taken very seriously and a low score can demolish the reputation of a given video game. This in turn affects sales and could even put particular companies out of business.

Features The organizing features of the archive include many hyperlinks that allow a user to specialize their search in some manner. A user can organize the archive by console (ex. PS3, Wii,

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Xbox 360, PC, iPhone, etc.), genre (ex. Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy, etc.), and when it was reviewed. There’s even a section titled “Editor’s Choice Games” that can be searched. Many things can be learned from this archive. The most obvious of these is what has already been mentioned: what works. It’s possible to learn the different qualities that create a game that can manage a 10 out of 10 score and why a particular game deserves a reader’s attention. Because the archive has collected reviews since 2001, audience members could compare how a quality game of 2001 stacks up to a particular game in 2010. Readers are able to learn how the industry has developed over time and what is required for success.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In Chapter 1, we introduced the concepts of primary investigation. In this chapter, we stress the connections between primary materials and the communities that produce them. By investigating communities, researchers get a fuller understanding of the interaction among people, goals, and primary documents. In this chapter, we provide a definition of rhetorical engagement and community that: • • • • •

introduces various communities and identifies distinguishing community traits; identifies five types of communities: family/personal, geographical, academic, social, and non-profit/businesses; provides a heuristic for describing communities; illustrates how research questions or interests might lead to the collection of primary materials from a community; analyzes an online community archive, generates findings about the community, and presents a brief written piece on the community.

In the next chapter, we discuss strategies for identifying research topics that you are personally invested in exploring and suggest ways for you to establish your voice and authority when researching and writing about subjects you enjoy.

Appendix: List of Select Online Community Archives 9/11 Digital Archive African American Archives: Slave Narratives African American Archives Alaska Digital Archives American Red Cross Museum American Jewish Archives Archives of African American Music and Culture

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http://911digitalarchive.org/ www.lfpl.org/western/htms/ archives.htm www.ebscohost.com/archives/ history-genealogy/african-american http://vilda.alaska.edu/index.php www.redcross.org/museum/ exhibits/exhibits.asp www.americanjewisharchives.org/ www.indiana.edu/~aaamc/

DEFINING AND ENGAGING WITH COMMUNITIES

Arlington, VA Community Archives

http://library.arlingtonva.us/ departments/libraries/history/ librarieshistoryarchives.aspx Bayer Corporate Archives www.bayer.com/en/the-companyarchive.aspx Digital Vaults, National Archives www.digitalvaults.org/ Documenting the American South http://docsouth.unc.edu/ Ellis Island www.ellisisland.org/ Five Colleges Archives http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/ Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company Archives www.thehenryford.org/research/ fordwebsitearchive.aspx Hershey Community Archives www.hersheyarchives.org/ Hurricane Digital Memory Bank http://hurricanearchive.org/ Illinois Digital Archive www.idaillinois.org/ Immigrant Archive Project www.immigrantarchiveproject. com/ Japanese American Legacy Project www.densho.org/sitesofshame/ index.html Japanese Relocation and Internment During WWII www.archives.gov/research/alic/ reference/military/japaneseinternment.html Levi, Strauss & Co. Heritage www.levistrauss.com/about/ heritage Library of Tibetan Works and Archives www.ltwa.net/library/ Making of America Project http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/ moa/ Maine Memory Project www.mainememory.net/ Native American Records in the National Archives www.archives.gov/research/ native-americans/ Northwest Digital Archives http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu/ PhilaPlace www.philaplace.org/ The Samurai Japanese Archives History Page www.samurai-archives.com/ Sears Archive www.searsarchives.com/index.htm SI Vault http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ vault/ United Methodist Church Archives and History www.gcah.org/ Vatican Secret Archives http://asv.vatican.va/home_en.htm Washington State Archives www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/* *Almost all states in the United States have a digital archive site where you can begin research on a more specific city, town, or community.

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Identifying a Research Topic and Thinking Like a Researcher

3

Much of your experience with researched writing has probably been based on investigating what experts have to say about an assigned topic. In completing typical academic assignments, you may have first investigated published writers’ thoughts on your subject and then woven their findings with your own thoughts. This material patched together typically constitutes the content of research/term paper. We want to introduce you to another approach of investigation and analysis. In focusing on primary research, we ask you to draw your own conclusions and to make claims based on investigation of archives and artifacts. As discussed earlier, primary research focuses on original materials themselves in contrast to examining only what others have already said or written about materials and issues. In essence, we are asking you to become an expert on a topic of your own choosing by engaging in original research and analysis. The following chapters walk you through the processes of identifying potential research topics, investigating artifacts and archives, becoming an expert, and considering communities. We have found in our own teaching that one of the hardest elements of traditional research is coming up with a subject. Some students would rather their teacher assign them a research topic while other students like to choose their own subjects. We think if you have some choice over your subject matter, you will become more engaged with the material. This chapter teaches you how to think intellectually about the things you already care about and to determine topics you want to investigate. It also introduces you to several specific strategies for generating topics that you might want to explore and asks you to practice some of these strategies working with primary materials.

Curiosity and Inquiry What topics pique your curiosity? Maybe you love technology and electronic gadgets and get especially excited when, for example, Apple makes an announcement about a new product. Have you ever wondered about the reception of the first generation Apple Macintosh or some other important electronic device, like a DVD player or DVR? Take a look at the ad by Apple Computer in Figure 3.1, “What in the name of Adam do people do with Apple Computers?” This advertisement asked users of Apple computers “to describe the unusual or interesting use” they found for their Apple II. Apple had just launched the first personal computer and was trying to get people interested in and excited about their product. Because computers were not ubiquitous like they are today, it is fascinating to think about

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Figure 3.1 1979 Apple II advertisement. Source: The Advertising Archives

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a time when an ad like this was necessary or effective. Analyzing early advertisements like the one in Figure 3.1 provides a context for understanding a different time and culture. Or perhaps you wonder why your community celebrates a specific festival or hosts an annual event. Wanting to learn more about a topic or answer a question involves curiosity, which often leads to research. Similarly, inquiry involves asking questions about a specific topic or subject. Historians ask questions about historical events, periods, or significant and influential people. Accounting and finance professors ask questions about practices related to the fields of financial management, accounting, and auditing. Students ask questions about their future careers or their favorite pastimes. Once you have generated a set of general questions about a subject, you can then make a plan for seeking answers and narrowing your topic. Investigation will help you explore your curiosity and find answers to your queries. The typical way to begin researching a topic is to see what others have said on the matter—secondary research, which we will discuss later in this book. As we discussed in Chapter 1, primary research is another strategy—one used most often in the workplace and by professional writers and academics—that is useful for accessing an archive or collection of materials pertaining to your quest. While the majority of work that researchers in colleges and universities do involves scholarly inquiry, asking questions and investigating solutions, we all conduct primary research every day in order to make a range of decisions—the cars we drive, the jobs for which we apply, the books we read, and when and how to exercise. Primary research skills transfer to a wide variety of contexts. We hope that the following writing exercises and examples will help you determine your own research interests. Topic ideas for class projects can come from commonplace aspects of your life. When you research subjects that hold personal value, you become more invested in your learning, research, and writing. We want you to keep an open mind as you use the invention exercises within this chapter to explore topics that interest you; as you work through them, think about ways you can blend your personal interests and academic assignments. The following student writing illustrates how a student’s initial curiosity about an artifact related to the medical field led to in-depth research and eventually an essay on healthcare and its changes.

Student Writing “The Evolution of Healthcare in North Carolina” by Ruth-Ann Styron After spending some time researching North Carolina artifacts, I came upon an amputation kit in the Eastern North Carolina Digital Library. This artifact was produced at the turn of the century, in about 1898, and includes a wooden carrying case uniquely designed to fit each surgical instrument (“Amputation Kit”). The surgical instruments have the distinctive quality of being entirely made of metal in order to meet the standards of new sterilization procedures. The “new Aseptic Surgical Technique” required surgical tools that “could withstand steam or harsh chemicals used” (“Amputation Kit”) for sterilization.

We learn here about the physical description of the artifact and when and why it was produced.

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Source: The Country Doctor Museum

Here we learn why the amputation kit is interesting to Ruth-Ann and how it reminded her of medical technologies and advancements.

The author moves from discussing the artifact to the changes occurring in the medical field since then.

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I have long been interested in the medical field; therefore, this artifact piqued my curiosity. Furthermore, our current technologies and medical advancements have significantly improved healthcare and quality of life. Most people in the United States take this progress in healthcare for granted. As a result we are accustomed to medical treatment that works immediately and effectively. This progress along with the current attitudes of “heal me now” led me to consider some of the changes in healthcare and changes in attitudes toward healthcare since 1898. One of these changes includes the shift in medical care from the majority of physicians practicing general medicine, or primary care, to the majority of physicians practicing in a specialty. Other notable changes include the evolving role of women in healthcare and the level of education doctors must achieve in order to practice medicine. In his book, Memoirs of a Country Doctor, author Carlton Lowery recalls a scene in which he was called to treat a boy who was suffering from diphtheria. Unfortunately, Lowery did not have any diphtheria antitoxin in his supplies, so he hired a cowboy who would ride to the nearest town to get the medicine (16–17). This recollection shows that country doctors had to have connections in the towns where they worked in order to keep their practices running. In Sampson Country M.D.’s, a book written to honor the country doctor which was published in 1957, Kathleen Matthews Carter describes the doctor as “almost always the most loved and respected man in the town or community” (8). While there is still admiration for their life-saving and healing abilities, those sentiments have changed through the years to how people feel about doctors in general. Distrust is prevalent

IDENTIFYING A RESEARCH TOPIC

among doctors’ patients. Today, it is reasonable to speculate that the local physician is one of the most sued professionals in town. Furthermore, today’s patients know more about available medicines and current treatments. The American public has a greater knowledge of available medicines than previous generations of U.S. citizens and people in other countries. This increase in medicinal knowledge comes from our constant bombardment by magazine ads, billboards, television commercials, internet banners and pop-ups all pushing prescription and over-the-counter medications. For instance, at anytime day or night, viewers can turn on the television and see ads for drugs to cure insomnia, sexual dysfunction, heart burn, depression, cholesterol, weight loss, allergies, asthma, arthritis, diabetes and any other aches and pains imaginable. In addition, New Zealand is the only other country in the world that allows commercials for prescription medicines (“A Nation of Pill Takers”). In the era of the country doctor, illness was a way of life. As the doctor and the diphtheria afflicted boy and his mother described in Memoirs of a Country Doctor wait for the antitoxin, the country doctor muses, “we knew that somewhere on the dusty red clay road from Charlotte to my office was a lone rider galloping along but we did not know if he had the antitoxin, and if he did we did not know if he would get back in time to save the boy’s life” (Lowery 17). For today’s patient, illness is intolerable, and impatience characterizes the mood in doctors’ offices and drug stores. As scientists began to understand more about the causes of disease and how the human body functions, they began to cure illnesses. Some milestones in the evolution of health care include the antitoxin to diphtheria, the polio vaccine, the smallpox vaccine, blood transfusions, organ transplants, chemotherapy and the current ethical dilemmas of stem cell research. With so many medical achievements in the past century, people have adopted the idea that doctors should be able to cure everything. In turn, these progressions have shaped our culture’s attitude. Today, people want their medical care like they want their food—cheap and fast—as simple as going through the drive-thru. In 1898, most physicians were generalists. Country doctors had to know a broad range of general medicine. These physicians had to perform routine checkups, deliver babies, set broken bones, amputate limbs, remove tumors, and perform various surgical operations (Shields 90). Today, there are specialists to diagnose and treat all of these different conditions. Even at the small county hospital near my hometown, in Johnston County, North Carolina, there are cardiologists, neurologists, radiologists, pathologists, oncologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, ophthalmologists, gynecologists, general surgeons, anesthesiologists, pathologists and many more specialists. There are almost three times as many nonfederal physicians in medical specialties than in general/family practice in the nation (Morgan 439, 444). In North Carolina, general/family physicians make up about forty percent of the total number of physicians (Morgan 439, 444). In 1898, country doctors had more responsibilities than today’s general physicians. Those responsibilities included keeping their own financial records, appointment schedules, medical tools, and medicines. In today’s medical practices, general physicians have a staff which performs all these tasks generalists used to perform by themselves. For instance, today a patient calls and makes a doctor’s appointment. When he/she arrives at the doctor’s office the receptionist checks him/her in. The patient then usually waits 30 minutes or more before the examination begins. When the examination begins, a nurse may take the patient’s blood pressure, temperature, and weight. Next, the doctor arrives to perform the examination and prescribe any necessary

This paragraph compares the country doctor of the nineteenth century with the views about physicians today as a way to illustrate the change in healthcare.

Here, the writer lets us know she is from a small county so she knows how much healthcare has changed for her and her community. So, here is a personal connection to the topic she is writing about.

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The author brings her readers back to the artifact in the closing paragraphs and explains the significance of such a thing for saving lives.

Notice here the generalization Ruth-Ann is drawing about the relationship between illness and wellness and its complex relationship to medical advancements.

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medications or treatments. After the appointment, a receptionist files the patient’s payment and insurance information. Finally, the patient goes to a pharmacy to get any prescribed medications filled. Today’s physicians have much more educational and medical training than those practicing in 1898, as would be expected. In 1898, if a man wanted to become a physician, he would get his grade school education and his high school diploma, and then he would attend two years of medical school. There were no female physicians graduating from medical schools in the United States until 1849. Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Counterslip, England. Twenty-eight colleges rejected her application to medical school before Geneva College in New York granted her admission. She “became the first female physician in the United States” when “she graduated in 1849” (Windsor 29). North Carolina did not have a female physician until thirty-eight years later in 1887. Her name was Annie Lowrie Alexander. She was born in a town near Charlotte and attended Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia (Thompson 14). She took her medical licensing examination in Maryland (Thompson 14). Today, for a man or a woman to become a physician he/she has “4 years of undergraduate school, 4 years of medical school, and 3 to 8 years of internship and residency, depending on the specialty selected” (“United States”). Although many women have gone to medical school since 1849, the number of female physicians in the United States is significantly lower than the number of male physicians. Of the nearly 765,922 physicians in the United States only 173,930 of them are female. In North Carolina, just 4,236 of the 19,795 physicians are female. There are many reasons that specialists are the norm for modern medicine. Some of these reasons include new healthcare concerns, people living longer and many improvements in science. Environmental issues contribute to the array of new health concerns; for instance, diminished air and water quality, lead, asbestos, pesticides and herbicides can cause diseases. With a longer lifespan, there are more diseases for twenty-first century physicians to treat than doctors practicing in 1898. There are chronic degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease. These illnesses usually affect people later in life. Then there are advancements in science and technology used in medicine, such as advanced surgical techniques like gamma knife and radiation therapy, and even robots that can aid in surgery. Compared to our technologies, an amputation kit seems primitive and even barbaric. But at the turn of the century it was cutting-edge technology. Amputation in the last half of the 1800s is set apart from amputation prior to the 1800s by “the discovery of the antiseptic principle” (“The Antiseptic Principle”). The antiseptic technique included washing down the operating room and the surgeon’s and nurse’s hands, as well as the patient in “2 to 3 percent carbolic acid” (“Antiseptic Operations” 224). Furthermore, physicians did not carelessly hack through the limbs they were amputating. They followed specific techniques and procedures, such as cutting away the skin, then the muscles and finally the bone (Wyeth 175–177). Clearly, our society’s attitude toward doctors today has changed over the past century. Family physicians slowly gained adoration and esteem for their patients and the community. Now, doctors are slowly losing this esteem and adoration. In 1898, era of modern medicine was still new. Only a few vaccines existed and not many patients had heard of them. Today’s patient cannot escape awareness of available medications. Our culture’s intolerant attitude toward illness drives our medical research and advancements. As a

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result, technological and medical progress dictates the move from generalists to specialists. As our knowledge of science becomes greater, physicians must extend their education and training to acquire emerging healthcare information. Women are making strides toward equal opportunities in healthcare and replacing gender bias. If the trend continues, we can expect more specialists while the generalists—like the amputation kit—become relics of a less complicated age.

Interesting how the amputation kit, which we might interpret as barbaric and tortuous today, really illustrates a less complex time period when discussed in its historical context.

Works Cited “A Nation of Pill Takers.” CBS Sunday Morning. 22 Oct 2006. CBS News. 20 Nov. 2006. . “Amputation Kit.” Eastern North Carolina Digital Library. 2006. East Carolina U. 19 Nov. 2006. . “Antiseptic Operations.” Wood’s Medical and Surgical Monographs. Vol. III. New York: William Wood and Company, 1889. 224. “The Antiseptic Principle.” Medicine in North Carolina: Surgical Practice in North Carolina: A Historical Commentary. Ed. Dorothy Long. Raleigh: The NC Medical Society, 1972. 636. Carter, Kathleen Matthews. Sampson County M.D.’s. 8. Clinton, North Carolina: Commercial Printing Company, 1957.20. Nov. 2006. . Lowery, Carlton. Memoirs of a Country Doctor. New York: Carlton Press, 1968. Morgan, Kathleen O’Leary and Scott Morgan, eds. Health Care State Rankings 2000 Health Care in the 50 United States, 8th ed. Lawrence, Kansas: Morgan Quitno, 2000. Shields, H.B. “Country Doctor. Katherine Shields Melvin.” The Pilot, 1975. 90. Thompson, Ginny. “The Remarkable Dr. Annie.” The State. Nov. 1990: 14. United States Dept of Labor. Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook. 4 Aug. 2006. . Windsor, Laura Lynn. “Elizabeth Blackwell.” Women in Medicine An Encyclopedia. Denver: ABClio, 2002. 27–28. Wyeth, John A. Appleton’s Medical Library: A Textbook on Surgery. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898.

Questions for Analysis

Q

1.

What is the significance of the amputation kit in studying the evolution of healthcare?

2.

What kinds of information can researchers gather from examining historical artifacts?

3.

What other research questions does this artifact raise?

Invention Strategies and Heuristics Janice Lauer, in Invention in Rhetoric and Composition (2004), defines invention as a “process that engages a rhetor (speaker or writer) in examining . . . different ways to begin writing and to explore writing situations” (6). Invention can also refer to asking questions, generating

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information, and discovering things to say about a topic; this process is called pre-writing in composition courses. Common invention or pre-writing techniques used to generate preliminary ideas include concept mapping, brainstorming, freewriting, listing, and clustering. Invention techniques are also sometimes referred to as heuristics, which is a system, strategy, or framework used to investigate or discover ideas about a topic. The rhetorical situation framework introduced in Chapter 2 for analysis purposes is one kind of heuristic.

Freewriting You may be familiar with invention and pre-writing strategies like freewriting and clustering. Freewriting refers to the activity of getting words on a piece of paper or on the screen. Freewriting is usually done with your internal editor turned off; as you write, you don’t have to stop to fix errors or rewrite parts of your paper until after you have produced a significant amount of text. Peter Elbow, one of the earliest proponents of freewriting, describes guidelines for this strategy in his Writing Without Teachers (1973): The idea is simply to write for ten minutes (later on, perhaps fifteen or twenty). Don’t stop for anything. Go quickly without rushing. Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing. If you can’t think of a word or a spelling, just use a squiggle or else write, “I can’t think of it.” Just put down something. The easiest thing is just to put down whatever is in your mind. If you get stuck it’s fine to write “I can’t think what to say, I can’t think what to say” as many times as you want; or repeat the last word you wrote over and over again; or anything else. The only requirement is that you never stop. (3) Freewriting is usually disorganized and may include questions, statements, bullet points, paragraphs, and sentences. The point of freewriting is to capture your ideas and thoughts as they come to you and in whatever form they take without worrying if you are using the “right” or “correct” words. You can edit later. Elbow explains how freewriting exercises can help writers: The main thing about freewriting is that it is nonediting. It is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on the page. Practiced regularly, it undoes the ingrained habit of editing at the same time you are trying to produce. It will make writing less blocked because words will come more easily. (4) In Chapter 9, we discuss other elements of the writing process, including arrangement, style, and editing. The following is an example of a student’s freewriting. Notice how the text resembles thought more than actual writing at this point. The student made an effort to let her thoughts pour out onto the page. Later she can go back and review what she wrote to discover ideas that she may want to write about for an assignment.

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Student 5-minute Freewrite “Reasons Why (or Why Not) to Join a Sorority?” by Helen Gaillet I rushed because my mom did, and I knew I definitely wanted to be a part of an organization on campus. I fell in love with my sorority because of the sisterhood and the philanthropy. I am actually the fundraising and philanthropy chair of my sorority right now. I would definitely recommend pledging a sorority to anyone who asked. Yes, because of the philanthropy and the sisterhood and all the fun events we do, but also because of the little things. Freshman year on my first day I wasn’t ever lost, and I always had someone to sit next to (even if I didn’t know the girl) because we all wore the same shirts. I always have something to do, and I am never ever bored. I always have someone’s clothes to borrow and plenty of girls willing to offer advice. I get to meet a lot of people on campus through our different events, and I really like networking with the alums as well. A sorority isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t always want something to do and to attend mandatory events. I will say, if I didn’t join a sorority I would have a lot more free time, and could probably spend more time in the library. My roommate didn’t join because she wanted downtime in college, and she said if she didn’t join she could still go to my events. My campus is big on community service, so being in a sorority is a really great way to get service hours, but sometimes people have other charities and philanthropies they would rather volunteer with. Not joining a sorority definitely gives people more time to follow individual interests. Still, if someone were to ask me whether or not to join a sorority, my answer would definitely be yes. Being a part of my organization really has defined my college experience thus far, so I would recommend pledging to anyone who is looking for a way to get involved on campus.

Clustering Clustering is similar in intent to freewriting, except you capture ideas and thoughts in visual form. This strategy is also referred to as brainstorming or mindmapping because you are trying to map your ideas and make sense of your thoughts. For example, you might start with a general topic, and then branch out to form separate clusters pertaining to more specific perspectives on a topic. Visually representing your thoughts has two purposes: to capture your thoughts and organize your ideas. Ultimately, graphically representing ideas serves as a roadmap or outline for research and writing. Clustering also allows you to physically organize relationships between topics and can help narrow down a general topic like the history of advertising to something more specific such as an analysis of a specific advertising firm or capitalism’s relationship to advertising. Figure 3.2 shows a document, circa 1889 from Direct Power, High Pressure, which promotes

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Figure 3.2 Document promoting the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson. Source: From Direct Acting, High Pressure, 1889 J. Walter Thompson Co. Publications Collection. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

one of the oldest advertising firms during the mid-nineteenth century, J. Walter Thompson. Figure 3.3 shows a cluster diagram that maps the details of the image and generates ideas about the topic of advertising history. Clustering usually begins with a general topic placed in the center (history of advertising). Thinking about your topic, or in this case using the details from an image, you can begin to brainstorm. In this example, the important things from the image make up the subtopics in the cluster: quotes from famous, successful men, mid-19th century, and J. Walter Thompson. Each of those topics is then expanded within additional balloons. The information balloons and the balloons’ relationships to each other suggest areas for further research and initial patterns for organizing an essay. After spending time studying the image and initially researching J. Walter Thompson with the help of a search engine, can you think of other balloons to add or other relationships to draw? What questions do you have after looking at the image and the visual clusters?

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Capitalism Possessions and materialism

Mid-19th century Victorian architecture

Quotes about advertising from famous men

History of Advertising J. Walter Thompson Advertisement by/and for advertising firms

Wealth and money Success

Owl flying over?

Figure 3.3 Cluster diagram showing how the image shown in Figure 3.2 can generate ideas about the topic of advertising history.

Cubing Cubing is an invention strategy that gets you to look at a topic from six different perspectives, as you would an object with six sides. Cubing requires you to examine and re-examine your topic from each of the six perspectives, and gets you to think about your topic in different ways. It can be especially helpful when exploring primary materials and generating more information about a subject. The six perspectives, or prompts, are (see Figure 3.4): 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Describe It: Using specific details, examine the topic or object and note its color, size, and shape. How would you describe the object to someone who had never seen one before? Compare It: How is it similar or different from other topics or objects? Associate It: What other topics or objects does it make you think about? Analyze It: Break the topic or object down into its parts. Apply It: How is the topic or object used? Argue For or Against It: Take a stand and argue for the value of the topic or object. Give reasons to support your opinions.

The order of the prompts moves from basic description to higher-order thinking activities such as application and analysis.

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Figure 3.4 Cubing diagram

Describe It

Apply It

Compare It

Argue For or Against It

Associate It

Analyze It

Figure 3.5 and the text that follows it show an example of how cubing can be applied to an artifact, which in this case is a letter written by a soldier during WWII. During WWII soldiers regularly wrote their letters on forms like the one below. The military then screened the letters, often blacking out confidential or sensitive information about military operations. 1.

2.

3.

4.

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Describe It: The letter is written from a WWII soldier to his wife back home. It is dated December 28, 1944, and the letter is written on a prescribed form, folded, and subject to eyes of others than the recipient. Compare It: Unlike other letters in the collection (letters to friends and parents) this correspondence reveals the soldier’s homesickness during the holidays and anticipation of being reunited with his wife and child. Associate It: “The Greatest Generation,” as Tom Brokaw describes those who survived the Great Depression to go on to fight in WWII, are seen as resilient, tough, committed, and fearless. This letter reveals the human side of the generation. Analyze It: The shaky handwriting, word choice, and fearful sentiments reveal the soldier’s worries and concerns about reuniting with his wife and child. One wonders how many other soldiers felt this same way, despite the public bravado seen in American propaganda and other personal “brave front” correspondences.

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Figure 3.5 Letter from a WWII soldier. Source: Kenneth Geary Myers (AFC 2001/001/88763), Correspondence (MS02), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

5.

6.

Apply It: Correspondence written in soldiers’ hands from this period is powerful both because it has been saved/collected and because it hasn’t physically disintegrated in the intervening years. The soldiers’ voices are important to include in WWII narratives because they make “real” claims and assumptions about the period. Argue For or Against It: This letter is an important artifact in discerning the true emotions of soldiers on the front and can be used to argue how brave soldiers really are, particularly when their actions are viewed against their universal human emotions.

Burke’s Pentad Burke’s pentad is a technique that was originally developed for drama but is very useful for discovering the motive behind a particular source. If you recall from your geometry classes, “pentad” refers to an object with five sides. Hence, this technique involves asking five questions about your topic or artifact: • • • • •

Act: what was done or what happened? Scene: when or where did the act happen? Agent: who is responsible or involved? Agency: how was it done? Purpose: why did the act happen? why was the agent responsible?

You may recognize these questions as typical journalistic questions that form the basis of newspaper writing: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Journalistic questions provide some objectivity and a focus on facts, but not necessarily on relationships among ideas. In the preliminary stages of your research, it’s a good idea to collect general information about a topic.

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Reading The following example shows the application of Burke’s pentad to an article that discusses an investigative commission’s report and analysis on the BP oil spill.

“Lessons Not Learned: A Year After the Gulf Oil Spill, Oil Remains, But New Permits are Granted” by Ethan Goffman An array of shortcomings and missteps led to the Deepwater disaster in the Gulf of Mexico which happened one year ago this past April. They include lax regulation, inadequate cement, blowout preventer failure and a poorly coordinated response. So says the final report of The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, released on January 11. Not only BP but the other companies involved with drilling and maintaining the well—Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd.—were found negligent, leading the report to characterize the problems as “systemic.” Such an accident, it seems, was waiting to happen. Jackie Savitz, a senior scientist for the ocean advocacy group Oceana, called the commission’s report “a scathing analysis” that details numerous preventable mistakes. BP and other companies, she notes, “failed the negative pressure test but kept going. They didn’t have enough centralizers, they tested cement that failed, but they went ahead.” Furthermore, argues Richard Charter, the senior policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife’s marine programs, “the mistakes made were compounded both before and after, indicating a culture of carelessness.” And the results are still being felt. Between April 22 when the offshore Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, sank and began gushing oil, and the following July when the well was capped, more than 4.5 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf. In February 2011, Salon reported that scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia found sea floors in the Gulf that were still coated with oil from the spill—and oil-choked sea creatures including dead crabs, tube worms and brittle stars littered the ocean floor. To minimize the risk of future catastrophic spills, the commission recommended increased government oversight, promoting a culture of safety within the industry, better practices for well integrity and tests for blowout preventers, and increased liability from today’s extremely low $75 million limit. Explains Oil Spill Commissioner Donald Boesch: “These recommendations are a blueprint for vastly improved safety. Our investigation was extremely comprehensive . . . we provided a detailed account of the various mistakes or bad decisions both on the Deepwater Horizon and onshore.” Charter agrees, noting that the key points are to increase redundant systems, to develop better clean-up capacity including better skimmers and to account for the toxicity of dispersants. But Savitz calls the recommendations “tepid” in light of the devastating impact of oil spills. “I felt like the commission was empowered to come up with bolder recommendations,” she says. “We need more out-of-the-box thinking.” She points out that deep-sea drilling accounts for only 8% of the oil we use and believes that a permanent moratorium is the answer. Oceana’s “Vision

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2020” plan outlines ways to lower our crude oil use 26% by 2020 by moving some oil uses, such as heating, to electricity; encouraging electric cars; increasing use of biofuels, particularly algal and switch grass; and improving energy efficiency. But offshore drilling will almost certainly continue despite serious deficiencies. Charter warns that accident response has not kept pace with conditions in the increasingly difficult drilling environments. “This entire technology has outstripped its response capability,” he says. “It’s archaic compared to the space-age technology for finding and extracting oil.” Currently, the situation is at a standoff. Although the moratorium has been lifted, permits for new wells are not being granted. Yet incessant demand for oil, together with industry pressure, make it likely that drilling will continue. Indeed, as oil prices surged in February and March, the interior department granted the first new deepwater permit since the disaster and announced the likelihood of more to come. Arguing for the permits, Carlton Carroll of the American Petroleum Institute says: “API and the industry have already taken numerous, concrete actions since the accident to identify and implement additional safeguards.” For “the first time,” he adds, “it has committed to develop the capacity to contain a deepwater blowout.” But Charter worries about where deepwater drilling might head next—particularly Bristol Bay, Alaska, and the Arctic Ocean, where a similar spill could bring even more horrific consequences. Oil that makes its way beneath the sea ice would be virtually impossible to clean up. While U.S. regulators are currently withholding permits for such drilling, there’s increased pressure for it to move forward as the Gulf tragedy recedes in our collective consciousness. Source: “Lessons Not Learned: A Year After the Gulf Oil Spill, Oil Remains, But New Permits are Granted” by Ethan Goffman, E. 22.3 (May–June 2011): p. 20.

This figure shows the application of the five questions of Burke’s pentad to the above article. These general questions are designed to help you to understand the motives behind the disaster, and to generate further questions to analyze the implications or repercussions of the event.

Purpose (Why?) Poor risk assessment and quality control

Act (What?) A catastrophic oil spill and environmental disaster

Scene (When/Where?) Gulf of Mexico, Explosion on April 20, 2010, spill ongoing into August

Agent (Who?) BP Oil

Burke’s pentad and journalistic questions: BP oil spill.

Agency (How?) Explosion and fire on BP-licensed deep-water drilling rig. Death and injuries to workers. Blowout preventer failed to activate

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After Reading 1.

Q

What is the relationship between the act (the environmental disaster) and the scene (Gulf of Mexico) in the context of tourism for those coastal states?

2.

What is the relationship between the purpose (poor quality control) and agency (blowout dysfunction) and their affect on future legislation and/or regulation?

3.

How does the agent (BP Oil) and the act (oil spill) along with the scene (Gulf of Mexico) lead to questions related to blame and effects on local communities?

Using these invention techniques (freewriting, clustering, cubing, and the pentad) will help you capture initial thoughts and ideas about the subject at hand and suggest research and writing directions. The following writing exercises provide practice with these pre-writing strategies.

Invention Exercise 1 Curiosity and Inquiry 1.

Pick a topic that interests you or one that you want to know more about. For example, at the initial stages of research, you might choose a general topic like music, snowboarding, or tourism—or something more specific, like pharmaceutical advertising/marketing or life in 19th-century Washington DC.

2.

Without searching for any information on your subject, first brainstorm and write down what you know about your subject. Some people like to make lists of the things they know about a topic, while others draw mindmaps or use clustering to help them think about the topic in relationship to other terms. You can also ask questions about a specific event or action. You might know, for example, that direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is a relatively recent phenomenon or that tourism is really important to certain cities, towns, and communities. You might be able to list examples of pharmaceutical advertisements and the specific language used, or you may be able to make a list of communities or places that attract tourists. If you don’t have very much to say, that’s okay. You’re just getting started. The idea is to start general and begin narrowing your topic down to a more specific one.

3.

Generate a list of questions related to your topic. See how many questions you can write. One way to elicit questions is to combine Burke’s pentad questions with your own interests. Here’s an example of questions

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generated about tourism, specifically pertaining to Washington, DC. Can you come up with at least this many questions about your topic? Questions about Washington, DC: •

Why is Washington, DC such a popular tourist destination?

•

Are people really that interested in the history of our government?

•

What types of experiences did people have when they traveled to Washington, DC?

•

Are there things to do besides going to museums and seeing old buildings?

•

Who traveled to Washington, DC at different time periods?

•

Do people flock there because so many things have free admission?

•

What if the museums did charge an admissions fee; what affect would this have?

•

When did people start planning trips to the nation’s capital?

•

How did people get there in past centuries?

•

What were the external factors that contributed to such a movement?

•

What influence do tourists have on the economy of the community?

•

When did Washington, DC become the nation’s capital? Why was it chosen?

•

Who chose the monuments that would be displayed, for example, the Lincoln Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial?

4.

Divide your list of questions into two categories: a.

Questions that can be answered through a series of activities like observation; artifact description, analysis, and interpretation; or interviews. (primary research)

b.

Questions that can be answered by reading and reflecting on what answers others have said about your questions. (secondary research) The first category of questions will involve primary investigation, and the second

category is traditionally referred to as secondary research. Many of the questions in point 3 above fall within the second category and could probably be answered by consulting a reference book or personal accounts of the city. Some of the answers could be found fairly quickly online, but there are a couple of questions that could lead you to an archive, such as pictures of people visiting Washington, DC. You might also be able to find letters from a traveler who wrote back home about visiting the nation’s capitol or a president’s diary about the city. Taking a look at these artifacts (letters, diaries, commonplace books, etc.) constitutes primary research. However, remember that these two types of inquiry often come together at some point in learning about a topic or investigating an answer, especially when you cast and contextualize your findings for a specific audience.

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5.

Look back at your list, pick one of the questions from the first category and write down some ways you might answer this question. Where would you start? What materials would you need to investigate? Are there artifacts related to the topic that you can access?

6.

Write a brief statement about your research question and how you plan to answer it. Articulating a research question and writing a research statement narrows down your topic and gives you a road map for conducting primary research. This statement can also help you stay focused as you begin to look at primary materials and artifacts pertaining to your topic. This exercise, along with invention strategies, can take you from curiosity about a topic to potential directions for researching specific aspects of the topic. Sample Brief Research Statement I would like to know what some of the first tourists to the nation’s capital thought about the city. When did people think of it as a tourist destination? How far did they travel? What did the President and the Congress think about visitors to the city? In order to answer these questions, I would like to find letters or travel writing from the 19th century that might discuss these experiences. I would also like to access a past president’s diary or letters that may make mention of people coming to the nation’s capital.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Becky Needham Chamber of Commerce Membership Manager Becky Needham works for a small-town chamber of commerce office. In addition to her duties as membership manager for the organization, she frequently mentors public relations and marketing majors at nearby universities. We asked her to discuss the role primary investigation plays in her job responsibilities. What kind of research do you conduct in order to do your work? Chambers of commerce research the needs of business in terms of programs, events, and services to ensure the success of the business community in a certain geographic area, primarily in the county of the chamber. Surveys are also conducted as needed for workforce

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development training, business startup challenges or to determine the political stance on an issue. Online polls are conducted to receive a pulse of the business community. Research is conducted by anonymous surveys and coffee chats and during recruitment and exit interviews. Where and how do you collect your data? The majority of research is conducted from our office by sending out surveys by email using an online company to collect and analyze the data and by traditional mail for members without email. An annual membership survey is sent to receive data on changing trends and areas of improvement as well as post-event surveys. Membership applications and new member orientations allow members to communicate how the chamber can assist with the business needs. If a business no longer wishes to be a member, we ask if there is anything we could have done differently. Monthly, we go out into the business community for coffee connections where members attend to openly talk about anything with staff and board members. Who is the audience for your research findings? Our staff and board of directors serve as the primary audience as we are always changing our program of work to meet the changing needs of our business community. Ultimately, it is the business community itself that gains from the research findings through new programs, events and services. What types of documents do you write? We write reports for our internal staff and board to act on as well as articles for the local media, a weekly email, monthly newsletter, quarterly business report, website content, social media updates and recruitment packages.

The next section offers advice for moving your research to the next stage. How can you expand your thoughts and ideas as you think about connecting your personal interests with researching communities of which you are a member?

Exploring Your Personal and Academic Interests Generating ideas through invention strategies represents one way to select a research topic; however, rich places to start thinking about topics include your personal and academic life and your home and school communities. Universities, colleges, and organizations sometimes have very interesting documented histories, as do the places and communities where they exist. Consider investigating topics and places that are important to you. Exploring questions of personal interests—How do I decide on a major? What sorts of jobs will be available when I graduate? What gym should I choose? Why would an item of clothing like a handkerchief have meaning? What’s the history of that old pizza place downtown? How

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can I be healthy? What is the community I grew up in known for?—can be exciting for at least two reasons. First, you are motivated to find answers because what you learn will have real value to you, and second you are answering your own questions, not those posed by your teacher or the course curriculum or textbook.

Communities in Context Reddit.com You may already be familiar with the online community reddit.com, as it is one of the top resources for many television news and entertainment programs. While perhaps not a traditional community, Reddit.com provides a global, open forum where members can post comments, links, photos, memes, videos, or any other digital item of interest. Community members vote for each post based on how interesting it is, and reddit ranks the posts based on community interest. This continually updated system provides members with a one-stop source to catch up on “what’s hot” at the moment, hence why reddit calls itself “the front page of the internet.” The reddit online community is an excellent place to start mining for a potential research topic. The overall reddit community is divided into smaller special interest boards called “subreddits” that anyone can create. Reading through the posts, a researcher might find the #8-ranked article titled “Bangladesh Workers Find Survivor in Factory Rubble” interesting. This article brings up several issues that would make excellent research topics, such as working conditions, labor laws, overseas manufacturing, construction codes, or disaster relief. Using the invention heuristics discussed in this chapter, a researcher could turn a simple reddit post into a scholarly research project.

Questions for Analysis

Q

Take a moment to peruse through a few of the following subreddits: Politics, WorldNews, News, Technology, or Science. Then, answer the following questions. 1.

What are the shared goals of the overall reddit community versus a subreddit community? How are they similar or different?

2.

Does this community use specific language that is unique to the group? How does the language change from one subreddit to another?

3.

Can you uncover some unspoken rules or guidelines for this website; particularly, can you determine what values determine how members vote for posts?

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4.

Read through some of the comments under a post. How do you think conversations in this online community differ from in-person communities?

5.

Recall that anyone can post to reddit, and anyone can create a new subreddit. How could you use reddit to help generate ideas or perform research for a project?

Thinking Like a Researcher Thinking like a researcher means thinking past obvious answers to questions and searching further. When first encountering a place, artifact, or set of materials in catalogued (or uncatalogued) form, you may not know initially what to make of those objects or collection of documents. Unlike traditional research, our approach asks you to frame the topic and the research you do. Think about how you might contribute something original about your subject—a new interpretation, a new perspective, or even an alternative “answer”? How do you do this? By first studying the background of the materials or communities— asking who produced them, for whom, and for what purposes, and next by trusting your own perspective on an interest in the subject. Primary research helps move you from merely becoming the collector of existing data to joining a conversation about your topic. Having something interesting to say is only one side of the equation in communicating your research findings to an audience. In later chapters, we will discuss how to conduct primary research, become an expert on a topic, and engage a specific community. Building on the researching social communities invention exercise in Chapter 1, the following invention exercise asks you to identify a community or place, take field notes, reflect on your role as a researcher, and formulate a set of questions or topics that could be answered using primary research materials.

Invention Exercise 2 Becoming a Community Researcher 1.

Pick a community or organization to which you belong or plan to join at some time in the future. Spend some time observing that community and its members. What do you want to find out about this community or organization? If you are already a member, focus on further investigation that explores your current understanding.

2.

While there, take field notes. Divide your page into two parts. On the left side, describe what you see in very specific terms and as objectively as possible. On the right side, reflect on what you see, state your thoughts, analyze the members, and note any questions.

3.

Note photographs, documents, design elements, or particular artifacts related to or within your chosen community or organization. Spend some more time observing,

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reading, and learning about the community or organization and the role of the artifacts within that context. 4.

After you have completed your observation(s), reflect on your role as the researcher. What did you learn about the community and what did you learn about yourself through observations? Did you learn something that surprised you?

5.

Reflect on your field notes in writing. What questions or topics come up repeatedly? Do these questions lead to further inquiry or help you understand the community better? How? What did you learn from the field notes that you might have overlooked while you were observing?

6.

After reflecting on your role as researcher and on your field notes, what research questions and/or topics need further exploration or research? What kinds of information might you need to investigate? What other topics interest you or make you want to know more?

The questions above will help you explore a community, organization, or profession from a research perspective and should be quite interesting depending on the relationship you have with the community.

Reading The following article describes the inquiry and research conducted by James Todd, a cultural anthropologist, who spent several years immersed in the NASCAR culture. As you read, think about communities and cultures to which you belong and how you might research and learn more about them.

“James Todd, From Anthropologist to Researcher of NASCAR and Southern Culture” by Mark Emmons SONOMA, Calif. – James Todd strolls through the world of NASCAR, ignoring the thunderous roar of revving stock cars engines around him. He makes small talk with driver Stacy Compton, points out the countless souvenirs that die-hard race fans must have, and takes in what he calls a “spectacle on a scale you won’t see anywhere else.” Then he sees the product name emblazoned on Mark Martin’s race car. “How the heck did Viagra get in the middle of a family sport?” Todd wondered.

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He hopes to figure out that answer and, while he’s at it, try to determine how NASCAR has evolved from a primarily southern institution into an andrenaline-pumping phenomenon that became the nation’s fastest-growing sport. Todd, a UC-Santa Cruz graduate student, is spending the season researching his doctorate dissertation on what he tentatively describes as “NASCAR and Southern Culture.” And no, Todd contends, that is not an oxymoron. He’s conducting his own NASCAR tour across America, living out of a 15-year-old RV, spending 10 months parked at racetracks, talking to fans, delving into their NASCAR obsession and, of course, watching “redneck horseshoes.” That would be people trying to throw toilet seats over orange traffic cones – an activity he witnessed at the Daytona 500. Along the way, Todd, 31, a personable guy with shoulder-length hair, has lost a fiancee and gotten real tired of barbecue. He also spends a lot of time convincing people that this is serious study and not just a really cool way to scam a year living a motorhead’s dream. The odyssey has taken him to Infineon Raceway (the new official name of Sears Point Raceway), where the Dodge/Save Mart 350 will be run on Sunday. “There is something about NASCAR that really is important to people,” Todd said. “Of everything in the entire world to choose from, these people have decided to have their lives revolve around NASCAR. This goes way beyond pop culture.” He’s also fascinated by NASCAR’s unparalleled success in melding sport and consumerism. And then there’s the provocative issue of race – a topic NASCAR cannot escape if for no other reason than the presence of Confederate flags at its races. The South, or at least the way people imagine the South, is inexorably intertwined with NASCAR. “You always hear that NASCAR is going mainstream, but you’ll never hear that about the NBA,” Todd explained. “The narrative of NASCAR is really a story of Southern culture that went national. There’s a great folklore to the sport with the moonshine-runner beginnings that people have latched onto.” Lots of people. What’s beyond dispute is that NASCAR burned rubber past the Mason-Dixon Line long ago. NASCAR claims a fan base of 75 million and ranks only behind the NFL when it comes to sports TV ratings on a seasonal basis. This year’s Daytona 500 drew 32 million viewers – the largest TV audience in the circuit’s 54-year history. Fortune 500 companies have decided the best way to create brand loyalty is to sponsor a stock-car team. The current New York Times best-seller list features the Dale Earnhardt Jr. autobiography, “Driver 8.” And just last week came the announcement that a NASCAR-themed movie starring pop princess Britney Spears is in development. Todd’s interest began when he noticed how NASCAR Barbie – complete with helmet and race uniform – flew off the shelves when the doll debuted a few years ago.

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Although he grew up just south of Daytona Beach, Fla., Todd never had much interest in auto racing. He had come to Santa Cruz to study anthropology and spent six years researching contemporary Mayan culture – the indigenous people on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. But Todd became worried that he was duplicating the research of others and, frankly, wanted to do something fun. After spending four months of each year in the field, he chose to explore the garage. “I remember when I first asked my adviser: ‘What do you think about when I say NASCAR?’” Todd recalled. “He just sat there. After about a minute of me talking, he finally said, ‘This is good.’ But he didn’t really mean it then. It took me about a year to convince people that this wasn’t a joke.” Todd was at the 2001 Daytona 500 when Dale Earnhardt was killed in an accident on the final lap. It wasn’t until he returned to Santa Cruz that Todd fully understood the magnitude of Earnhardt’s death. He hopped back on a plane for Earnhardt’s hometown of Mooresville, N.C., where he spent a week watching the vigils of heartbroken fans. At one point he ended up in the middle of a prayer circle “where people were sobbing and saying, ‘I just want to see Dale one more time.’” Something way beyond America’s love affair with the automobile was at work here, Todd decided. He lined up a $20,000 grant from Wenner-Gren Foundation for anthropological research and $10,000 from the Krach Foundation in Los Gatos, then hit the road. He has put 8,000 miles on his 27-foot RV, which he bought for $14,000 and which gets roughly five miles to the gallon. (Todd flies to the West Coast stops, and the RV currently is parked in Atlanta.) Todd figures he’s going to run out of money and will have to rely on student loans to complete the year. He hangs out with fans over campfires. He has visited with some in their homes, looking at their “NASCAR rooms” that are shrines to drivers. He spent an entire race weekend with supporters of driver Jeremy Mayfield. “They have every piece of Mayfield clothing there is,” Todd said. “They talk about him as if he’s part of their family. They knew all about the girl that he’s going to marry and debated how it’s going to affect him. You can’t believe how real this world is to these people.” NASCAR has given Todd its blessing, allowing him full access. “I’m delighted he’s doing this, because this sport absolutely is a culture of its own,” said Humpy Wheeler, who runs Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte and is one of the sport’s most influential people. “I always felt like we needed somebody who could tell us what we already know, but in a formal way.” That may be necessary, because even some involved, such as longtime driver Dave Jarrett, have a hard time comprehending the seemingly inexhaustible interest of the NASCAR faithful. He notes that fans might only get a few days of vacation each year and will spend it at a racetrack. God bless ’em, Jarrett added, but he doesn’t get it. “If the souvenir business is a measuring stick, our fans are much more passionate than other sports fans,” Jarrett said. “We keep coming up with ideas, and they keep buying them.”

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What isn’t discussed much in NASCAR is the sensitive question of race relations. It has been said that the only place in NASCAR where you will find black and white together is on a checkered flag. It’s an overwhelmingly white sport, both among competitors and spectators. Todd chooses his words on that topic carefully – perhaps because it’s such a complex, volatile issue that he doesn’t fully understand it himself. For example, he talks of meeting a fan from British Columbia who proudly displayed the rebel flag. “It doesn’t make sense, but somehow he identifies with the South,” Todd said. “The history says that this started as a white, working-class institution in the South. But what I’ve been trying to figure out is how people talk about that and what it means.” And to not draw any value judgments. He sees himself as a “participant-observer.” Todd doesn’t like it when people say he’s “studying” NASCAR, because that makes it sound like race fans are lab rats. “I’m having a conversation with people,” he said. At least when he can hear them over the rumble of the stock cars. Source: “James Todd, From Anthropologist to Researcher of NASCAR and Southern Culture,” San Jose Mercury News, June 22, 2002

After Reading

Q

1.

What methods does James Todd use to research the NASCAR culture?

2.

What NASCAR traditions or rituals does he discuss and what did you learn about the community by reading about these features?

3.

How could these research tools be applied to other cultures and communities?

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter we ask you to begin questioning and examining artifacts and documents from your everyday life. Asking questions and being curious about a range of personal and professional topics is one way to select a topic that interests you. Your personal interests and community relationships provide a wealth of resources for identifying a research topic, and we think you will be surprised how many primary sources of information are already at your fingertips. Specifically, this chapter reminds you that: • •

identifying a writing topic depends on two things—curiosity and inquiry; research or inquiry depends on a set of questions generated by an artifact, community, or document;

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• •

invention strategies like freewriting, clustering, Burke’s pentad, and cubing provide ways to generate ideas and questions about topics; observing and studying communities and artifacts, taking field notes, reflecting on personal interests and opinions, and asking questions about familiar topics will help you think like a researcher.

In Chapter 4, we introduce ways to gain expertise and establish your authority by examining artifacts and communities with which you are already familiar. At this point in your academic career, you probably understand the importance and process of finding secondary sources. Now we ask you to blend both primary and secondary sources in ways that lead you to establish your authority on a personally selected topic.

References Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973/1998. Invention in Rhetoric and Composition: A Reference Guide.

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4

In Chapter 3 we discussed the importance of engaging intellectually with your topic through questioning subjects, issues, and communities. In this chapter, we introduce ways to gain expertise and establish your authority. You are probably most familiar with research papers that cite quotations from secondary sources, such as articles, essays, and books written by experts in their fields. Traditionally, writing courses ask students to become authorities by reading broadly on issues and then coming up with their own opinions or “takes” on an issue. This approach often results in final papers that patch together quotations from experts blended with the students’ summaries of secondary research. While we want you to understand how to find secondary sources and integrate others’ opinions into your work, we don’t want you to start and end with summarizing what the experts say about your topic. Instead, we ask you to closely examine primary materials and their contexts (as we have explained in other chapters) to discern your thoughts on a subject before consulting the opinions of experts and other researchers. In this chapter, we ask you to consider carefully how to tell your research stories or communicate knowledge based on analysis of both primary and secondary research. Next, then we offer instruction on summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting material in ways that lead to establishing your ethos with readers. The chapter begins with a section on developing and writing a research question based on a digital archive or collection. We then offer a discussion of primary and secondary sources to examine based on both your research questions and the parameters of the archive under consideration. Finally, we discuss ways to represent your ideas alongside the thoughts of others in order to develop your authority. Unlike other chapters in this text, in this one we include an extended example based on one student’s work. We hope this illustration will model ways for you to blend primary and secondary resources in ways that reveal your experiences, curiosity, and expertise on your chosen topics.

Developing a Research Question In order to be productive in your quest for knowledge, you need to formulate questions. A good research question is clear, concise, focused and asks about something you are interested in. Without a research question, your research will not be focused and you’ll end up wasting a lot of time. When asked to find and analyze a digital archive, one non-traditional student, Bob Brennan, consulted an online archive of materials related to the 1958 Our

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Figure 4.1 Memorial website and archive of Our Lady of the Angels school fire, 1958. Source: www.olafire.com/

Lady of the Angels (OLA) school fire in Chicago. Bob, our student writer, formulated two research questions related to the event and his memories of it. He found answers to his questions through investigation of the event and learned quite a few things about himself and his community along the way. You will hear more about his research questions and investigation as we move through the chapter. Bob had intimate experiences and memories connected to that event, along with lingering questions that were best answered after the passing of time. Bob began his investigation on the web and was pleased to find a thorough website devoted to the 1958 fire (see Figure 4.1). He learned from the website that the webmaster or collator of these materials began the digital archive after reading the 1996 book To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire, by David Cowan and John Kuenster, who tell the story of the fire and its aftermath. The archivist began the collection in 2001, and it was last updated in January 2014. Like Bob, and so many other people alive during the tragic fire, the archivist remembers the event and the aftermath, although he wasn’t personally involved in the tragedy. In this chapter, we demonstrate how Bob investigates current information about the fire and weaves the secondary information with his memories of the event to address his research questions.

Becoming an Expert Everyone’s research and inquiry processes are different, so how you begin your research depends upon your level of familiarity with the topic. If you choose a topic about which you know nothing or very little, then you may have to do a bit more initial reading on the subject before finding an appropriate archive or discovering questions to ask. Remember to think of research as a way of learning something new, finding an answer, or solving a problem. Many research and writing tasks require developing and demonstrating expertise on a subject. First, you must articulate a research question based on preliminary research. Rosemarie Ostler (2011) introduces “5 ways to become an instant expert: get the facts you

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need quickly by using sometimes overlooked resources.” She suggests following these steps to contextualize your subject and collect details and background information on a topic: 1.

Confirm the basics. Peruse websites like “Wikipedia (wikipedia.org), check out Library Spot (libraryspot. com), About.com, or the Internet Public Library (ipl.org)” and reference books, almanacs, and subject guides. These resources help “review the basics” and provide an overview of your topic.

2.

Piggyback on your resources. Look at the original sources cited in these overview entries to determine what information was omitted or glossed over in the encyclopedic overviews. This task allows you to explore your topic from different perspectives and in depth.

3.

Ask the government. Local, state, regional, and federal governments provide a wealth of online information. A good place to begin is www.usa.gov, but you might also check out city or state government websites as well.

4.

Find a real expert. Talking with someone who is an expert on your topic is always a good idea. Experts know their subject matter, can suggest additional resources, and provide useful quotations. Before you email or call someone to set up an interview, make a list of specific questions to ask. We provide information about conducting interviews in Chapter 7.

5.

Connect locally. Another way to conduct preliminary research is by engaging with community organizations. Ostler writes, “consider calling a nearby university, local service organization, the county extension service, the chamber of commerce, the head of the opera guild, a local restaurant owner, or your pet’s veterinarian” (2011: 25).

As you will see below, Bob worked through these steps in researching his topic. His assignment required him to use web resources; however, depending upon your subject matter and assignment, a website may not be your best resource. Bob had two questions related to the Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) school fire. First, he was curious about an iconic picture from the fire, one that depicted a firefighter carrying a boy out of the burning building (see Figure 4.2). This photograph was initially published in the local newspaper, later in Life magazine, and eventually reprinted on posters. Bob wanted to know where the photograph was taken. How was a photographer able to capture this photo as the tragedy was unfolding? Bob also thought he remembered that a statue was to be sculpted in this firefighter’s honor to memorialize the event and those who died in the fire. He asked: was a sculpture erected in this firefighter’s honor? If so, where is it? Who was responsible for its existence? Certainly, a sculpture or statue is one type of artifact used to honor firefighters’ search and rescue efforts, as well as their bravery. Statues and sculptures help tell stories of the events they memorialize. For example, artist Ron Head created the sculpture shown in Figure 4.3 after 9/11 to recognize the courage of firefighters and heroes who “go into harm’s way.”

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Figure 4.2 Fireman Richard Scheidt carries the lifeless body of 10-year-old John Jajkowski out of the fire-ravaged school soon after the fire is brought under control. Source: From Chicago American, December 1, 1958, Chicago Tribune. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States.

Figure 4.3 911 “Courage and Faith” statue by artist Ron Head. Source: [email protected] www.courage and faith. net

Because Bob had two questions in mind when he accessed the digital archive, his research was focused. Once he discovered the answers to his questions, he was a bit disappointed in his findings (explained below). At the same time, he realized the importance of the digital archive and included artifacts for documenting the influence of this incident upon fire regulation reform, especially the use of sprinklers. Documents like this October 1958 school inspection form (see Figure 4.4) became instrumental in investigating how to prevent future fires in schools. Many wondered how such an incident could happen at a school that had passed inspection just two months earlier.

Figure 4.4 Chicago Fire Department Inspection Report for Our Lady of the Angels School. Source: www.olafire.com/Inspection.asp

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Writing Exercise Analyzing Primary Resources 1.

Locate a government document or informational report. Who wrote the report? Does it come from an expert on the subject under investigation? How might this factual report be read to answer a specific research question?

2.

Try to identify information that is vague or incomplete. Where do you need to go to find additional answers or missing information?

3.

By investigating primary resources, like reports, you pull together distinct pieces of knowledge in ways that answer your unique research questions. How might you tie secondary research with primary information in reports to come up with new insights on an issue or address your concerns?

Reading Bob used the following more recent article from the online archive to learn more about the historic fire and the firefighter pictured in the famous photograph discussed above.

Our Lady of the Angels Firefighter Dies Retired Chicago firefighter Richard Scheidt, a subject of one of the grimmest and most iconic newspaper photographs in Chicago history, has died. He was 81. On Dec. 1, 1958, a helmeted Scheidt, his face drawn in sorrow, carried the wet, lifeless body of 10-year-old John Jajkowski Jr. from Our Lady of the Angels grade school on the West Side. The fire, one of the worst tragedies in Chicago annals, killed 92 children and three nuns. Scheidt died Monday at his home in southwest suburban Oak Lawn, a day after he was brought home from the hospital following a minor stroke a month ago, according to relatives. Scheidt, a member of Rescue Squad 1, carried the bodies of 20 children from the school. Jajkowski was the first. Scheidt was forever haunted by the memory. In an interview with the Tribune in 1995, in the wake of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in which another image of a firefighter cradling a dying child went around the world, Scheidt described the horror of the Our Lady of the Angels School conflagration.

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“It just broke my heart all over again for those poor people, having to pick up those babies,” Scheidt said at the time. “There’s nothing that prepares you for that. Thirty-some years later, I’m not over it yet.” Scheidt had been a Chicago firefighter for eight years when all 13 of the city’s rescue squads were dispatched to the school. The fire, he recalled, “was just roaring through the building.” Firefighters eventually broke a hole through a second-floor wall to find a smoky classroom full of unconscious pupils. Scheidt said he and his colleagues immediately tried to rescue as many as they could. He grabbed a boy and rushed out of the building. But Scheidt said, with tears in his eyes, “He was dead. He didn’t make it, like so many of the rest of them.” He then went back and brought out 19 more children, all dead. Meanwhile, Chicago American photographer Steve Lasker, arrived at the scene and saw one firefighter—Scheidt—heading down an interior staircase with a child. Lasker aimed his camera and waited for the rescuer to emerge. Scheidt said he never noticed the cameraman. “It was just an accident that they took that photograph,” Jack Gallapo, 82, an old friend of Scheidt’s and fellow firefighter, said this morning. “He just came out and they took it.” The photograph not only appeared on the front page of the Chicago American, but in newspapers around the world. But in his home, the fire and the picture were rarely spoken of. “He and all the men that he worked with—that was their job, and they were brothers in that,” his daughter, Nancy Coughlin of Tinley Park, recalled this morning. “He never thought he was any more of a hero than any of the men he worked with.” Scheidt, three of whose older brothers also were firefighters, said he almost quit the fire department after the school fire. “But I went on,” he said. “You just live with it,” Scheidt said in the 1995 interview. “It happened. You were part of it. You might not have liked it, but you did your job. You might have liked to have done more, but you did as good as you could.” Frances, his wife of 32 years, said her husband was always gracious when people broached the subject of the fire with him, but it was not something he spoke freely about. “He really didn’t want to talk about it,” she said. “It always broke his heart. It was a terrible thing.” Friends and relatives said that though the Our Lady of Angels fire was the one that made Scheidt well known, it was just one of many instances that showed the sort of “first in, last out” firefighter Scheidt was. “He never asked anyone to do something he wouldn’t do himself,” said son Andy Scheidt. “His biggest thing was making sure all his guys got home to their families.” As a young firefighter working with Scheidt 35 years ago, Fire Department First Deputy Commissioner Bob Hoff remembered him as a “tough, tough man. I mean physically tough.” On one call in the early 1970s to a grocery store with a fire in the basement, Scheidt ordered

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his men not to go in because it was too treacherous. But he didn’t listen to his own advice. He and one other firefighter went in with a hose and struck out the fire themselves. “There was heavy smoke and this was before the use of masks [with breathing apparatus],” Hoff said. “He didn’t want to get anyone hurt, but he had to put that fire out.” In his own quiet, hard-working way, he was a mentor, Hoff said. “He affected a lot of lives. You’d get a thousand stories about him, all good. I’m only one,” Hoff said. “It was an honor and a privilege to work for a guy like that.” Scheidt retired from the fire department in 1986 as a captain. He is survived by his wife, nine children, 28 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Funeral services are pending. —Staff report Source: From Chicago Tribune, April 7 © 2009 Chicago Tribune. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

After Reading

Q

1.

How does the article incorporate information from several interviews?

2.

How does the article describe the fire and Scheidt’s role in the rescue effort?

3.

What primary information is included? How does the inclusion of primary sources add to the researcher’s sense of credibility?

4.

How could Bob use this article to gain perspective on his topic and address his research questions?

Communities in Context Firehouse.com Perhaps, like Bob, you also have an intimate experience or memory of an event that you think might make an interesting research project, but perhaps you do not have access to the same type of event archives that Bob did. If that is the case, reading relevant information collated by online communities is a great way to generate a research question. You may decide that investigating something specific about that event is a more feasible research project.

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The online community represents an extension of Firehouse magazine. This site brings together firefighters, their families, and fellow enthusiasts from around the country by providing a number of relevant resources. The site includes a news board, online shops, job postings, discussion forums, and blogs to keep the firefighting community informed, connected, and aware of career advancement opportunities. Online communities serve as an extension of local groups, providing an extended forum for sharing information and

Website for Firehouse magazine. Source: www.firehouse.com

experiences.

Questions for Analysis

Q

Take a moment to peruse FIREHOUSE and answer the following questions: 1.

Based on the online community’s values and experiences, what questions could you ask about the OLA school fire event, or others like it, to help you understand fire safety more fully?

2.

Determine what issues concern the online firefighting community (i.e., safety, use of technology, coping with the emotional side of the profession). How do those issues apply to the OLA school fire?

Invention Exercise Moving from a Research Topic to a Research Question In our experience, students who choose topics that are of interest to them ask engaging questions that lead to productive inquiry and research. The following exercise will help you move from your personal/professional interests to some possible research questions. As you think about topics and begin to formulate questions, spend time looking at archives, either in person or online.

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1.

Make a list of your personal and professional interests and experiences. These topics can be related to hobbies, pastimes, family, places, events, major, or extracurricular activities.

2.

Example of personal and professional interests and experiences: Technologies

Concerts

Book collections or series

Health and fitness

Sports

Travel

Scrapbooking

Family reunions

Occupations

Your home town

Choose three personal or professional topics generated from the list above and answer the following questions about each one. 3.

Why is the topic of interest to you?

4.

Why do you want to learn about this topic?

5.

What do you want to learn about this topic?

Example questions related to topics above: Comic-book collections a.

Comic books interest me because collectors seem to be so excited when a new issue in a series comes out. Some series have been around for so long and are being re-issued for a whole new generation of people to read and enjoy.

b.

Learning about the different comic-book series provides context for the superhero and comic-book character movies that have come out over the last couple of years.

c.

I am curious about the history of comic books. What was the first series, when did it appear, who was the first character, and how did comic books come to be so popular?

Physical therapy 1.

This topic is interesting to me because the human body and its movements are fascinating.

2.

I want to learn as much as possible about this field of study because I want to be a physical therapist and help people.

3.

I want to learn what it takes to be a physical therapist, and I am also interested in the history of physical therapy as a field.

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Lady Gaga a.

Lady Gaga interests me for a number of reasons. Not much is known about her personal life. She dresses outrageously, and she stages great concerts and creates great music.

b.

My curiosity about Lady Gaga has to do with her rise as a popular cultural icon, while at the same time, we know little about her personal life. The media seems to leave her alone except in covering her outrageousness.

c.

I am interested in learning how Lady Gaga began her singing and performing career.

Next, come up with a longer list of questions related to your topic using the words when, why, what, and how? Don’t worry if the questions seem too big or broad to research at the moment. (You may need to do some preliminary research at this point to see what sorts of print and digital archives pertaining to your interests and experiences are available.) For example, while conducting preliminary research one of our students who was interested in physical therapy found a website that contained photos and a description of a prosthetic leg from the late 1800s. Viewing this artifact helped her develop her when, why, what, and how questions about advancements in the medical field over the last century. •

Why is physical therapy so important to people who have lost limbs?

•

Why is the history of prosthetics relevant to today’s physical therapists?

•

What role do physical therapists play in the rehabilitation of those who have lost a limb?

•

What were the consequences of losing limbs before the creation of artificial limbs?

•

How does the prosthesis in the picture differ from the prosthetics that are in use today?

After you have developed a set of questions, work on narrowing and re-phrasing one question. The question should be clear and specific so it serves as your guide for further research: How widely were prosthetics used in the late 19th century, and what influence did prosthetics have on the development of physical therapy as a profession? Now that you have your research question, come up with a research plan. Image from a digital collection of prosthetics from the 1800s at East Carolina University. Source: https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/13937.1, The Country Doctor Museum.

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Research Plan a.

Find sources addressing the history of prosthetics, especially the specific artifact found above.

b.

Find sources related to the relationship between physical therapists with patients who have lost limbs.

c.

Find materials related to the construction and use of prosthetics in the 19th century.

d.

Find materials on the advancements in prosthetic development.

This exercise should move your investigation beyond selecting a general topic toward formulating a specific research question that can focus your research and guide you to relevant primary and secondary resources.

Moving Between Primary and Secondary Research Sources Community or school events covered by a local newspaper or TV station represent the differences between primary and secondary research. Imagine yourself a reporter covering a local event. If you were to take notes while at the event and write up an account of your memories and all the details that made it interesting, then you would have a record of the event from your perspective and experience—a primary source. If you were to read and then incorporate newspaper articles written about the event into your own work, then you would be using secondary sources. Anytime we ask someone for a recommendation or review of some sort, whether a movie, book, or restaurant, we are using primary sources of information to help us make a decision. In other instances, we consult people who have expertise, whether through experience, training, or research, as in legal or health matters. When we read what reporters or researchers have written on a topic, we are engaging secondary sources; when we consult or interview people, we are conducting primary research. Both kinds of investigation are necessary to gain varying perspectives and ideas on the subject at hand.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Caitlin Hale Newspaper Journalist/Editor in Chief Caitlin Hale, a newspaper editor, incorporates primary research into every article she writes. Journalistic writing provides one of the best sources for examining and understanding archival and primary research, as Caitlin explains below.

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What kind of research do you conduct in order to do your work? For an editor in chief, and for journalists in general, every article idea starts with research. I initially started at The East Carolinian as a lifestyles/features writer, so my research mainly consisted of examining prominent professors and students from the ECU community, as well as researching up-and-coming restaurants, fashion trends, etc. As a journalist, I have to come up with my own ideas, so it is important to research the subject matter thoroughly to make sure I stay up to date and accurate in reporting findings. Once I became editor in chief, I had to conduct a lot more research, as I was responsible for making sure there were quality topics throughout the entire newspaper. Especially for news stories, I would have to look to records, court documents, other news pieces, etc. to find the details that were crucial to the story. Where and how do you collect your data? As a journalist, I conducted my research primarily through talking to sources. I would utilize the Internet as well, but I found that my most interesting research could be obtained through simply having a conversation with someone who was knowledgeable on the topic I was working on. When I was writing an article, I did not simply want to include information people could find on their own (via the Internet), so it was important to me to try to get details for my stories that was not easily obtainable by others, since that is one of the basic goals of news reporting. Who is the audience for your research findings? Since I was employed by the university’s newspaper, my audience was the ECU and Greenville, NC community. This audience included students, professors, alumni, parents of students, etc. When conducting research, it is crucial to keep your audience in mind so that readers understand your research and find it interesting enough to read. What types of documents do you write? As a lifestyles writer, I predominantly wrote reviews, profiles, and general feature stories. Once I became editor in chief, I moved on to writing more opinionated pieces and editorials, as well as creating charts, headlines, and captions. Again, it is important to conduct accurate research for every single document. If something as small as a caption was inaccurate due to a lack of research, it reflected poorly on both the publication and me.

Incorporating Research Findings At this point in the writing process, you have accumulated a variety of resources in order to cover different perspectives. Next, decide how you will incorporate your findings into your writing. In order to develop your expertise on a particular topic or subject, you will need to practice incorporating primary and secondary resources in order to master the skill of pulling together ideas from different people and contexts. Keep your audience in mind.

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Bob’s essay, “Out of the Ashes,” includes a variety of sources to answer his research questions and write his essay. His main source consisted of the OLA school fire archive. From this collection, he accessed old newspaper articles, an obituary, books, and a blog. He also conducted interviews—one with the digital archivist and the other with the former head of the Chicago Firefighters’ Union. Bob argues that the 1958 school fire is influential in changing fire code regulations by citing subsequent newspaper articles addressing school safety. His essay incorporates direct quotes from the interviews he conducted, paraphrased material from the digital archive site, and summaries of additional newspaper articles. Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing are explained in the following sections, along with examples of how Bob used each of these to merge his thoughts with those of his sources.

Quoting You will want to incorporate direct quotes if the person you are citing or interviewing is an expert or offers an especially insightful thought that may be lost if you paraphrase or summarize. However, direct quotes should be used sparingly because numerous quotes in an essay may signal to the reader that the author doesn’t have anything original to say. Also, a string of direct quotes is sometimes difficult to follow. Bob engaged in email correspondence to find answers to some of his research questions. He used a direct quote from one of these emails in the following way: The 76-year-old Kugelman’s response was prompt but disappointing. Kugelman wrote, “I am close to the survivors, and as far as anyone knows there isn’t a statue of Dick anywhere that we know of. I was privileged to work with Dick time to time (sic). What a great guy.” (E-mail 25 Oct. 2010)

Summarizing After reading a source or conducting an interview, it is a good idea to spend some time summarizing, using your own words by restating the main idea or argument of the source. Summaries are usually significantly shorter than the original material and are intended to give a broad overview of the work under review. By summarizing, you can pull together distinct pieces of information that address your research question and succinctly connect the research to points you wish to make. One effective way to summarize is by using the following starting phrases to get your ideas down: • • •

I think that the writer’s point is to . . . I know the writer asserts . . . I believe the writer is trying to say . . .

Later in the revision process, you can delete those prompts and introduce the summaries in other, more cogent ways. Bob summarized the OLAFire website (see page 101) as follows:

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The Web site OLAFire (www.OLAFire.com) provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the fire and its aftermath. Of the more than 1600 children, faculty and staff attending Our Lady of the Angels Parochial School that day, 92 children and 3 nuns died in one of the worst fires in our nation’s history. The children who died were in the fourth grade (27 children, 1 nun); the fifth grade (27 children, 1 nun); the seventh grade (12 children, 1 nun); and the eighth grade (26 children). The fire broke out less than a half hour before the 3 p.m. dismissal bell, and it spread very quickly through the south wing of the school. Although a thirteen-year-old boy at the school confessed to having started the fire, he later recanted, and despite an intensive investigation, no evidence of arson could be established (OLAFire).

Paraphrasing Another way to incorporate someone else’s ideas or information into your own writing is through paraphrasing, which is the process of rephrasing something you’ve read or heard in your own words. While a summary usually refers to the main idea or an overview of the source and is significantly shorter than the original material, paraphrasing focuses on a specific passage or key point that you want to incorporate using your own words. A paraphrased excerpt should look very different from the original text; you will need to communicate the idea or point of the passage without using the author’s words. However, the goal of a good paraphrase is to retain the original meaning without plagiarizing from the author’s words. Bob paraphrased an article from the New York Times as follows: Original Text “Spurred by Mayor Wagner, Commissioner Cavanagh directed 200 fire companies to start hunting fire hazards today in the 1500 public, private and parochial schools in the city.” “Governor Harriman ordered a state-wide check of all public and private schools. He instructed two members of his Cabinet to make that fire hazards previously reported has been corrected” (Bigart). Paraphrased Text An article in The New York Times of 3 December 1958 reports that both the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York State ordered sweeping reviews of all public, private and parochial schools in the state (Bigart).

Plagiarism As you begin to incorporate research findings in your work, it is important to understand plagiarism and how to avoid it. Plagiarism is deliberately copying text from a source without attributing it to its author. In other words, it means taking someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. To avoid plagiarism, always acknowledge the source of language, ideas, or visual images (photos, graphics, videos, etc.) that you use in your own work and be sure to make careful notes of your sources as you research your topic.

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Quotes, summaries, and paraphrases must be cited according to an academic or disciplinary style (MLA, APA, etc.) or a professional organization’s style (see Chapters 11 and 12). For example, if you are following MLA style, then use quotation marks to note that material is taken directly from the source you cite. If the quote is longer than four lines, then you will indent the quote an additional five spaces, which is referred to as a block quote. In other words, you must document and signal to your reader, within your writing, what you are sharing and where your audience members can find the sources if they want to read more.

Writing Exercise Quoting, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing Choose an artifact or one of the sources you found that helps you answer your research question. 1.

In your own words, summarize the source and what the author has said about your narrowed topic, if applicable. Use the following prompts: The main point of this source is . . ., I learned that this artifact is . . .

2.

Think about one to three ideas that have been presented to you in the source. Paraphrase one of the main ideas? Use “I” statements such as I think the author means this . . . or I think the author is trying to communicate . . . to brainstorm what you think the author is trying to say.

3.

Choose an especially descriptive or insightful quote from the source. How would you introduce it within your writing?

Below you will find an assignment calling for investigation of digital sources. The instructor specifically asked her students to analyze a digital collection. To comply with the assignment, Bob initially researched materials available on the Internet, but he soon found that to understand the digital collection, he needed to consult print sources and first-hand witness accounts as well, as noted above.

Writing Exercise Analyzing a Digital Archive 1.

Carefully search for a digital archive that reflects your own interests, experiences, or curiosity.

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2.

You may subdivide this project into headings in order to facilitate organization. Begin with a section that establishes you as researcher. Why did you pick this topic? What is your relationship to the materials? What preconceived notions/ideas/prejudices do you bring to the investigation?

3.

Document your (re)search strategies. How will you use this collection? What are limitations of this specific online collection? In what ways will you need to supplement this site with other background readings or additional primary research (emails, interviews, or perhaps visits to local community archives)?

4.

Provide a description of the collection. Include information about the construction of the collection? What sections of the archives will you examine and why?

5.

Contextualize the collection. Use secondary sources, interviews, historical accounts, and photographs to situate the collection within cultural, educational, historical, political, or economical contexts.

6.

Determine your interpretation of the documents under scrutiny. How will you use the documents to support a claim, illustrate a point, or shed light on an existing problem?

7.

Throughout the assignment, pay close attention to your own writing style, establishing your voice, targeting your work for a particular community or audience.

Bob’s paper below demonstrates a blending of primary and secondary sources. To delve deeper into an event that he witnessed years before, Bob consulted artifacts, existing collections, and secondary coverage of the event. However, he still needed additional information, so Bob interviewed the archivist of the collection and other key witnesses to the event to gather additional facts and insights. Although Bob did not find the answers to his original research questions, the collection of materials offered up intriguing insights about his topic.

Student Writing Out of the Ashes by Robert Brennan Bob opens his paper with a quote from the class readings. An opening quote, often called an epigraph, sets the tone for the essay. This first paragraph echoes the phrase “plunge cold” in the epigraph and paints a hopeful setting.

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“Seldom does anyone plunge cold into the Archives without something to look for, something they’re hoping to find, hoping to see proof of” (Lerner 195). The average December temperature in Chicago is 35 degrees. The first of December, 1958, dawned slightly below that, with promise of a clear blue sky. It was the Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend, and in those days, the holiday season didn’t begin until after Thanksgiving, so it was just beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. I was in my office in downtown Chicago. I was a writer-editor and sometime reporter for Hearst Metrotone/Telenews; we provided newsreel films to movie houses, television film to independent stations, and television news coverage of events in the Midwest for the

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Bob, a returning student, calls on his own life experiences, memories, and interests to find a topic for his archive paper. Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) school fire photo, outside the burning school. Source: www.olafire.com/Gallery.asp, Chicago History Museum, ICHi-26742; Chicago Daily News, Chicago Daily.

ABC television network. Today was a slow news day, and I was planning to leave early until just before 3 p.m., when a story moved on the local news wire reporting a fire at a parochial school on the west side of the city. This was not something we would normally pay much attention to, but it was, after all, a school. I monitored the wire with my UPI Newsfilm colleague from across the hall as the reports came in, and the casualties escalated so rapidly we didn’t believe them. When the wire service quoted the fire department as reporting 60 children dead, we checked with the local UPI bureau to make sure there wasn’t a typo in their reporting. There wasn’t. It’s been more than half a century since that terrible day. The Web site OLAFire (www. OLAFire.com) provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the fire and its aftermath. Of the more than 1600 children, faculty and staff attending Our Lady of the Angels Parochial School that day, 92 children and 3 nuns died in one of the worst fires in our nation’s history. The children who died were in the fourth grade (27 children, 1 nun); the fifth grade (27 children, 1 nun); the seventh grade (12 children, 1 nun); and the eighth grade (26 children). The fire broke out less than a half hour before the 3 p.m. dismissal bell, and it spread very quickly through the south wing of the school. Although a thirteen-year-old boy at the school confessed to having started the fire, he later recanted, and despite an intensive investigation, no evidence of arson could be established (OLAFire).

Bob quickly juxtaposes the hopefulness of a beautiful, pre-Christmas day with the unbelievable horror of the school fire. In this assignment, Bob is asked to analyze and incorporate a digital archive into his paper. In this case, the website becomes a repository of Bob’s memories of the event. Although Bob “experienced” this event, his factual knowledge of the fire comes from facts documented in the digital archive. By citing the archival information, rather than telling the story from memory, he builds his own ethos as reporter and refutes any concerns that perhaps he isn’t remembering the facts correctly.

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Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) school fire photo, body of girl carried down ladder by firemen. Source: www.olafire.com/Gallery.asp, Chicago History Museum, ICHi-26742; Chicago Daily News, Chicago Daily.

Bob quickly moves from facts to “lasting” memories to paint a quantitative and qualitative picture of the event. He also brings in the effects of the fire upon the local community. Pictures paint a thousand words, and in this case Bob refers to the widely circulated photos as encapsulations of the event. These photos are secondary artifacts, widely disseminated, that demonstrate the influence the local fire had on the immediate community, the city of Chicago, and ultimately the country. Bob selects a topic from his memory, a curiosity about a local event, and then goes about investigating his hunches to find answers in primary and secondary sources. In discussing photography from this period, Bob sets himself up as an authority on the subject.

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The memories of that fire in my hometown; the terror endured by the students; the anxious faces of agonized parents waiting outside the school, the hospital, and the morgue; the tearful firemen and policemen; our hard-bitten cameramen in tears – these images have remained with me for more than fifty years. I went into the archives to find the answers to two questions I have carried since that day. The most famous and dramatic photograph produced in the news coverage of this tragedy at Our Lady of the Angels was a picture of Chicago firefighter Richard Scheidt coming out of the ruins of the school and carrying the body of ten-year-old John Jajkowski, Jr., the first of twenty bodies of children Scheidt would carry that day from the smoldering wreckage of the gutted south wing. The photograph of Scheidt and his tragic burden was taken by Steve Lasker, a photographer for The Chicago American, an afternoon daily broadsheet. The picture filled the entire front page of The Chicago American that afternoon, and it appeared in newspapers around the world; a wider shot of the scene ran on the cover of Life magazine on 15 December. The story of that fire and its aftermath dominated the Chicago local news for weeks. One of the stories rumored was a report that the now-famous photograph was lifted from a negative image of what I thought at the time was a wide shot at the front of the school building; I thought it was a small image spotted by a photo editor and enlarged to create the dramatic picture of firefighter Scheidt, grimacing in agony, carrying the body of Johnny Jajkowski. I don’t know why the memory of that story about the sharp-eyed photo editor came back to me when I was looking for a subject for this paper, but it did. An associated memory that

BECOMING AN AUTHORITY ON A TOPIC

there was to have been a memorial statue created from the picture also remained with me, so I set out to confirm the story of the photo editor’s serendipitous find and where the statue might be located. I knew it was likely that the photographer had used a large-format camera, either a Graflex Speed Graphic or a Graflex Crown Graphic, both of which used 435 negative film; the widespread use of the smaller format camera had not yet taken over the newspaper business in 1958, and of course, digital cameras were unheard of. I searched what I thought were the logical digital archives to find information on the provenance and the technical details of that photograph. The Chicago American is no longer published, and I could find no information about the newspaper’s photo archives. There was nothing about the photograph on the sites of the Library of Congress, the Chicago Public Library, the Chicago Press Club, the National Press Photographers’ Association, or the Chicago Historical Society. I knew that the picture had won numerous awards, but I found nothing to help me in a gallery of famous award-winning photographs. Another source would be To Sleep With The Angels: The Story of a Fire, a 1998 book about the tragedy by David Cowan and John Kuenster. My local libraries didn’t have the book, and although Amazon did offer the book, I wanted to stay with digital sources. I had first come across mention of the book on OLAFire, the site mentioned above, which is a remarkably comprehensive Web site dedicated to the memory of those who died in the fire. The webmaster, Eric Morgan, noted that some of the material on the site is derived from To Sleep With The Angels, so I sent him an e-mail, presenting my theory of the sharpeyed photo editor. In less than four hours I received a reply, in which Morgan pointed to a detailed description of Lasker’s surroundings and position in relation to the building when he shot the picture of the firefighter: In To Sleep With The Angels, authors Cowan and Kuenster wrote, ‘Standing on the back step of a fire truck parked just inside the alley [on the north side of the school], Steve Lasker raised his camera as he saw the firemen coming down the stairs carrying the bodies. He noticed Scheidt. As soon as the figure came through the doorway, the shutter on Lasker’s camera snapped.’ (E-mail 22 Oct. 2010) Scheidt’s obituary in April of 2009 recalled the scene of the famous photograph: . . . Chicago American photographer Steve Lasker arrived at the scene and saw one firefighter – Scheidt – heading down the staircase with a child. Lasker aimed his camera and waited for the rescuer to emerge. Another firefighter at the scene said, ‘He [Scheidt] just came out and they took it.’ (Chicago Breaking News) These observations of the scene put Lasker working much closer to the building than I had realized; this precluded the possibility of a wider shot. In another email, webmaster Morgan did confirm a part of my theory: “. . . Cowan and Kuenster do confirm that Lasker was indeed shooting with a 4 x 5 camera.” While the possibility did exist that the iconic image was a small piece of a much larger negative, apparently it was not. I found myself in a situation we have discussed in class on several occasions regarding working in the archives, especially with a preconceived idea of what one might find to

Even though Bob didn’t find information in these public sources, listing them and talking about his investigation lends credence to his research methods— even though these paths led to dead ends. This assignment was to look at digital archives. Bob is “creating” primary research by contacting the webmaster of the site. Although Bob wanted to limit his research to digital materials for this particular assignment, he finds that he needs to cite print sources (even indirectly) to adequately cover his subject matter. By quoting the email rather than paraphrasing it, Bob cites the book and demonstrates that work’s influence upon his interviewee.

Bob corroborates the information from the book and interviewee with a direct quote from a secondary source. Bob’s primary (interview) and secondary research refutes his long-held thesis and assumption about the photo and photographer.

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Embedded in Bob’s discussion of new evidence is a lesson he learned firsthand by examining primary materials and researching background information through secondary sources: don’t trust your first impressions and study artifacts carefully.

Bob takes on another research question in researching this project: is there a physical artifact (statue) created from the famous photograph? His initial investigations into this question don’t lead to new sources of information.

Here Bob demonstrates how one source can lead to another, that researchers must follow leads to their end. Bob realizes that local records of community organizations can prove extremely useful when investigating local events.

Again, Bob’s formal investigations overlap his personal experiences. When you can’t find corroborating information, ask questions, engage in primary investigation. Quoting the sources rather than paraphrasing the email gives credence to Bob’s investigation.

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confirm a theory. Morgan’s explanation of how and where the picture was shot brought me to another class lesson: examine photographs carefully. I closely examined two pictures – one, the wide exterior shot at the front of the blazing school, and the other of Scheidt emerging from a doorway in the building, but not from the main entrance. As shown in this wider shot of the famous photograph on the cover of Life Magazine (left) on 15 December 1958, Scheidt was emerging from a doorway not at the front of the school, but from a doorway leading into an alley on the rear of the building opposite from the front entrance, as Morgan’s e-mail pointed out. There was one more story in connection with the Lasker photo I wanted to run down before giving up – the report that a statue based on the Lasker photo would be created as a memorial to those who died in the fire, as well as the firefighters who responded that day. There was nothing about this on the OLAFire site and in response to my e-mailed query about a Scheidt statue, OLAFire webmaster Morgan replied, “I am unaware of a statue based on the Lasker photograph. If there is one, I would certainly like to know about it” (E-mail 23 Oct. 2010). I continued my search for the statue, but I was not optimistic about finding it; all digital roads led back to what had become a primary source, Morgan’s Web site. There was, however, one odd Web site referring to the fire; it was posted by one “Brantigny Sieur de Brantigny” to promote the restoration of “Monsignor Ie Prince Louis, de duc d’Anjou, de jure, His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XX, by God’s Grace King of France and Navarre (le Fleur delys).” I found this site because de Brittagny had lifted Morgan’s report on the Our Lady of the Angels fire, seemingly as part of a stream of reports on events at Catholic institutions. Strangely enough, this particular posting was dated 28 November 2008, almost fifty years after the fire. Perhaps it was time to end my search for the statue of Firefighter Scheidt and his tragic burden. But then it occurred to me to check the Chicago Fire Department site; if anybody would know about a statue of a Chicago firefighter, surely the CFD would. A search of the CFD Web site turned up several sites, which led to a Chicago Weekly Online article by Harry Backlund, headlined “The Unforgettable Firemen: Two New Museums to Commemorate The Chicago Fire Department Past” (16 April 2009). According to the article, a firefighter museum, which had been in place for the past twelve years, would have to be moved because it was housed at St. Gabriel Parochial Elementary School, and the school needed the space back. Coincidentally, my eleven siblings and I all graduated from St. Gabriel, my departure occurring in 1942. Could there be such a coincidence? Had my sought-after statue been standing in a classroom of my alma mater for twelve years? This was getting exciting! A comment on the article offered an e-mail address for Bill Kugelman, the former head of the Chicago Firefighters’ Union, so I e-mailed an inquiry. The 76-year-old Kugelman’s response was prompt but disappointing. Kugelman wrote, “I am close to the survivors, and as far as anyone knows there isn’t a statue of Dick anywhere that we know of. I was privileged to work with Dick time to time (sic). What a great guy” (E-mail 25 Oct. 2010). Here was a situation I’ve confronted a number of times as a researcher: there’s no story to tell about a sharp-eyed photo editor, and no statue created from the picture. I had spent weeks on this project, but decided it was time to move on. Then it occurred to me: in writing a paper on digital archives, the digital OLAFire archive and its creation would be an appropriate subject, given the fact that in all of my searching for a piece of digitally archived information confirming my theories, the OLAFire Web site was the only comprehensive site dealing with the tragedy of 1 December 1958. I had discovered a primary

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source for information on an event that very quickly changed how fire safety in schools was assessed and how schools were to be built in the future. An article in The New York Times of 2 December 1958 reports that both the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York State ordered sweeping reviews of all public, private and parochial schools in the state. Similarly, the newspaper reported, “Across the nation, state and local officials took similar precautions to assure anxious parents that safety measures against fires were being strictly enforced in schools” (NYT, 12/2/58). It surprised me that such an important event in the history of school fire safety would not be well documented, but there are no primary sources that I can find in a search that included all of the aforementioned sites, in addition to the Web site of the Archdiocese of Chicago. What surprised me even more was the provenance of OLAFire. The man who built it, 61-year-old Eric Morgan, had consulted more than 33 sources – from coroner’s documents to survivor accounts to newspaper articles – to compile the site. Through our email exchange, I discovered that Morgan is a retired software developer who had no connection with the Our Lady of the Angels school, the victims, or their survivors. On the site, Morgan writes that he had known about the tragic Chicago fire when it happened; the news was everywhere, and as a five-year-old boy just starting school, he was both fascinated and frightened that those children had been killed in a school. He was further impressed by the appearance of fire safety posters featuring Firefighter Scheidt carrying the body of John Jajkowski, Jr. It wasn’t until many years later, however, that another event recalled the story of the fire. That happened when Morgan came upon the book, To Sleep With The Angels, which was published in 1998. When he discovered that this was the sole source for information on the fire, he began building the site in 2000, launching it on 10 September 2001 from his home in Colorado. He visited the scene of the fire in 2000, more than forty years after the disaster (E-mail, 10/23/10.) The site did not have much traffic until the WTTW [Atlanta PBS station] documentary Angels Too Soon, which aired in February 2003; word of the site spread like wildfire among survivors, who began contributing photos and information (E-mail, 10/23/10). Morgan continues to maintain OLAFire. His most recent posting is dated 5 November 2010. On my digital wanderings, I came across a sad and somewhat bizarre story in a June 13, 2005 article in the Chicago Tribune. It was headlined “Chicago fire author, ex-firefighter charged with arson.” The article, by Jeff Coen and David Heinzmann, reported that “[David Cowan], co-author of the book on the deadly Our Lady of the Angels fire, was being held Monday on charges that he torched a storage building at a North Side church” (Coen). I could find no follow-up to the story about David Cowan, but my source Morgan filled me in. Cowan pled guilty to one count of arson and was sentenced to three years in prison, but was released on parole before serving the full sentence. He had struggled for some time with alcoholism, and he was drunk the night he set the fire in a storage shed behind the church where he worked as a janitor. He also had bipolar disorder, and apparently had a fight with his wife earlier that day. In addition to writing several books, he also worked as a firefighter in Chicago, but was fired before hiring on as a janitor at the church. (E-mail 3 Nov. 2010) There were so many victims of that fire in Chicago more than a half century ago – the children, the nuns, their families. Was Dave Cowan another victim? I don’t know, and that is one mystery yet to be explored.

Bob takes another look at his primary information, not as a source for answering his research questions but as an important collection of materials for another purpose.

These published, secondary sources attest to the importance of the coverage of the fire in effecting sweeping legislative change. This digital site comprises a thorough investigation on the part of the collector. Bob investigates and analyzes the ethos and motivations of the collector/ collator of the collection. We get the origins and impetus for creating the collection. At this point, Bob has not found answers to questions he originally posed, but as is often the case in archival research, the primary documents have another story to tell than the one for which we are searching. Again, the interview— creation of primary information—is a rich source of information. Bob raises questions for future investigation—either for himself or his readers. The story of his research is not yet finished and leads readers to consult the primary/secondary sources directly.

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This list includes a blend of primary and secondary sources.

Works Cited Backlund, Harry. “The Unforgettable Firemen: Two New Museums Will Commemorate the Chicago Fire Department Past.” Chicago Weekly Online. University of Chicago, 16 Apr. 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2009. Bigart, Homer. “All Schools Here to Get Fire Check.” New York Times. New York Times, 03 Dec. 1958: 32. Web. 17 Apr. 2009. Coen, Jeff, and David Heinzmann. “Chicago fire author, ex-firefighter charged with arson.” The Chicago Tribune. 13 June 2005. Web. 17 Apr. 2009. Cowan, David, and John Kuenster. To Sleep With The Angels: The Story of a Fire. Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. Print. de Brantigny, Sieur, dit Boisvert, “Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire.” [Weblog entry.] Web. Kugelman, Bill. E-mail to the author. 17 April 2009. [email protected]. Lerner, Neal. “Archival Research as a Social Process.” Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods for Rhetoric and Composition. Ed. Alexis E. Ramsey, et al. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010: 195-205. Print. Morgan, Eric, ed. Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) Fire Memorial. N.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2009. ——. E-mails to the author. 22 Oct. 2010, 23 Oct. 2010, and 25 Oct. 2010. E-mail. webmaster@oladire. com. “Our Lady of the Angels Firefighter Dies.” Obituary. Chicago Breaking News. Tribune Newspapers, 4 July 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2009.

CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, we discussed approaches to integrating primary and secondary resources in ways that establish the writer’s authority on a topic. Using one student’s paper as an extended example throughout the chapter, we illustrated ways to come up with an original research topic based on interests and experiences. Specifically this chapter offers advice for: • • • •

developing specific research questions; quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing from sources; citing primary and secondary sources; integrating secondary scholarship, primary investigation, and the author’s ideas.

In Chapter 5, we define archival research methods and offer concrete guidelines for investigating primary materials and artifacts.

Reference Ostler, Rosemarie. “5 ways to become an instant expert: get the facts you need quickly by using sometimes overlooked resources.” The Writer, June 2011 (www.writermag.com). Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Madavor Media.

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Part II Methods for Inquiry and Conducting Archival Research

Beginning Archival Research

5

A Practical Guide

Students write for many different reasons: to fulfill an assignment, to discover existing answers to questions, to explore thoughts about a topic, or to demonstrate understanding. In contrast to these typical school projects and assignments, professionals write to share knowledge and suggest original answers to questions or propose solutions to problems. Workplace research/writing is personal and exciting because authors are invested in their work, and make meaning from sometimes disparate primary materials. However, the move from traditional academic writing assignments (i.e., describe your hometown, comment on a news article, write a letter to a newspaper editor, discuss the significance of a literary character’s name) to archival or primary research may be initially uncomfortable because the methods and practices of this approach are not familiar. However, once you understand and engage in primary research you will find that assignments become easier to produce because you are initially more comfortable with your topic and are interested in your findings. The first step to adopting primary research methods is learning the steps within this investigative process. Similar to learning any new activity, the first task is understanding the basics: what are the skills associated with working with artifacts and archives, what are the guidelines for conducting primary research, and how do primary researchers interpret and present findings? Researching primary documents involves very different tasks from those associated with traditional “patchwork” or “cut and paste” projects. In this chapter, we offer practical information and exercises for getting started working in the archives and initiating primary research. What are your research questions? How will you go about answering them? How can you best support your assumptions and claims? What sources or archives might you consult to add credence and validity to your narrative? How can you substantiate the story you will ultimately tell?

The Unexpected Find Archival research begins with determining preliminary research questions and then locating archives that will help you find answers. As you approach an archive, ask yourself what do you think or hope you will find? How will you tailor your research to your teacher’s assignment? Of course, you may not always find answers to your questions—and you must allow for the unexpected “find” or revelation. The recent collection Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods for Rhetoric and Composition (Ramsey et al. 2010)

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includes interviews with seven professional archivists. These researchers discuss the role serendipity or chance plays in their research—the box of letters you didn’t know were housed in the library, stumbling across political motivations for the publication of documents, the mis-cataloged rare book just sitting on the shelf. However, the editors of this collection remind us that “serendipity occurs because of preparation, awareness, and hard work” (5). The full student paper at the end of this chapter shows how you might integrate the personal and the public in your interpretation of artifacts and archives.

Selecting and Describing an Artifact One of the easiest ways to begin the process of archival research is to select and describe an artifact that is familiar to you. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that an “artifact may be defined as an object that has been intentionally made or produced for a certain purpose. Often the word ‘artifact’ is used in a more restricted sense to refer to simple, handmade objects which represent a particular culture” (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/artifact/). To move your research from the solely personal to the public arena, you need to locate a disseminated artifact, primary document, or collection—which might include items such as publications, statues, plaques, transcribed conversations, letters, pictures, records of public events, online materials, or performances. Visit local libraries, museums, historical centers, businesses or the Internet to garner information about available collections. Eventually you will want to consult a wide range of secondary sources so that you can fully understand the background or local context of primary documents and artifacts under scrutiny. Also find out who assembled your collection, where the materials came from, and who originally published or produced the items. Artifacts are tied to culture, and the examination of artifacts is one way to better understand a particular community. Your job as a researcher is to describe the artifact so that readers who aren’t familiar with the object might understand the item and its significance. Use the following criteria to describe your artifact: •

•

•

•

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Describe the physical or quantitative qualities. Carefully note size and dimensions of materials, along with any distinguishing characteristics. For example, if your source is a print document(s), you might describe the paper, watermarks, binding, print or handwriting, marginalia (i.e., author notes and comments scribbled around the printed text), and condition of materials. Categorize your findings. Where did you find the work and what sort of artifact is it (letter, diary, newspaper clipping, photograph, pottery, toy, piece of jewelry, etc.)? If the item is not a published, printed, video or audiotaped document, what are the options for describing it? Include pictures, sketches, or photocopies in your research notes whenever possible. Objectively describe the artifact. In your description of the object, pay close attention to details (size, color, markings). How would you describe this artifact to someone who had never seen a similar object? Locate the artifact. Determine the community to which the artifact belongs. Let your readers know the significance of the artifact to the group under investigation? What does the artifact represent?

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•

Provide a qualitative description. We ask our students to describe their relationships with the artifacts, to provide a qualitative description. Why did the authors of the works in this chapter choose a particular artifact to describe? Does it have personal significance to the writer?

In the following essay, Sgt. Pugh, one of our students, describes the size, shape, and make-up of the boots he wore while he was serving as a Marine in Afghanistan. Through a description and analysis of this artifact, Sgt. Pugh reveals information about himself specifically and a community of soldiers generally.

Student Writing “Boots Made to Last” by Sgt. Pugh

Quantitative (Physical) Description This artifact is a hot weather olive green safety toe boot distributed by Belleville Shoe Manufacturing Company. It was produced in DeWitt, Arkansas by Belleville Shoe South. This boot’s model is 550 ST – USMC and is approved for wear as part of the United State Marine Corps combat utility uniform under its USMC certification number 150M22-0004606-01. This particular model of boot has been issued to United States Marines since late 2001. The boot is built with Vanguard running shoe sole construction which is designed to distribute impact from heel to toe and provide high performance and cushioning to the wearer. The Vanguard construction is combined with an Boots worn by Sgt. Pugh during his service in outsole of slip and oil-resistant Vibram brand Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of Belleville Boot Sierra rubber designed to perform in both wet Company. and dry diverse and rugged terrain. The upper construction of the boot is made of olive green full-grain cattle hide leather and Cordura nylon fabric. Cordura fabric is 1000 denier nylon designed to be lightweight and breathable yet stand up to rough treatment. It is resistant to abrasions, tears, and scuffs and is two times more durable than standard nylon, three times more durable than polyester, and ten times more durable than cotton. The toe of the boot has extra padding and includes a steel cap with flange-anchored construction which meets ASTM F2412-05 and F2413-05 standards. The lining of the boot is made of Gore-Tex fabric which is engineered to keep moisture

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outside the boot and still allow sweat to be transferred away from the foot of the wearer. Both its cushion midsole and its removable insert are made of polyurethane. This boot is a size 11-R and is the standard military height of eight inches from the top of the outsole to the top of the upper construction. It is roughly fifteen and a half inches in total length and nine and a half inches in total height. This boot is missing both of its ventilation eyelets and has a standard United States Armed Forces aluminum identification tag on the third crossing of its laces. The identification bears the inscription: PUGH / J.D. / B NEG / XXX XX XXXX / USMC / M / CATHOLIC

After writing a quantitative description, Sgt. Pugh provides more subjective or qualitative details that give his opinion of the artifact, describes where it came from, and talks about its significance. In the following essay, Sgt. Pugh provides a “reading” or interpretation of his boots and discusses his relationship with the artifact.

Student Writing Qualitative Description This boot is one of a pair which Sgt. Jonathan D. Pugh wore for more than a year throughout his mobilization and deployment during his last combat tour in Afghanistan. This boot was issued to him in April of 2009 and has continued service, all be it in limited fashion until this day. The boots ceased to be worn in full service in June of 2010 when they were deemed unserviceable and replaced by a newer model of supposedly superior pair of boots. (They are not.) The boot protected his left foot every day from multiple hazards including rugged terrain, water, fire, blood (not his own), and shrapnel. This boot was worn with and without socks depending on the outside climate and length of wear. The boot was speed laced and could be fully secured onto its wearer’s foot in less than seven seconds. The boot went everywhere Sgt. Pugh went including Atlanta, Georgia; Camp Gruber, Oklahoma; Quantico, Virginia: Camp Lejune, North Carolina; Bangor, Maine; Pease, New Hampshire; Landstuhl, Germany; Ali A-Salim, Kuwait; Manas, Kyrgyzstan; and Helmand and Kandahar Provinces, Afghanistan. The insole of this boot has never been replaced and neither have the outsoles. The ventilation eyelets were removed by Sgt. Pugh when the front eyelet was damaged during a flight movement on a CH-53 Heavy Helicopter to Forward Operating Base Polar Bear in Afghanistan. This boot is covered in the fine dusty sand of Afghanistan and regardless of how wet it gets the sand remains. The identification tag attached to this boot was placed there upon issue of the boot to Sgt. Pugh in case the leg it was attached to was ever to part from the whole of the individual. It also doubled for recognition in the occurrence it was mixed up with other boots. Despite its extreme use this boot developed little noticeable odor.

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In the following essay, Sgt. Pugh explores his relationship with the object under study. In this way, he can comfortably play with quantitative (descriptive) and qualitative (interpretive) methods of research—and also examine his role as researcher and his regard for the artifact.

Student Writing Relationship with the Artifact This is the best boot I’ve ever owned. I’ve probably been issued about five pairs of this same model of boot, but these are by far my favorite. Specifically, this boot lasted longer, stood up to more torturous terrain and hazards, and is more comfortable than any other boot I’ve ever worn. It’s slightly better than its accompanying right boot which has been discolored with oil. I would honestly continue to wear this boot until it literally fell apart. However, my superior told me I had to get new boots because of the aforementioned oil spot on its right pair. For this reason I resent my right boot and deem it inferior to the left. I still enjoy wearing these boots whenever I can and do so during training exercises and field competitions as they are lighter and more comfortable than my new boots that make me feel as if I’m wearing ankle weights. I personally like the dusty look of this boot covered in what we affectionately referred to as moon dust and believe it matches my desert utilities better than its original olive green color. I also enjoy how the missing ventilation eyelets provide more ventilation for my foot. Boots are kind of a special thing for me because I spend so much time wearing them. In fact when I first enlisted the quality of the boots I was issued impressed me greatly. I believe the quality of equipment issued to a nation’s fighting force not only directly relates to their effectiveness in combat, but the faith and respect afforded them by their respective nations. The reaction of people to the explanation of the identification tag in my boot always gives me a kick, but it is the truth. And honestly this boot doesn’t smell that bad. I think it had something to do with the dryness of the weather while I was overseas.

Sgt. Pugh clearly likes his boots. They have significance for him, and by reading his description of the boots as a community artifact, we come to know the daily life of a soldier a bit better, to see the importance of boots to the soldiers’ assigned tasks. Likewise, communities have artifacts that represent the goals and work of the group. We asked you to begin primary research by describing a personal artifact because it is easy to determine the significance of an item that is relevant to you. Now think about the relationship between a community and its physical manifestations or representations. In studying communities, analysis of artifacts plays a vital role in understanding the group.

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Writing Exercise Locating a Community Artifact For this assignment, visit a local site to examine an everyday artifact in its natural habitat. Select an object connected with that site (on-campus sites, your own work place, or public venues are perfectly fine for this assignment). You might investigate a public statue, historic marker, locally famous landmark or building, displayed museum or library artifact, unusual or historic architecture, public garden or park. Choose an artifact that: •

relates to your purpose for studying the site;

•

you can legally and physically carry away from the site; or

•

you can photograph, draw, or transcribe so you can hand it in with your paper.

Following the guidelines below, analyze the selected object in terms of your prior claim/ assumption or to discover the use/significance of the object.

Description and Analysis 1.

Before you begin to analyze the artifact, consider your assumptions/existing knowledge. Write a one-paragraph introduction to your project in which you introduce your artifact (sketch it or include a picture). •

How familiar are you with this artifact? Have you seen it before?

•

What previous responses have you had to it?

•

What does it remind you of?

•

What do you think it means and/or does?

•

How do you think it affects those who use it?

2.

What do you think the person or people who created it had in mind?

3.

Describe it: Try a 2-column format where you list features of the artifact on the left and then go back and interpret the purposes of those features on the right.

4.

Analyze it: •

What is the artifact’s purpose? How does it function at the site?

•

What does the artifact say about the people who use it? About the person who made it?

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•

What does the artifact say about the relationships among those who use it? Between the person who made it and those who use it? About the community it represents?

•

How do the artifact’s users engage this object?

•

What does the artifact teach you about the site/activity and its values, procedures, goals, etc.?

•

How does the artifact relate to your purpose for observing the site?

•

What metaphor might you use to describe the artifact and its function?

After first providing a detailed description of the piece and local lore surrounding it, engage in secondary and primary research to find out the origin and date of your artifact, how and why it was commissioned and financed, and what it represents to community members. You might talk to local residents and consult newspapers to find out about local coverage of the unveiling, public reception, funding, and construction materials. Broadening your research scope will help you determine if your artifact is part of a national commemorative or restoration movement, representative of architecture from a particular time, or typical of other similar communities.

Communities in Context Galveston, TX Statues and physical memorials are community artifacts that often serve to commemorate or memorialize a local person or event. The statue was erected in Galveston, TX, in memory of the lives lost during the Galveston hurricane in 1900. You can see after perusing this website how a natural disaster serves to unite a community and can have a lasting and profound influence upon people from that area. Read the essay below the photo on the website to learn more about the event that led to this memorial.

1900 storm memorial in Galveston, Texas, by artist David W. Moore. Source: http://photohome.com/photos/texas-pictures/galveston/storm-of-1900-statue-1.html

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Questions for Analysis

Q

In Chapter 4, we discussed ways to investigate events or artifacts online. We now ask you to investigate an interesting local artifact—statue, park, public monument, etc.— either online or by examining local resources. The above “Communities in Context” profile provides an excellent model for writing up your findings. Select two or three of the following questions to get started investigating artifacts like the statue pictured above or a monument found in your community: What can you learn about the history of the artifact you have chosen? 1.

Who commissioned it, why, and when?

2.

Who designed the piece?

3.

Investigate how funds were procured to pay for the artwork.

4.

Determine how long it took to produce the piece.

5.

Research the “story” of the figure or the event being commemorated.

6.

Uncover any controversies or hardships surrounding the placement of the statue.

Investigating Contemporary Reception For published or publicly exhibited works, you also need to investigate the contemporary reception of the work, often through secondary research. As a researcher, you don’t want to engage in “presentism,” which is the “application of contemporary perspectives in explaining past events rather than placing these events in their historical context” (www. yourdictionary.com/presentism). The “Communities in Context” feature above explains very well the events inspiring the creation of the statue. Researchers have to understand past events and artifacts in connection to the cultural and community environments that produced them. Here are questions to guide you: • • • • • • •

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If published and sold, what were the production and sales records? If the artifact was intended to promote rhetorical engagement, did it? How? If you are examining a publicly displayed piece, what were the initial reactions to the artifact? Where? When? Under what circumstances? How was the artifact subsequently received? If the materials were initially influential, when, why, and to what degree did that influence wane or increase? Did future generations appropriate the materials in ways not originally intended? Did these materials spawn other publications, practices, etc.?

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Researching Primary Materials In order to get a sense of manuscript or primary document research, visit any collection of primary materials or archives housed in your geographical region, including a museum, city hall, historical society or even a local business or organization. Try to find documents that excite you, but don’t worry if the collection seems a bit far afield of your academic interests. Research the collection, paying careful attention to the kinds of documents included, the sponsoring organization and cataloging of the materials, how to gain access to the collection, rules for examining and copying the documents. Examining archives informally helps you understand not only the conditions in which you might find yourself conducting research, but also anticipate problems and concerns that may be difficult to address once you no longer have access to the collection. Initially, describe fully the contents of the archive or collection. Make sure that you have a clear understanding of the primary materials under investigation. Before you are influenced by particular components of the primary documents, write a description of materials (including your initial impressions) that you can consult once you no longer have access to the materials. Later, you can compare your findings and results to your initial notes to determine if you have skewed your interpretation or overlooked important details. Become familiar ahead of time with the rules and regulations you must follow while visiting a collection. You may check out the library’s website for information, if available, or ask the librarian in advance for a copy of the facility’s rules of usage. Because documents are often irreplaceable, manuscript libraries are sometimes quite strict about what you may take into the reading room and how you must handle documents. To optimize your visit and to ensure access to documents, plan ahead. Here are some general (practical) rules you may be expected to follow in order to best preserve the documents and avoid disturbing other researchers: •

• • •

Know what items are forbidden. No permanent markers (pens, ballpoints, sharpies or highlighters)—only pencils allowed; no food and drink in the reading rooms; no backpacks, computer bags or coats (to prevent theft and control what is brought into the space); no bulky notebooks or binders, only loose paper or laptops for taking notes; no cell phones or pagers, so that you don’t disturb other researchers. Lockers are usually available for storing your personal possessions. Wash your hands before handling documents. Touch archival materials as little as possible; some libraries require you to wear cotton gloves. Don’t hold materials while reading. Instead, place materials squarely in the middle of the reading desk so edges don’t get crumpled or stained. Use provided foam wedges to support documents (and to help you best position the materials for reading) and paperweights (if provided and necessary) to position unwieldy documents.

Conduct Preliminary Research Online Once you have selected a site to visit or a collection to examine for your project, conduct preliminary research online. Research carefully the online catalog of archival holdings

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housed in the library you wish to visit. Remember that in addition to university libraries, you may also want to visit public libraries, government agencies, and even organizations to research local events, figures, and news stories from the historical period you’re researching. To ensure that you exhaust all local resources in as few trips and as quickly as possible (especially if you’re traveling outside your immediate surroundings), research ahead as much as possible online. Catalog (make a list) and annotate (make notes about) your initial online research about a collection’s content. Most libraries and catalogs provide a general online description of their holdings. In addition, the best-known and comprehensive source for finding catalog descriptions is the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) WorldCat database, which lists nearly two million bibliographic records of archives and library collections.

Invention Exercise Researching Archives Online We have talked about how to begin researching a collection or site online and how to find electronic artifacts; however, many collections are now digitized and available online, and digital collections can provide all the primary information needed for some research projects. For example, the “Immigrant Archive Project” includes an extensive collection of photos, stories, and statements providing a wealth of research topics. (You can also follow this site on Twitter and subscribe to it on Facebook.)

Website for the Immigrant Archive Project. Source: The Immigrant Archive Project.

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Araceli Padilla tells the story of how her mother had to take care of the family when her father was severely hurt. Through her mother’s example, Araceli and her sisters learned how to earn money by working hard and remaining flexible. Seth Koshy discusses how difficult it was to live in one culture while wanting to be in his home country (India). After a visit back to India after living in the United States, he realized he could live the life he wanted by embracing his life in California instead of returning to India. Visit this site, watch videos, and listen to some of the available immigrant narratives or check out the daily Facebook updates, then: 1.

List three to five research topics that come to mind given recent immigration laws and stories foregrounded in the news.

2.

Recall your family’s immigration experiences or those of friends and acquaintances in your community. In a paragraph or two, relate that immigration story.

3.

Think about how the stories on this website correlate with your personal experiences and political views.

Cultural Context As you begin gathering research about an artifact, investigate what was going on in the world at the time the piece was created, including political, social, economic, educational, religious, or institutional events related to the artifact. The information you discover will help you analyze the piece and target your work for a particular audience or community. Examining and contextualizing photos and images provides good practice for this task. Below we use photographs as an illustration of how you might approach investigating an

Figure 5.1 Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC). Source: www.loc.gov/ pictures

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image, poster, or any artifact’s cultural context. This information and student assignment incorporates digital research. The Library of Congress’s Prints & Photographs Online Catalog shown in Figure 5.1 includes over a million viewable items. Many of these images may be quite familiar to you. Browse the catalog by subjects that interest you. After selecting a print or photograph for analysis, look systematically at the image, carefully noting the particular features of the image. Helena Zinkham (2010), the acting chief of the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress, offers these guidelines for analyzing photographs: 1.

Capture a first impression in a few words about what the image shows.

• •

Name everything seen in the image. Look at each part of the picture again.

2.

Write a narrative caption about what the picture might mean.

• • •

Read any existing information that accompanies the image. Draft a short paragraph to describe not only what the photo shows but also to account for who made the picture, why, when, where, and how. Identify any assumptions with question marks.

3.

Finalize the caption.

•

Verify the caption information by fact checking with reference sources and related textual and visual clues. Show the picture and caption to colleagues, and ask what they think. Discuss how and why initial assumptions changed through research.

• •

The following students’ paper, based on these guidelines, illustrates a close reading of an artifact. Collaborating with a partner sometimes helps you reach a richer interpretation of the photo, as in this co-written example. We urge you to try your hand analyzing a photo using the guidelines above. The comments alongside the student example below may offer further advice about how to “read” a photograph.

Student Writing “Researching Photographs Project” by Alison Carter, Rachel Smith, and Tiffany Watkins Capture a first impression in a few words about what the image shows. This is an unconventional self-portrait of Frances Benjamin Johnston that seems to be taken when she was in her thirties or forties. Johnston is sitting, turned away from the camera in a perfectly profiled position, with legs crossed. Frances is smoking a cigarette

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Frances Benjamin Johnston, full-length portrait, seated in front of fireplace, facing left, holding cigarette in one hand and a beer stein in the other, in her Washington, D.C. studio, 1896. Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection/ Library of Congress.

and drinking a beer in front of a fireplace, which has six framed photos on its mantel; all depicting men facing towards the camera. The setting around Frances shows a handful of regular household items including decorative vases, rugs, etc. . . . which appear to be from different places around the world.

Collectively, the students first provide a description of the picture, noting interesting details.

Narrative Caption The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection gave the image this caption: [Frances Benjamin Johnston, full-length portrait, seated in front of fireplace, facing left, holding cigarette in one hand and a beer stein in the other, in her Washington, D.C. studio]. Francis Benjamin Johnston created this self-portrait in 1896. The position, the things in her hand, and the portraits about Johnston appear to paint a strong critique on feminism and what it means to be a woman. The men’s portraits on the mantel are a reminder of the overbearing presence men have on the women of Frances’ time. Furthermore, these men are all in formal and proper positions, while Frances portrays the posture of a man having

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In this paragraph, the students gather their impressions of the significance of the items they described in the first paragraph, making claims and supporting assumptions about the artist. They move beyond description toward inference.

a casual conversation with another man with her legs crossed in a way that shows her legs up to her knee. This could be a snub to the men “present” in the room. In her hands are beer and a cigarette; perhaps not the most ladylike thing to have in hand for 1896. The decorative household items make a few statements about feminism. First, their presence alone serves as a reminder of the conventional roles of women as being the keepers of the home. The worldly possessions around her also seem to imply that she travels. Furthermore, the fact that these objects appear to be from different places around the world says something about the universal nature of the feminine movement; Frances wanted to show that all women of the world are both a part of and affected by this movement? Best of all, this is a self-portrait. She is the creator of her own being. It is a very strong photograph of an undoubtedly strong woman.

Factual Caption

The students clearly have done some secondary research in this paragraph to better locate not only the photograph, but also to find out about the photographer herself. The secondary sources corroborate some of their assumptions and assertions in the previous paragraph and serve to locate the photograph in its own time of production.

Here we find out about the divide between Johnston’s private life and her public persona. Here the students reflect upon their own assumptions and information that they could not glean just by examining the photograph. They needed to engage in secondary research to get the bigger picture of the significance of Johnston’s work and to gain insights to her personality.

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One of the first professional female photographers, Frances Benjamin Johnston poses provocatively for her own camera in “Self-Portrait.” Involved in the ‘pictorialism’ movement in the late 19th century, Johnston was one of the first pioneers of journalistic photography. In this photograph, Johnston incorporates elements of both art and journalism to produce a highly stylized yet biographical composition that belies her rebellious nature and controversial social beliefs. Johnson was a fierce advocate for women and her challenge of traditional gender roles is blatantly evident in this photograph, in which she positions herself as a late 19th century man complete with cigarette and various trophies, but does not surrender her identity as a female. Researcher Karen Bearor attributes two special words to the self portrait, the “new woman” (Bearor 157). This explains the strong feminist sense in the photograph. As an accomplished photographer, Johnston’s theme is “the woman behind the camera” (157). This could account for her intriguing valuables in the portrait. Gillian Greenhill Hannum suggests that Johnston is paying homage to the Keystone View Company image entitled “The New Woman” as seen here (Hannum 23). Gathering this much information, we can understand the intentional snub to the male portraits in Johnston’s image. Researchers state that her “[p]hotographs reveal little of the fragility but rather capture her dynamism and strength” (CLIO). While she lived an outwardly conventional Victorian life with all the right connections, her friends and family consisted of artists, poets, and other romantically and revolutionary thinking individuals. However, sources reveal that “Despite the Bohemian aspect of Johnston’s life, she was neither a crusader nor a reformer” (CLIO). However, her work does reveal a concern for the roles of women in her time. Daniel and Smock may have first published this particular work of Johnston’s and claim that: “three symbols of rebellion against Victorian formality appear in this self-portrait taken about 1896. Proper Victorian women were not expected to smoke, to drink beer, or to reveal their petticoats” (CLIO). Because Johnston is so explicit in her statements about feminism through this photograph, our original assumptions were generally correct. However, we were unaware of how conventional of an appearance she portrayed in her everyday life. The picture itself suggests that Johnston wanted to portray a bohemian, freethinking woman as opposed to a proper, well-behaved Victorian female, thus our original assumptions were more geared to understanding her only as a feminist and not as a woman who also abided by the rules of her society.

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Sources Bearor, Karen, et al. “The Woman Behind the Lens: The Life and Work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864-1953/Seeing America: Women Photographers Between the Wars (Book Review).” NWSA Journal 13.2 (2001): 157. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. Hanuum, Gillian Greenhill. “Frances Benjamin Johnston: Promoting Women Photographers in The Ladies’ Home Journal.” Nineteenth Century, vol. 24, no. 2 (Fall 2004), 22–29. Reprint courtesy of Nineteenth Century, the Magazine of the Victorian Society in America. “The Artist and Her Life.” Clio. February 17, 2010 .

Contact The Librarian or Curator As you prepare to visit a physical collection housed in a library or museum, it is wise to contact the manuscript librarian or curator of the archives. These librarians are specifically trained to understand archival materials and usually are local experts on the contents of collections of primary materials. In addition, the librarians who work with special collections often can provide additional insights to the materials and can recommend other resources related to your research interests. Call or email to arrange a specific time to visit the collection and let the librarian know in advance the materials you wish to examine. This step is important for you never know when a collection may be loaned out to another library or researcher, relocated for housekeeping purposes, or stowed somewhere else for safekeeping. Try your hand writing an email or letter to a librarian in charge of a collection you might wish to visit. You can use the one below as a model.

Student Writing Sample Student Letter Auburn Avenue Research Library Archives Division 101 Auburn Avenue Atlanta, GA 30303 Dear Curator: My name is Matthew Donald, and I am currently a student at Georgia State University. I wish to request access to your rare periodical and newspaper archives at your earliest convenience. I am in the process of writing a paper examining the relationship between the American print media and the lynching of African Americans in the Nineteenth-Century. More specifically, my project aims to analyze the anti-lynching rhetoric produced and disseminated by print media during the period. In her autobiography, Ida B. Wells acknowledged that the utilization of the print media was crucial to spread the horrors of lynching throughout the northern United States and to Europe. To examine to what degree the media influenced action and consciousness, I would like to look at specific newspaper articles and editorials concerned with lynching in America.

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While I have found sources addressing media and lynching during the NineteenthCentury, I have not been able to locate any primary newspaper selections on the subject. Your rare collections have been highly recommended by professors and fellow students, and in viewing your website, I am thoroughly impressed with the content of the Auburn Avenue Research Library. As a student of rhetoric, I hope that working with your archival media materials will produce results to make for an original and solid paper. Compiling primary material for the paper is my immediate objective, but I also believe that I can utilize my potential findings to bring anti-lynching rhetoric in the media into our academic conversation at Georgia State University. I thank you for your consideration in allowing me access to your rare periodical and newspaper archives. (References available upon request.) Sincerely, Matthew Donald

Compile the Necessary Documents Before you visit a research site, make a list of and secure necessary documents. Take a reference letter from your teacher or a handout of your assignment. These documents are often necessary in helping you gain admission to libraries and museum collections (sometimes at a reduced fee) and securing temporary library cards and privileges (such as photocopying, parking, and lockers). Remember when you actually visit a research site to take a driver’s license or other photo identification, school identification and library cards, passport or other “officially issued” documentation. Manuscript librarians and other archivists are often more willing to help in your research if they understand your project, so in addition to taking along a copy of your assignment, practice writing project descriptions—the narrative information often necessary for admission to a collection or access to primary or government documents. You can use the one below as an example to follow.

Student Writing Sample Student Project Description I am currently researching autobiographical female pioneer writings by Mormon women. In particular, I am interested in their descriptions of the land or tales of experiences traveling to the west via an overland route. However, what I most hope to find is an example of a woman’s interpretation of the Mormon cricket plague that threatened to destroy the crops of the first Mormon settlers in Utah. My goal in this research is to further understand the Mormon woman’s response to the new landscape in a land that promised her freedom to practice her religion as well as a freedom from the persecution that plagued the Mormons each time they tried to settle in an established location. I hope that investigating the texts of Mormon women will help me to determine if the

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freedom that waited in a new, unsettled land made the landscape look open and inviting rather than harsh and difficult to settle for the women and their families. I also hope to interpret how the Mormon woman’s faith influenced her reception of the land and the challenges it presented. Crystal Todd Wright

Make a List of Equipment You Will Need Make a list of what equipment you will need onsite, which could include a laptop, cables, wireless cards, electrical current and outlet (plug) adaptors; pencils, pens and paper for those collection sites that don’t allow or accommodate electronic note taking; essential books and research guides (only those unavailable at the site) necessary for understanding the documents you’re examining; a sturdy bag (preferably with compartments for protecting documents) for transporting your “tools” and findings; tracing paper for collecting monument or gravestone inscriptions, etc.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Shelby Reap Architectural Historian, Department of Transportation Investigating historical sites and events necessarily involves archival investigation. Here Ms. Reap explains the nature and wide range of primary investigation associated with recovery of past events and spaces. What kind of research do you conduct in order to do your work? Most of the research I conduct involves learning about and describing historic sites and cultural resources. My research can be divided into the following categories: •

Map research—Maps usually identify historic sites on them, and I can look at a United States Geological Services topography map and tell if a structure is old and if other resources are present such as cemeteries, bridges, parks, etc.

•

Archives—The Historic Preservation office in each state keeps files on these identified historic properties. If the site is listed on the National Register, then I read the nomination that was written since it would have a history and description of the resource.

•

County Survey book—Most counties have a book that tells its history and includes data and information about individual resources and specific county history.

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Deed research—We research property deeds back as far as we can to help describe the history of ownership and figure out when a house was built and by whom.

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Census Records—Lately, we have started using Ancestry.com. because it has so many records. It includes draft records, census data, and I found a yearbook picture of a woman who lived in the Honeycutt house, a house I was recently researching.

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Newspaper Archives—I look for obituaries and stories about things that may have happened in the area I am researching. This helps me write the historical context piece of my research.

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Vertical files at local libraries—These are files on subjects. For instance, the Greensboro Public Library has a file of Guildford County Public Schools. Usually, these are populated by newspaper clippings. But sometimes you can find someone’s personal papers—letters and diaries are a gold mine.

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Oral History—Interviewing people who have experience with the history of a place first hand is invaluable. What people do day to day isn’t recorded in a book or archived in our libraries, but that day-to-day living is what defines a place, whether that is a church or someone’s home or a farm. It’s the stories that people tell and that get passed down that make our built environment come alive and when four walls become part of the story and research of us, that makes preserving the places associated with our history a priority for society.

Where and how do you collect your data? I do lots of fieldwork. State offices, state library, county registrar of deeds, local libraries, online, and going into communities and knocking on doors. Who is the audience for your research findings? I write for other agencies—Federal Highway Commission, NC Historical Preservation Office (NC HPO), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, but we also write for the general public. Our documents are available for the public to access whenever they want them. Some of them are archived at the NC State Library. The NC HPO also keeps copies, and anyone can request a copy. What types of documents do you write? Mainly, I write Historic Architecture Survey Reports, which document every resource greater than fifty years of age in a project area that the Department of Transportations has involvement. We write Determination of Eligibility Reports, which focuses on one specific resource. That contains a history of the resource and an evaluation of the significance and integrity of the structure. Then we apply the Criteria for National Register Eligibility to determine if the resource meets the criteria. We also write a Finding of Adverse Effect, which is when the DoT is going to have an impact on a property. We briefly describe the resource and the significance of that resource, the project and what the effect of the project on the resource is. We propose mitigation measures, and this is sent to the Advisory Council for their comment. Sometimes it is posted publicly, usually at a post office or local library.

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Corroborating Primary Investigation Through Secondary Research We want you to shift your thinking about research from collecting ideas of others to closely examining primary materials and coming up with your own conclusions and analyses. However, background research is necessary to understanding primary materials under scrutiny, discovering a context for artifacts, and acquainting yourself with a particular period or event connected to the collection. For example, if you discover a historical dress in a relative’s attic, how would you go about analyzing the time period from which the dress dates, perhaps the occasion for which it might have been worn, its origins, and current value? You would have to do a bit of sleuthing. An interview with your grandmother is a likely place to start, represents a primary source of information, and probably could answer most of your questions, but what if no relative from the time is available or if the dress predates living sources? Then, your best bet is traditional, secondary research methods. First, you might consult fashion guides and journals to date the article of clothing. A website like “Fashion-Era” includes useful historical information and a lengthy bibliography for helping you get started. Works like Melissa Leventon’s What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society (St. Martin’s Press 2008) are other good resources for locating the garment within a particular time period. If the dress includes a label, you could research the manufacturer or designer to find out information about the fashion house that designed and distributed the dress, and this might lead you to helpful information for dating and determining the purchase price of the garment, particularly if your research leads to original advertising or purchasing catalogs. A quick internet search reveals many websites and print sources for dating, caring for, and pricing vintage clothing. Of course, you can also visit local collectors, vintage clothing shops, and consignment stores to find out the current going price for your garment. After researching your textile or artifact, begin analyzing the piece, similar to the way the student group began examining photographs in the above example. First, write a detailed description of the dress, snapping a few photos of the garment to reveal its style and state and then taking this information to a collector to get his or her opinion (by means of a first-person interview). The kind of research we are suggesting blends research methods. You will need to engage in traditional secondary research to understand primary materials in most cases. Corroborating primary investigations or impressions through secondary research is essential to producing original information that is reliable, contextualized, and believable. The following student essay follows the format of a traditional research paper. However, in this work, Elizabeth Garrard bases her investigation upon archival materials found in her local library. Elizabeth’s work illustrates principles we have introduced throughout this chapter (and text): how to use personal information to make claims and observations about local and public events, how to couch and understand primary documents through investigation of secondary sources, ways to analyze and understand photographs and public documents, how to strengthen your credibility as an authority through investigation of primary materials, and ways to make historical information relevant for contemporary readers.

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Student Writing “Scrapbooks to Speeches: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Public and Private Writings of Harriet Morehead Berry” by Elizabeth Garrard

Elizabeth appeals to contemporary audiences in this opening paragraph by identifying a universal desire to collect artifacts as representations of life experiences. The blending of the private and communal is a recurring theme in archival research, as illustrated in the student examples throughout Chapter 7. Here, Elizabeth takes this dual view one step further. By comparing Berry’s scrapbook of private writing to the one containing her published works, Elizabeth demonstrates Berry’s use of journaling or “collecting for composing” techniques that influenced her community writings.

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Ever since the first “scrap books” stored and organized scraps of colorful paper in an organized way, the authors of scrapbooks, usually women, have preserved their identities and experiences with their creations. Today, this craft has grown into a $2 billion-dollar business. (Hof, Something you can actually pick up, 365) Women all over the country, and even the world, gather together for “crop” sessions, where ideas for captions and scrap materials are exchanged for gossip and companionship. (Hof, Something you can actually pick up, 378) It is inevitable that as each woman creates her own world of memories, she will create a sense of self in the pages as well. This autobiographical aspect of scrapbooking derives from the personal creativity invested in the craft. Karina Hof writes, “Scrapbooking’s concretely creative modes of production index the uniquely individual self . . .” (Hof, Something you can actually pick up, 364). This process of gathering scraps of paper, photos, and ticket stubs to create something beautiful and that is intended to last forever, can change the creator’s outlook on their own life. Each scrapbook is a testimony of love, hopes, dreams, and ideals that the creator wishes to remember about life. Harriet Morehead Berry, a prominent female leader of the North Carolina Good Roads Association from 1916 until 1922, chose to create two scrapbooks which are included in her collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These scrapbooks depict two distinct aspects of her life: the first containing work-related newspaper clippings of H.M. Berry, and the second filled with poetry and quotes that she found to be inspirational. The type of self-examination necessary to create a scrapbook in order to record success, as well as literary interests, can be expressed in overall themes or motives within these scrapbooks. I compared these scrapbook themes to those in H.M. Berry’s public writings in order to determine how her personal beliefs and motives may affect her public rhetoric. This type of correlation between rhetoric and an autobiographical text such as a scrapbook, and the effect of the creation of these texts on H.M. Berry’s rhetoric, reveals a new facet of rhetoric for scholars to consider. For example, Berry’s first scrapbook sheds light on the rhetoric within her public speech “Telling the Story of the Development of Road Building of the State System of Highway and the part played by the N.C. Good Roads Association,” announcing a meeting of the Association. Her rhetoric in this speech contains a subtle ethos, or accreditation of herself, hidden beneath layers of Southern politeness, simplicity, and modesty. This ethos is even more evident after the scrapbook of Berry’s newspaper clippings is examined. This entire scrapbook, over 100 pages, is filled with articles that describe the work of Berry. There are no articles regarding the North Carolina Good Roads Association in general. Each pasted clipping directly mentions or describes Berry. Quotes, such as “Miss . . . Berry an orator and Good Roads enthusiast 24 hours a day, will be the principal speaker . . .”, or titles, such as “Miss Berry on Speaking Tour” from the Bristol Herald, build a formidable persona (Berry, Folder 80). Once this theme is realized, it can be applied to Berry’s speech. This rhetoric contains veiled passages of ethos such as the passage below.

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Young Harriet Morehead Berry courtesy of Jeffrey J. Crow. Source: Courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

It may be stated here that after trying unsuccessfully for a period of over thirty days to secure a suitable man to take charge of this Bureau, it devolved upon the Secretary, after consultations with member of the Executive Committee, to assume the entire responsibility for all the publicity work. (Berry, Folder 57, 108) Because no man could be found, the secretary was given the entire responsibility. This indicates two things: first that a woman was not the first choice for responsibility during this time period; and second, that Berry was successfully able to take on the same responsibility as a man. Better understanding of the rhetoric of an author can therefore be achieved by comparison with autobiographical texts, and specifically, scrapbooks.

Elizabeth determines the ethos of Berry by examining published documents (newspaper articles); yet, it is revealing that Berry collected articles about herself (not the topic at hand). In this unique analysis, Elizabeth is examining published works in a new way (and apart from the original intention of the publications), as a gloss on Berry’s own character and the reception of women during this historical period.

Background Harriet Morehead Berry was born on July 22, 1877. First educated at home by her parents, Dr. John and Mary Strayhorn Berry, she then attended the Nash-Kollock school in Hillsborough, NC. Berry attended the State Normal School (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and graduated with honors in 1897 (Mckown 144). After teaching for some years, she returned to the State Normal School to earn a commercial degree. Berry completed her program in only two years, and in 1901 she was recommended by her professor to the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey as a stenographer (145). Working under Dr. Joseph Hyde Pratt, Berry took over most of the office and investigational organization that the survey required as it began to promote the building of better

One added advantage of writing based on archival research is that often you have great graphics, photos, and shots of original documents to include, which makes your writing more interesting and engaging.

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In this section, Elizabeth gleans this essential biographical information about Berry from published, secondary sources.

By amassing secondary information about the historical political situation, Elizabeth builds a case and context for understanding Berry’s actions and primary collected materials found in the scrapbooks.

Without understanding the local, communal politics or the attitude toward a women engaged in “public works” in the 1920s, readers could not fully evaluate Berry’s contributions to the transportation issues.

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roads (145). In 1902, the North Carolina Good Roads Association was formed, and Joseph Hyde Pratt became Secretary of the Association in 1906 (Crow 2). Once the United States entered World War I in 1917, Joseph Hyde Pratt joined the army and Berry became the first woman Secretary of the North Carolina Good Roads Association (Wicker 15). For the first time Berry felt she “had a free hand to carry out her ideas” (Berry 20). Her ideas would greatly improve the conditions of roads in North Carolina in the future. During this period, the automobile was becoming increasingly popular and affordable. Due to the primitive condition of roads, however, a “pleasure excursion in the family car could end in disaster in North Carolina” (Crow). Working together, the geological survey and the Good Roads Association aspired to create a better road system for North Carolina. The survey held road institutes at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, which were attended by “county commissioners, road engineers, and citizens who recognized the need for a state highway system” (Crow). As the new Secretary of the Good Roads Association, Berry organized a meeting in 1918 to write a bill for the creation of a state highway system for the 1919 session of the North Carolina General Assembly (Crow). The bill was rejected by the assembly, but as “a person of inflexible will and [as] a skilled political infighter,” Berry learned from her mistakes and began a state-wide educational campaign for “Good Roads” (Mckown, 145). Though Berry was described as “frail in appearance,” she also “possessed a strong voice and radiated great self-confidence” (Crow). She used these attributes as she crossed the state, raising awareness on the issue of good roads. Berry spoke in eighty-nine of the state’s one hundred counties, and produced over 80,000 letters, press releases, and membership renewals for the Good Roads Association from 1919 to 1921 (Mckown, 145). Jeffrey J. Crow extols her hard work by saying, “Berry almost single-handedly led the fight. With no stenographer, she had to do much of the work herself, burning ‘the midnight oil practically the whole time,’ she later recalled” (Crow). Berry’s campaign increased the number of members in the North Carolina Good Roads Association from 272 to 5,500, and also increased the treasury of the Association from $2,000 to $12,000 (Mckown, 145). However, the battle in the legislature was more complex than it seemed. In a time when women could not vote, it was believed by many male politicians that a “mere woman” could not possibly create a successful bill for the legislature without assistance from other politicians (“North Carolina Between the Wars”). In 1921, the new Governor Morrison nearly destroyed the bill for a state highway system by supporting the Charlotte faction’s view of a system where each county would pay for half of the cost of building and maintaining its roads (Crow). This was not the state-wide system that Berry had proposed, and members of the Good Roads Association began to doubt a woman’s ability to lead the campaign. She replied, “The weak shoulders of a woman have for the past fifteen years carried this proposition, and I propose that the weak shoulders of a woman should continue to carry it” (Crow). Berry was guided by an “intellectual and moral conviction prefigured in her honors address . . . In this essay, she argued that the health of a society lay in the well-being of all its members, not in the wealth of a minority” (Mckown, 145). With these convictions, Berry confronted Governor Morrison. She succeeded in gaining his support in addition to the support of his many friends in the General Assembly (Crow). Finally, in 1921, the legislature passed the road bill creating a “powerful state highway commission and committed North Carolina to the construction of a thoroughly modern system of highways 5,500 miles in extent” (“North Carolina Between the Wars”). Governor

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Morrison called himself the “Good Roads Governor,” but Berry was officially recognized by the State Highway Commission as the “Mother of Good Roads in North Carolina” in 1962 (“North Carolina Between the Wars”). Berry left the Good Roads Association in 1921, and went to work on the staff of the Greensboro Daily News (Mckown, 145). In 1924, she became the first woman Secretary of the North Carolina Credit Union Association. In 1927, she became the first woman State Superintendent of Savings and Loan Associations, which she continued until poor health required her to retire by 1937 (Wicker, 15; Mckown, 145). Harriet Morehead Berry died in 1940 of heart problems, and is buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery, North Carolina (Mckown, 145).

Biographical information is useful for understanding the life and times of Berry, but in primary research, these statistics take on new meaning by offering further areas of research to readers who are interested in pursuing research on Berry and other women of this era.

Analysis As a successful orator and politician, Harriet Morehead Berry gave many public speeches and addresses. Noted as the “best woman politician in the state” by the Bristol Herald, she was constantly presenting herself to the public. She expressed herself through speeches across eighty-nine counties of North Carolina, interviews with newspapers, and over eighty thousand letters between 1919 and 1921. The archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill contain hundreds of documents related to Berry and her work with the North Carolina Good Roads Association. The collection contains many public writings of Berry, including an address to an annual meeting of the N.C. Good Roads Association by Berry. This report, entitled “North Carolina’s Great Achievement – A Segment of North Carolina History: Telling the Story of the Development of Road Building of the State System of Highways and the part played by the N.C. Good Roads Association,” is examined in this paper, especially in connection to two scrapbooks also present in the collection. This comparison of personal scrapbooks and Berry’s public writing reveals how the ideals and beliefs of an author affect their rhetoric. The paper explores the possible purpose and audience of these scrapbooks, and identifies common themes between the scrapbooks and Berry’s address to the North Carolina Good Roads Association. Scrapbooks can be considered as a type of rhetoric, and as such they can reveal a personal side of an author not often examined. The creator and author of a scrapbook can create an idealized world through the scrapbook (Tucker et al., 160). As Carol Bowers describes in her essay in The Scrapbook in American Life, “It [the scrapbook] also allowed her to exert ownership over her thoughts, feelings, and aspirations – ownership that she could not exert over her own body in the external reality of her world” (Tucker et al., 160). Not only can scrapbooks create a perfect world for the author, they also can describe and capture the identity of the creator. “Scrapbooking’s concretely creative modes of production index the uniquely individual self, while its communal aspects cultivate a sense of greater belonging,” as Karina Hof describes it in her essay, “Something you can actually pick up: Scrapbooking as a form and forum of cultural citizenship” (364). Tucker et al. describe a scrapbook as a “construction of identity outside . . . formalized and authoritative records. It is the self that guides the scissors and assembles the scraps” (2). Scrapbooking evolved from the practice of using an album as a collection for photos, daily ephemera such as ticket stubs or scraps of paper, and captions all with a common theme or event tying them together (Hof, 364). A scrapbook could also be considered as a type of manifest memory (Tucker et al. 4). The ancient Greeks believed that memory was made of places of the mind, or konoi

Here Elizabeth is offering a brief overview of the contents of the collection.

Often in writing based on primary research, the thesis comes at non-traditional junctures in the essay. Although we know up front through both the essay title and the introduction the subject of Elizabeth’s essay, it is not until well into the writing that we get a specified thesis. In part, because we can’t understand the stated thesis until the author acquaints us with the collection and background materials.

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Again, Elizabeth is using traditional secondary research writing to locate her topic and indicate the importance of Berry’s scrapbook collections.

Elizabeth is now moving from description to analysis, from historical contextualizing to specific considerations of Berry’s artifacts and collected materials.

topoi, partitioned off until needed for rhetoric (4). Since a scrapbook can often be referred to in order to remember a particular event or idea, a scrapbook is memory manifested in a physical form. The scrapbooks created by Berry were probably in this form of manifest memory. Both scrapbooks include pasted papers, one of newspaper clippings relating to the North Carolina Good Roads Association, the other as a purely personal poem and quote scrapbook. Berry may have intended for future generations to view her scrapbooks, but the format and content of the scrapbooks indicate that they were intended for her own personal use. For example, the newspaper clippings scrapbook contains no comments or careful dating, indicating that Berry was simply organizing her accomplishments for herself. On the other hand, the poetry scrapbook is filled with stories, poems, and articles, but not a scrap of commentary or direct narration from Berry, further proving that she never intended for others to fully comprehend her scrapbooks. As a rhetorical device and inwardly scrutinizing text, a scrapbook always reflects the “best face” of the author. Therefore, the ideals and concepts Berry held dear are present in her scrapbooks, no matter how much they were intended to be private.

Pride and Passion There are several recurring themes in the personal scrapbooks of Berry. First of these is a fierce pride in the work of the North Carolina Good Roads Association, and in North Carolina in general. Several articles entitled, “Today’s N.C. Poem” and “What North Carolina can Do if She Tries” for example, are pasted into Berry’s personal scrapbook (Berry, Folder 81). These articles indicate Berry’s strong commitment to the state of her birth, a theme which is also present in her public address to the N.C. Good Roads Association meeting. Berry often appeals to the pride and emotion, or pathos, of her audience by praising the work of the Association and the state. For instance, Berry opens her address with: The twenty-two years of service which the North Carolina Good Roads Association has rendered the State of North Carolina marks a period of transition from the old era of trails labeled “public roads” to the up-to-date ribbons of concrete and asphalt of faultless design and perfect construction. (1)

NC state flag.

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Her words of “ribbons of concrete,” “faultless design,” and “perfect construction” evoke a positive, prideful emotion from the reader or audience. Other examples are definitely present in the address such as: “From its inception until 1919, the Association had a small membership, little funds, and directed its efforts chiefly to general propaganda as to the value of good roads . . .” (2), “the largest and most important piece of public work in the State’s history” (6), and “An organization which has been able to bring about such a result deserves the honor and support of every loyal Tar Heel” (8). Berry uses the familiar term “Tar Heel” to relate her audience’s allegiance to the Old North State with respect for the N.C. Good Roads Association. She appeals to an almost pride pathos of her audience, evoking the emotions tied to “home” and familiarity. Berry then expands this pride in her home state to pride in the Association’s accomplishments with this statement, “From its inception until 1919, the Association had a small membership, little funds, and directed its efforts chiefly to general propaganda as to the value of good roads . . .” (2). She was counting on the fact that her audience would sympathize with a fledgling organization, and join in her sense of accomplishment. Berry intended to convince the audience of the great importance and accomplishment of the N.C. Good Roads Association by emphasizing and convincing the convention of the successes of the organization. This emphasis is evident when she describes their accomplishments as “the largest and most important piece of public work in the State’s history” (6).

Note the connections between the personal and community ethos used as an appeal to Berry’s audience.

Reasoning and Logic This largest and most important public work was for Berry the passage of the Road Bill in 1921. She utilizes both a sense of pride pathos and also logos to assure her audience of the importance of the association’s accomplishment. By the end of the campaign the aspects of the proposed bill of the North Carolina Good Roads Association were “explained personally and collectively to upwards of a hundred thousand people; the Association had a paid-up membership of six thousand people with ample funds for operating expenses; twenty-five thousand of the State’s most substantial citizens had signed petitions . . . meetings had been addressed by the Secretary in more than fifty percent of the counties . . . in short, we had the people of North Carolina with us and with a unanimity that there was no gainsaying and the bill as finally presented was passed by the overwhelming majority of 101 to 9 in the House and 39 to 10 in the Senate” (7). This usage of facts and specific numbers builds credibility for Berry, as well as impressing the audience with the information itself. Not only does Berry use logos to describe the passage of the Road Bill, she also utilizes logos to justify the actions and even the original creation of the N.C. Good Roads Association. She says, “the sand-clay and top-soil road came into preeminence because of the practical demonstrations as to its cheapness and effectiveness . . . [but] there is a very great diversity of clay and sand to be found in the state, some of it suitable for building such a road but much of it most unsuited to this purpose” (3). Berry clearly gives evidence for the importance of good roads in this argument by describing types of soils (which she would know about after working under the State geologist, Joseph Pratt), and can effectively convince her audience. Other logos arguments

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Not only is Elizabeth analyzing artifacts as evidence of Berry’s work, but she is also discussing Berry’s use of artifacts and primary information to sway her contemporary audience.

that Berry used in her speech included the fact that with the “advent of the motor vehicle in ever increasing numbers, it began to be realized that not only the type of traffic had changed but that the range of traffic had broadened, necessitating a larger unit in road building than even the county . . .” (3). These types of logos arguments were used both in Berry’s speech to the convention in Raleigh, but were also most likely used to convince the public of the importance of good roads. The people of North Carolina would have a difficult time discrediting these arguments given by Berry during her many visits to eighty-nine of the one hundred counties in North Carolina. Evidence of this logos being used in H.M. Berry’s public speeches can actually be found in her private scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Her rhetoric was strong enough to convince the media, who described Berry as the “best woman politician in the state,” and supported her views on the need for good roads. Since this campaign was even before women had the right to vote, the fact that Berry could convince others with her arguments is impressive. The strength of her logical arguments therefore played a major role in the effectiveness of her rhetoric.

Fancy Footwork

Again, Elizabeth is using Berry’s scrapbook collection as a lens for understanding her own character and her skills as a writer and content selection. The private scrapbook provides a window into understanding the public writings collected in the other scrapbook.

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A great deal of Berry’s personal scrapbook of poetry and stories seemed to encompass a theme of hard work and perseverance. One clipping states, “I Know what Pleasure is, For I have done Good Work.” This portion of a magazine or flyer was clipped out by Berry, pasted into her scrapbook, and saved for all time. This phrase was therefore important to Berry, and she probably agreed with this sentiment. The ideals of “Hard Work” and true “Pleasure” and especially the intricate wording of such clippings influenced Berry’s composition of her speech to the convention. Her words formed metaphors, personification, and even images. For example, Berry describes the fight for the Road Bill in the legislature as “ofttimes waxing bitter and dramatic” (6). This phrase alludes to the constant waxing and waning of the moon in the sky. She even evokes beautiful imagery with this metaphor, “The one ray of sunshine in that period of storm and stress was the whole-hearted support given the association by the press of the State . . .” (6). Her style of writing seems to stem from an artistic and poetic soul, which is evident in her personal scrapbook of poetry clippings. Her appreciation of nature and romance is exemplified by clipped poems that are pasted into this scrapbook describing a young couple in love, contemplating the nature of love, and touting the natural beauty of North Carolina. Just as the poetry in the scrapbook personifies the natural world, Berry adds interest to her speech by personifying counties and townships who “are to this day groaning under debts contracted during this era of poorly directed efforts at road building” (4). In this personification in particular, Berry not only adds eloquence and grace to her speech, she uses the clever personification to influence her audience to believe in her cause. Berry’s style of writing was therefore influenced by her values and morals inherent in her scrapbooking and included devices such as metaphors, personification, and imagery to both convince her audience and beautify her speech.

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Morals and Values Yet Berry’s writing style was not the only part of her public rhetoric to be influenced by her values, she also uses a form of logos grounded in solid morals to influence her audience. For example, Berry describes how the N.C. Good Roads Association dealt with local conflicts by having “sought to reduce local selfishness and frictions and jealousies” and “suppressing individual or local interests where the good of the whole State demanded it . . .” (7). H.M. Berry realized that only a state-wide collaborative highway system would be fair to everyone, and her personal values insisted that she remember her responsibility to all of the residents of North Carolina, rich and poor. In her scrapbook of poetry, Berry stored several clippings describing the importance of working together for the good of all such as “What North Carolina can Do if She Tries” (Berry). There are themes of both hard work as well as accomplishment if the whole of North Carolina “came together” to improve. Berry believed that without some sort of organization and collaboration, nothing could ever be fully accomplished to improve North Carolina, and especially nothing would be accomplished with regards to Good Roads. She expresses this view by using logos bound by morals in her address to the convention to describe the result of fragmented, unorganized construction of roads. She says that these roads were built “with more or less haphazard location and construction, no attempt at a scientific selection of materials, ending in a few miles of good to fairly good road leading out form the cities and towns and ending in a mud hole near some county or township line . . .” (4). This was a real problem for motorists and the state of North Carolina’s economy, therefore

Mud Hole Traps Passengers courtesy of Jeffrey J. Crow—ncmuseumofhistory.org Source: Courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina.

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Continuing to weave secondary information and photographs within her analysis of Berry strengthen Elizabeth’s own credibility as a reporter and writer.

Elizabeth’s assignment was to include an analysis of ethos, logos, and pathos within the examination of Berry’s work. By relying on primary and interesting secondary facts, Elizabeth’s analysis, which could become dry and predictable, is instead interesting and unexpected given the context and feminist research angle.

Berry justified the collaborative actions of the N.C. Good Roads Association by showing how an uncoordinated system of road building was useless. Not only was collaboration important for success, but Berry also knew that equal treatment for all counties in North Carolina was essential to build “Good Roads.” She fought bitterly against Governor Morrison to ensure that every county, not only the rich counties, could afford good roads. Her sentiments of a state-wide, equal system were preserved in her scrapbook of newspaper clippings, and her values of the equality of people helping one another were evident in the scrapbook of poetry. There are many Christian articles and sentiments throughout this scrapbook, indicating that Berry valued human life, and appreciated everyone’s contributions not only those of the rich. Therefore, Berry fought long and hard for a Road Bill from which all of North Carolina could benefit. Her address to the convention was two years after the passage of the Good Roads Bill, but she still felt strongly about the necessary justice owed to the people of North Carolina. Berry attributed part of the early success of the Association to “the rich extending a helping hand to the poorer counties; and of all joining together for the upbuilding and glory of the commonwealth which is mother of us all” (8). Her sense of morals evident in her scrapbooks, blended with a solid logos argument, enhances the persuasive rhetoric of Berry’s address to the N.C. Good Roads Association convention.

Conclusions

Elizabeth’s paper demonstrates how to write a traditional research paper (typical of many class assignments) in terms of layout, analysis, and secondary sources integrated with primary research. The result? A more interesting analysis that while meeting traditional requirements also provides new and original material that could not have been produced by examining secondary sources only.

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This public rhetoric of Berry was influenced by her personal values and beliefs embodied in her personal scrapbooks. Themes such as pride in North Carolina, logical reasoning, beautiful language, and the importance of morals are present in the content of Berry’s personal scrapbooks. Harriet Morehead Berry was a successful and brilliant speaker, who was also first of her kind in many ways. She was the first woman acting director of the Geological Survey, the first woman Secretary of the NCGRA, the first woman elected Secretary of the North Carolina Credit Union Association, as well as the first woman State Superintendent of Savings and Loan Associations in 1927 (Wicker). Realizing that women were not even allowed to vote until 1920, Berry’s accomplishments during this time are impressive. It is important to consider her work because although she did not change politics across the nation, she made a huge impact on a statewide level. Berry is known as “The Mother of Good Roads,” and in 1962 she was acknowledged as such by the State Highway Commission she helped to create. After examination of Harriet Morehead Berry’s address to the N.C. Good Roads Association convention on May 3rd, 1923, the themes of her personal opinion and values are present, indicating a definite influence of personal views on rhetoric. The choice of rhetorical argument, device, and even writing style is influenced by the author’s inner beliefs. Using a scrapbook, these otherwise unknown values may be deciphered. This method of comparison of an autobiographical scrapbook with public rhetoric may shed light on the origins of other devices and writing styles for other public speakers. In the future, further examination of the autobiographical aspects of scrapbooks could be useful, especially if such a scrapbook was compared to a written autobiography. In the context of the values of Harriet Morehead Berry, another avenue for further study could include attempting to understand the self-concepts of women during World War II, and how both scrapbooks and public rhetoric may reflect those views.

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Works Cited Berry, Harriet M. Personal Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings. H.M. Berry Papers fold. 80. Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Berry, Harriet M. Personal Scrapbook of Poetry. H.M. Berry Papers fold. 81. Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Berry, Harriet M. “North Carolina’s Great Achievement – A Segment of North Carolina History: Telling the Story of the Development of Road Building of the State System of Highways and the part played by the N.C. Good Roads Association.” H.M. Berry Papers fold. 59. Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Crow, Jeffrey J. “North Carolina’s Mother of Good Roads.” North Carolina Museum of History. Copyright 2007 by the North Carolina Museum of History. Website last updated April 5, 2007. Website viewed April 6, 2007. Hof, Karina. “Something you can actually pick up: Scrapbooking as a form and forum of cultural citizenship.” European Journal of Cultural Studies. 2006; 9; 363 Mckown, Harry W. “Harriet Morehead Berry.” Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Ed. William Stevens Powell. 6 vols. Chapel Hill, NC. University of North Carolina Press, 1979. Tucker, Susan; Ott, Katherine; Buckler, Patricia P. The Scrapbook in American Life. Temple University Press. Philadephia PA. 2006; 2–24. Wicker, Peachee. “First Women in Orange County.” Women’s History Month Project, 1993–1994. Orange County Commission for Women. Hillsborough, NC. Viewed April 6, 2007.

Questions for Analysis 1.

Q

How does using secondary research to contextualize and corroborate primary materials strengthen the writer’s authority?

2.

What is the contemporary significance of studying this historical artifact?

3.

How does the inclusion of historical photographs strengthen the appeal of this essay?

CHAPTER SUMMARY Although researching primary materials may seem a bit alien at first, understanding the basic guidelines of this research/writing method will easily provide opportunities for exploring topics of interest. Unlike traditional research, where researchers mainly find out what the experts have to say on a topic, primary research requires engaging in close examination of artifacts—physical items that one can see, analyze, and often touch. This chapter asks researchers to: •

note the physical qualities of the artifact or primary archive and then speculate on community uses for this item.

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•

•

•

•

locate primary materials within particular communities and ask questions such as: who produced the item and why, how was the artifact produced or procured, what are its possible uses, what might the item represent, what is the history of the community from which the artifact originates, what is the “story” behind the artifact, how was the item received by the local community? examine personal reactions to primary materials. What assumptions do you bring to this research, this community? How does the information discovered differ from initial beliefs or assumptions? visit a collection of local materials. Begin by first understanding the etiquette of visiting primary collection sites and then preparing for conducting research in sometimes unusual and new spaces. investigate potential research sites online when possible.

In Chapter 6 we introduce and explain a common archival research tool: observation and ethnography. By closely monitoring a specific community and annotating your observations, you gain rich insights into group dynamics.

References Ramsey, Alexis, Wendy Sharer, Barbara L’Eplattenier, and Lisa Mastrangelo. Eds. Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010. Zinkham, Helena. “Finding and Researching Photographs.” In Working in the Archives. Eds. Alexis E. Ramsey, Wendy B. Sharer, Barbara L’Eplattenier, and Lisa S. Mastrangelo. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010, page 129.

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Ethnography is a primary research method in which researchers systematically observe and record information about a cultural group or phenomenon. This form of qualitative research relies upon participant observation, interviews, and questionnaires. Observation for research purposes is referred to as fieldwork, since it occurs outside of the office, library, or laboratory. While ethnography has its roots in anthropology, this research method is also common to academic disciplines such as sociology, geography, archeology, and biology. Other fields of study adopt the basic tenets of observation and fieldwork to conduct primary research, especially in researching communities and cultural events. Researchers sometimes observe communities to which they self-identify as members and at other times investigate groups to which they don’t belong. In both cases, investigators initially strive to transcribe their observations objectively, without judgment or analysis. One of the most famous ethnographers was Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist who studied adolescence and coming-of-age sexual practices in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Her study of societies in Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali led her to publish ethnographies about these societies that helped the world understand the importance of ethnographic research. We can apply Mead’s research techniques, including the use of photographs, to present-day studies of cultures and societies. Other researchers well known for their fieldwork research include Jane Goodall, who conducted a forty-five-year study of chimpanzees and still fights tirelessly on behalf of animal welfare issues, and Charles Darwin, the 19th-century English naturalist who studied geology, plant life, and evolution. Genevieve Bell is also a cultural anthropologist who works for Intel Labs and directs researchers who study how people use (and need) technology in a wide variety of contexts. Her team’s work is integral to future developments by Intel. The work of these renowned fieldworkers demonstrates the ways professional researchers in a variety of disciplines use primary research methods. According to famous anthropologist Claudé Levi-Strauss, often referred to as the Father of Modern Anthropology, in Structural Anthropology, “ethnography consists of the observation and analysis of human groups considered as individual entities . . . Ethnography thus aims at recording as accurately as possible the perspective modes of life of various groups” (1963: 2).

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Defining Ethnography and Fieldwork Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Straters, authors of the composition text Fieldworking, define ethnography as “researched study that synthesizes information about the life of a people or group” (2012: 4). Fieldwork, which is “firsthand observation—recording or documenting what you see and hear in a particular setting, whether that be a rural farming community or a city neighborhood, a local fish market or a grandmother’s living room” (Bartis 2010: 3), is essential to ethnographic research. This primary research method, like interviews and surveys, requires that the investigator become the expert on a community or group based on the researcher’s observations and experiences. Researchers in fields as diverse as nursing, business, education, and folklore adopt fieldworking techniques to collect data about a wide range of subjects and communities. In a recent study, Kaiser Permanente, a large healthcare provider, used video ethnography to find ways to include the needs and opinions of patients who don’t usually participate in focus groups. The following abstract describes Kaiser Permanente’s aims, goals, and outcomes of engaging in video ethnography: Keeping patients and caregivers at the center of quality improvement is critical. Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute adapted video ethnography to achieve this aim, using video to capture interviews with – and observations of – patients and caregivers, identify patient-centered improvement opportunities, and communicate them effectively to clinical and administrative leaders and front-line staff. This method is particularly effective for helping understand the needs of frail elders, patients nearing the end of life, those with multiple chronic conditions, and other vulnerable people who are not well represented in focus groups and patient advisory councils. As part of an initiative to improve care transitions for elders with heart failure, video ethnography contributed to greatly reduced thirty-day hospital readmission rates, helping reduce readmissions at one medical center from 13.6 percent to 9 percent in six months. It also helped improve the reliability of the readmissions reduction program. When embedded within an established quality improvement framework, video ethnography can be an effective tool for innovating new solutions, improving existing processes, and spreading knowledge about how best to meet patient needs. (Neuwirth et al. 2012) This unique use of traditional ethnography (for commercial purposes) illustrates many of the principles that interest us: how to engage in primary research in order to understand a community and find solutions to real-world problems. Kaiser Permanente’s use of video ethnography to capture interviews and observations might be termed “research on research”; it is finding new ways to study traditional primary research information-gathering tools. As you begin to consider possible topics and uses of ethnography in your research plan, keep in mind the following key principles about ethnographic observation and fieldwork: 1. 2.

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Ethnographic observation and fieldwork require first-hand observation. Ethnographic observation and fieldwork depend upon accurate documentation and field notes.

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3. 4.

Ethnographic observation and fieldwork include interpretation and reflection based on the researcher’s observations and research perspective. Ethnographic observation and fieldwork result in a “write-up” of findings that tell the story of the group or community studied.

This chapter provides opportunities to practice the important elements of this research method: observation and thick description, field notes, storytelling, and reflection. To help her students get started observing communities, one of our fellow-teachers, Candace Nadon, asks her students to observe Facebook “friends.” Try the following easy-to-do assignment to practice observation.

Writing Exercise Facebook Observation This assignment asks you to observe a digital community. Your goal is to collect qualitative and quantitative information about how people use social media to interact in a digital community. Your observation will focus on a form of social media—Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram, for example. For one day (or more, if you like, but you must do at least one day) you will conduct an observation. Because observing requires the ability to make objective judgments, you may only read your friends’ posts, view their photos, etc. You may not comment on anyone’s posts, post anything yourself, or “like” anyone’s status, photo, etc. If you wish, post a status the day before saying you are taking a 24-hour social media break. Do not tell your friends you will be observing, in case it alters the way they interact online. Instead, observe what others post. What posts appear in your Newsfeed? What photographs do people upload? What comments do people make? Which posts are the most popular and receive the most comments and/or likes? You should take two column notes while you observe: on one side, record quantitative data; on the other, qualitative. These notes can (and probably should) be handwritten so as not to distract you from your observation. Make sure you record the date, day of the week, and times when posts are made. After your observation, read back over your two column notes and use them to write a one to two page observation report. After studying your notes, what are your thoughts about how people interact in a digital community? Use specific details from your observation to support your ideas. Turn in your two column notes with your observation report.

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Profile of Primary Researchers Jenna Burrell, Heather Ford, Tricia Wang, and Rachelle Annechino Ethnographers Here we describe a new online community/blog devoted to ethnographic research created by the University of Berkeley, School of Information. The article below profiles the work of ethnographic researchers Jenna Burrell, Heather Ford, Tricia Wang, and Rachelle Annechino who began this project. These researchers define the work they do, the importance of creating a community of ethnographers, and the value of ethnographical research outside the walls of the academy (www.ischool.berkeley.edu/newsandevents/news/20111014eth nographymatters). New Blog Explores Ethnography and Technology October 14, 2011 A new blog, Ethnography Matters (ethnographymatters.net), was launched this week by assistant professor Jenna Burrell, along with two I School alumnae. The blog will focus on ethnography and technology, with practical advice for practicing ethnographers and other technology researchers. The idea for the blog first occurred to Heather Ford, who graduated from the I School in May 2011 and started a new job in June as an ethnographer for a software-development company focused on the developing world. “Since I’m the only ethnographer on this project, I found I really wanted advice from other ethnographers in the field,” she explained. Ford decided to team up with Burrell and fellow I School alumna Rachelle Annechino, now an ethnographic researcher at Prevention Research Center. The blogging team also includes Tricia Wang, an ethnographer and sociologist from UCLA who studies technology use in the U.S., Mexico, and China. The team hopes that the new blog will be a useful resource for other practicing ethnographers and technology researchers—especially those who feel isolated from other related researchers. Ethnography is a research method that aims to gain a rich perspective on communities of users in the context of their everyday lives. “The practice of ethnography originated in the field of anthropology,” explained Ford. “The classic ethnographer is a ‘participant observer’, deeply immersed in the community they’re studying.” As researchers turn their focus to the use of technology, they are figuring out how to apply the tools of ethnography to the online world. “What does it mean to be ‘deeply immersed’ in an online community?” asked Ford. “People are asking a lot of new questions.”

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The blog is also driven by the belief that, when studying the use of technology, the context of use is important—especially when the designers are based in Silicon Valley, but the products are designed for a global context. The gap between the designers’ community and the users’ is especially evident in technology for the developing world. “I think there’s not enough focus on ethnography as a research method in technology companies,” said Ford. “It’s not enough to focus on data and analytics; it’s also important to have researchers embedded in the communities of use.” With a shared background studying technology use in the developing world, the team members are committed to the value of an ethnographic approach to research. That approach provided the blog title’s double meaning: a focus on the physical artifacts (“matters”) of technology use, and the belief that ethnography does, in fact, matter. “I have a vested interest in ethnographic research being used outside of the academy,” said Burrell. “I just hope the blog sparks conversations.”

Reading The following published essay from Ethnography Matters, highlighted above, includes excerpts from an ethnographic researcher’s one-day observations. The author/ethnographer offers generalizations about the observed community at the end of the notes, illustrating the role observation plays in making generalizations and comments about a particular community or event.

“A Day in the Life: 3-wheeled Vehicle-based Fruit Vendor” by Zach Hyman Introduction: My preferred method for researching how owners use and modify their vehicles is engaging in participant observation by riding along and working with them. Once I am able to break through the barrier of convincing vehicle owners that I am not afraid of “getting my hands dirty” and am eager to help them work, the stage is set for a day filled with insights as I work side by side with users in context and see firsthand the role their vehicle plays in their lives. This particular ride-along came relatively early on in my research, where I had the privilege of riding along with a fruit vendor who uses their three-wheeled vehicle 1) to transport fruit from the market to the point of sale, 2) as a means of displaying the fruit to customers, and 3) as a storage solution for the fruit when the vehicle is parked at his home at the end of the day. In this post, I explore the first of these uses.

The author sets the stage for his ethnographic observations. He discusses his ethos as a researcher and narrows his observations to include transport of fruit from the market to the point of sale.

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6:50 AM: I am standing at the junction of the ShiQiao Bridge, in Chongqing, China. The sun is trying to pierce through the heavy morning mist. It is early October, I can barely see my breath, and the smell of diesel and exhaust begins to intensify with each passing minute I spend standing at this intersection of a tunnel and the 4-lane road that feeds into it. I am surprised at the lack of guidance provided to the lanes of merging drivers, and I stop keeping track after witnessing a dozen near misses. Surprisingly, there is not much honking, just labored, steady merging. I am not alone here – there are other people who have congregated at this natural pick-up point. Unlike myself, they are dressed for office jobs – two girls in matching formal uniforms and sporting gold Rather than using a twocolumn note, the author combines a description of what he sees with his reactions.

plastic nametags. Another man wearing a loose-fitting suit, resting his black leather briefcase on the concrete divider as he leans against it on a piece of newspaper, eats dumplings held in a plastic bag. At 7:00 AM, a late-model Volkswagen Passat pulls up and the women jump in. The man continues to eat his dumplings. 7:15 AM: Exactly on time, Liu pulls up in his 3wv, tooting his horn and flashing his headlights as he swerves out of the flow of traffic. I hop in, he stabs the accelerator, and we lurch forward, attempting to regain the pace the surrounding vehicles are maintaining before the road narrows and feeds on to the bridge. We barely make speed and I watch with trepidation as we merge into

What is the cumulative effect of the amassing of details in this entry?

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the flow, all to a chorus of the horns of adjacent drivers rushing to work. The radio is blasting the latest bad news about the Diaoyu Island row, and the section of sheet metal he installed behind the

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cab whips and rattles in the wind and as we go over bumps in the road. I’m wedged up against the left side of the interior of the cab, my legs contorted to fit the curvaceous bubble-shape of the cab. 7:21 AM: During the drive to the market, he shares with me his plan to purchase a large amount

mostly to children and younger people as chewing through the cane can be rough on one’s teeth.

As you read this piece, note details that give insights into the relationship between the observer and Liu.

The approach to the market as seen from Liu’s vehicle – notice the queued trucks.

Ethnographers’ work is enhanced by photos, audio recordings, or video. Can you take pictures at your site?

of sugar cane next month when the crop is supposedly at its most sweet. He explains that people traditionally like to eat sugar cane during this month, though usually its consumption is limited

7:24 AM: We arrive at the entrance to the market, and come to a stop – directly in the flow of traffic. Liu leaps out and grabs his several cardboard boxes that contained the grapes he sold yesterday out of the back. I watch as he runs over to a large cargo truck also parked near the entrance that has a group of people wearing Uighur skullcaps standing around it smoking. While he’s speaking with them and handing them boxes, one of the market’s enforcers walks up to the cab and tells me to move my vehicle. I respond in Chinese that this is not my vehicle, and that the driver is behind me. They find Liu and tell him to move along, and that he can’t stop here to conduct his business. He knows the enforcer, though, jokes with him, and introduces me as “his American friend.” When Liu gets back into the car, he explains that the people who own the truck transport and deal with large quantities of cardboard produce boxes. He was able to get 2.5 kuai per box (around US $.40) for them, which he says is a fair price. We pass through the market entrance, paying 2 kuai entry fee for vehicles to enter.

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7:27 AM: We pull into an airplane-hangar-sized open building that deals exclusively in all sorts of grapes from around the country. The cocktail of pungent petroleum fumes from idling vehicles mixing with the sweet odor of grapes is actually not unpleasant. We walk through rows of different varieties of grapes, with Liu pointing out the relative quality and origins of each; purple grapes from Shanxi, Yunnan, and Sichuan, green grapes from Xinjiang, and so on. He complains because yesterday while he was able to get one jin (1.1 pounds) of grapes for 2.6 kuai (USD .43), today the best price in this section of the market is 3 kuai per jin, and he decides to search elsewhere in the wholesale section of the market where vendors sell directly out of their trucks in order to find grapes at the price and quality that he desires. While bargaining with one vendor, he calls me over to show how grape sellers tend to stuff wads of paper into the bottom of the plastic crates to occupy space and weight, and also how the smaller grapes tend to be piled in the bottom of the crates, because the larger ones are more attractive (even though it would make more sense to put the smaller and more easily crushed grapes below the larger ones.) While inspecting grapes, I see that he uses a small, plastic single-LED flashlight attached to his keychain to shine through the slits on the lower parts of the plastic crates as he tries to assess the quality of the grapes on the bottom of the crate. Actually removing the top grapes and sifting through the concealed grapes on the lower level is taboo, and besides creating more work for the vendors is a very explicit sign of distrust. 7:31 AM: Liu tries to bargain over the reselling of some plastic grape containers that he paid a 20 kuai (around US $3.20) deposit each for. He is unable to locate the original seller to whom he paid the deposit when last bought grapes several days before, and doesn’t have the space in the back of his vehicle to accommodate bringing the empty plastic fruit containers back with him. Now he’s trying to convince another grape seller to take the crates on the original grape seller’s behalf and refund him his 40-kuai deposit. Despite paying 20 kuai for each of the two crates he wanted to return, the seller (a fellow grape seller he’s bought from in the past) is only willing to give him 15 kuai for each crate, causing a total loss of 10 kuai.

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Tools of the trade: analog + digital; taken with Instagram.

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7:37 AM: We walk over to the small stretch of vendors selling dried goods such as fruit and nuts, located next to the grape selling area. Liu is interested in whether it would be worth investing in some chestnuts. After walking down the line, surveying inventories and asking prices (no wholesalers have their prices displayed on signs here, all pricing information is acquired through asking the vendor directly), he decides they are too expensive and we walk back to the vehicle.

Dried fruit package designs, seen near the dried fruit wholesalers; taken with Instagram.

As we walk back to the vehicle, I glance at the inventory of one of the vendors who does not sell produce from across China, but rather serves the anticipated needs of the vendors themselves. The stand seemingly targets mobile fruit sellers needing to mend their vehicles, build simple structures, make signs, and perform the other key activities that make up their days selling around Chongqing. The store stocks items such as sugarcane peeling knives, pliers, metal wire, and all colors and sizes of plastic bags. One can picture how the various items meet the vendor’s daily needs: electric scales for weighing produce, battery-powered loudspeakers for announcing one’s goods and prices for the day, calculators for displaying prices or bargaining, and so on. There is transparent packing tape, electrical tape, plastic string, a colorful menagerie of permanent markers, calculators, and, as everywhere, cigarettes. One of these vendor-centric stores stock more daily use goods as well, such as cold beverages and sanitary napkins.

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One of the stands stocking necessities for fruit vendors. 7:50 AM: We encounter more container-related challenges: Liu is attempting to return more plastic fruit crates, but the plastic crate trader he is speaking with doesn’t want them. When I ask him why he wouldn’t accept them, he explains that each type of fruit crate is connected to a different vendor or company, and those who traffic and trade in boxes each have a particular company whose containers they prefer to deal with. This particular box trader was willing to buy back only three of Liu’s ten plastic crates. After unloading the crates, we drive on to another grape selling area in the back.

Trying to offload crates.

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As we try to navigate through the market to another grape-selling section in the rear, the vehicular pecking order seemingly enforced by the traffic controllers (and expected by the drivers) is that size rules the day, with smaller vehicles always defaulting to the will of larger vehicles. As we drive through the market, out the window I see other fruit buyers are also using flashlights to inspect fruit like I saw Liu doing. I see several potential buyers inspecting oranges that are on the bottom of plastic crates, apparently to make sure of their quality. After much jostling, we arrive and Liu quickly parks and leaps out to go find his preferred grape vendor. 8:00 AM: After several minutes of intense negotiating, he manages to talk down a grape seller from whom he’s bought in the past from 3.6 kuai per jin to 3.4 kuai per jin, and we load up two crates of purple grapes into his vehicle. As we walk over to a different grape vendor, I reflect upon how the standard goods display in the wholesale market does not lend itself towards honesty. Usually, a truck-based wholesale vendor will be seated at a folding table placed at the base of the rear bed of their vehicle. They will sometimes allow interested buyers to sort through “sample” plastic crates of their produce to inspect for quality (unlike the vendors in the other section of the market), and after negotiating for the price and quantity they desire, one of the wholesaler’s assistants climbs up into the truck bed and selects the requisite number of crates. Once they have paid, if a buyer lacks the means to transport the grapes to their vehicle, their surname is written on the packing paper surrounding the grapes and they are set aside for later retrieval. The bosses (usually the truck owners themselves) write all transactions – name, quantity purchased, price paid – in ledgers resting upon the folding tables at which they sit. Some wholesalers allow you to take the crates that you have been inspecting, while others have employees take crates from the rear of their truck instead of the crates already displayed on the street. At one wholesaler of green grapes from Xinjiang with whom Liu is negotiating, they are using the latter system and he whispers to me he suspects they are doing a “bait and switch.” While they display high-quality grapes in the plastic crates on the street next to the back of their truck, once the negotiating wraps up, the boss forbids buyers from taking the crates displayed on the street level, instead ordering crates to be brought out from the truck bed and given to the buyer. When Liu takes a look at one of the boxes an employee has brought out from the truck, he points out the quality gap between the grapes on display in the street and the ones he has just been presented with from the rear of the truck. Although the wholesaler becomes incensed and tries to insult Liu, Liu calmly walks away. I ask whether he’s angry that the wholesaler just tried to cheat him. “No, I understand. Everyone hopes they can make just a little bit more money, but the only way to do that is to trick the next person in line from you. [You] can’t be mad if you get tricked – you can only try and be more careful next time.” I ask whether there is any system wherein a particular vendor’s honesty can be rated and publicly displayed. He says there is only reputation, but that he never goes back to a vendor who has cheated him in the past.

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8:11 AM: As we try to leave the truck-based grape-selling area, we get bogged down in a traffic jam, and are paralyzed for around seven minutes. Finally, the driver who is boxing us in rolls down his window and we enter into a spatial negotiation of sorts. He wants to drive around the traffic jam, but needs to drive through us in order to do so. Were we to back up, that would create space for him to drive by us, and would in turn open up space for us to get out. Liu agrees to this proposed plan, and shifts into reverse, allowing the driver by. Liu then guns the engine and rushes forward to glide through the space the other driver created before it is filled in by the vehicle behind him. It feels as if we are stuck within a massive game of automotive Tetris.

Gridlocked, and time for some spatial negotiation.

8:25 AM: We park in a different section of grape wholesalers, where buyers and sellers lean upon chest-high stacks of grape crates, using them as both tables for writing and planes upon which to lean and bang their fists while they bargain with one other.

Crate stacks as writing surfaces, as well as forums for bargaining and other interactions.

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8:33 AM: After buying more grapes, Liu asks a nearby vendor named Zhang (a fellow fruit seller) to drive his three-wheeler from where it is parked near the grape wholesalers around to a nearby pomegranate seller for him while he walks through a different area of the market. He does this because the route between the grape and pomegranate sellers has a lot of traffic, and he wants to inspect the fruit on offer from various sellers by walking by them instead of spending his time negotiating through traffic (and missing the opportunity to appraise the fruit on offer in this section of the market). 8:40 AM: After walking through a section of the market selling sugar cane and clementines, we arrive at a truck, the back of which is filled with crates of pomegranate. His friend, a fellow vendor (who also owns a 3wv and sells fruit out of it) has parked his vehicle nearby. As we approach up, the vendor offers us a pomegranate and cigarettes. We split the pomegranate between Liu, Zhang, and myself, and now everyone is smoking except for me. I realize later that Zhang was eager to do the favor for Liu of repositioning his vehicle for him because although Zhang owns his own three-wheeler, he has parked his vehicle outside of the market on this day to save himself the two kuai entry fee, as well as avoiding the trouble of driving all around to different places in the market, searching for parking, getting caught in traffic, and so on. Like Liu, he says his strategy consists of “[buying] whatever is cheap at the time that [I] think [I] can turn around for a good profit.” Due to their similar business models, as Zhang and Liu speak they ping each other for insight into what types of fruit fall within their shared criteria for price and quality. He sells in Jiangbei, the neighborhood across the Jialing River from Shapingba (where Liu prefers to sell). Today Zhang is relying upon Liu’s vehicle (and kindness) to transport the fruit he has bought from inside of the whole market to outside, where his vehicle is parked. 8:45 AM: Liu decides not to buy pomegranates, and we leave Zhang negotiating with the vendor and get back into the vehicle. At this point, traffic is starting to thin out in the market, and Liu tells me now is usually when most daytime vendors start to depart so that they can arrive at their sales positions by 9 AM. He plans on leaving soon, but wants to see the price of pomelo first. We drive to another aircraft-hangar sized building filled entirely with pomelo. The entire area is enveloped in a citrus-smelling cloud, mixed with the earthy odor of the straw upon which thousands upon thousands of pomelo are stacked into pyramids and walls. 9:01 AM: Liu spends several minutes walking up and down the nearly identical rows of pomelo, chatting with vendors and getting a feel for the various prices and quality. He takes out his scale to measure one vendor’s pomelo, as for some reason she does not have her own. This drives home the importance of an easily moveable and repositionable scale for vendors. Throughout the negotiation and weighing process, the moving of the battery-powered scale out of the rear of his vehicle and on to the ground to weigh out pomelo is simple and easy.

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9:10 AM: Liu is seemingly closing in on a deal, when suddenly he is interrupted from his fruit buying by a call on his cellphone. He is arguing with them about money, fruit prices, and keeps mentioning a third party someone who “refuses to listen.” Exasperated, he asks me to guard the vehicle as he walks off, still talking into his cellphone. 9:50 AM: Liu and Zhang return, accompanying a woman pulling a cart piled high with various types of fruit. Most of the fruit was Zhang’s that he had purchased throughout the morning before we met up with him, and Liu has accompanied him around to the vendors with a hired cart to see whether he wanted to buy any fruit from the same vendors to try and get a deal. We all help her load all of the fruit they have bought into the back of Liu’s vehicle. Afterwards, Liu has the woman transport the pomelo he negotiated to buy earlier from the vendor’s stand to his cart, and the woman quickly navigates the cart over to the vendor, loads the pomelo, and transports the citrus back to Liu’s vehicle. They pay the woman 3 kuai for her work, and she sets off again in search of more cargo to transport. The pushcart woman forms part of the logistics system for transporting fruit between the point of sale and buyers’ vehicles parked relatively far from the purchase point. Once outside of the market, Liu will help Zhang transfer his fruit from his vehicle over to Zhang’s, and then the two will part ways, with Zhang driving off to sell in his neighborhood of Jiangbei.

Loading pomelo for delivery.

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10 AM: We check that all of the fruit and various crates and boxes are secured within the rear of his three-wheeler. He ties down loose boxes with bungee cords, and stretches one longer bungee cord over the rear gate. Satisfied that his cargo is sufficiently secure, we hop into the vehicle. “We’re running late,” he frets, gripping the wheel and laying on the horn as we try and negotiate our way out of the market, “we spent too much time buying fruit this morning, we’re going to have to come even earlier tomorrow.”

Thoughts & Reflections: 1) Containers are time-consuming: Liu spent a significant share of time in the market attempting to offload the containers his fruit came in – from selling his cardboard boxes to trying to get the deposit back on the multiple varieties of plastic crates in his vehicle. Between the amount of space they occupy in his vehicle’s cargo bed, the money needed to pay the deposit for them that could be used for buying fruit instead, and the numerous complications involved in trying to return them, plastic fruit crates are a salient pain point for vendors at this wholesale market. I’m surprised a system comparable to that of the cardboard boxes (buyers waiting at the market entrance) is not yet in place. 2) Buying fruit is complicated: Besides consideration for what the fruit is contained in, purchasing the fruit itself is not a straightforward process. From finding a vendor offering the precise combination of price and quality that you require (or at least that you believe you can bargain down to the desired price point), to the need to personally and rigorously inspect for quality, to actually transporting the fruit from the sales point to your vehicle (a daunting proposition if you are parked outside the market, or the vendor is in a traffic-prone area), buying fruit in a wholesale environment is markedly more complex and stressful than buying it in a typical retail-level setting in Chongqing. 3) Time is money; trust is priceless: Although his three-wheeled vehicle is the most valuable thing Liu owns and necessary for his livelihood, he did not hesitate to hand the keys over to Zhang and have him navigate through the crowded market while he went to inspect vendors’ inventories. This indicates several things. One is the high value of time to Liu (and, I imagine, all fruit vendors), for whom competition is stiff and every second saved in the wholesale market is another second spent selling on the street. The time Liu spent inspecting the inventories of sugar cane and clementine sellers on foot instead of extricating his vehicle from the gridlocked grape section was valuable enough to justify momentarily turning his vehicle over to Zhang. Two is the high level of trust that Liu places in Zhang – both morally to not drive away with his vehicle, and also in his skills as a driver to believe that he would not damage his vehicle. Three is the inadequacy of simply “driving by” a vendor’s inventory for deciding upon its quality, and Liu’s perceived need to physically approach a vendor’s stall to ascertain whether the fruit meets his requirements (though admittedly the need to approach on foot could also be due to the high-stress and attention-

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intensive act of driving within the market making it hard to do anything besides concentrate on not crashing). Considering these facts, I was surprised not to see vendors approaching drivers in their vehicles (particularly those stuck in traffic) with a “sample platter” – physical examples of the various types and qualities of fruit that they are offering for sale – with the hopes of attracting the drivers to their stalls. 4) Analog > digital: Vendors keep purchase records in physical notebooks, and I did not see any evidence of creating a duplicate digital record. Potential customers are able to see the final price and quantity of all previous purchases on a page, setting fairly concrete guidelines for price negotiation by creating a record to refer to. This record is also important for buyers unable to immediately transfer their purchase to their vehicles, and for whom the vendor must temporarily set aside their order. When wholesalers must handle hundreds of purchases a day, the “solidness” of a physical record and its incorporation into the purchase process minimizes the chance for mistakes. Nonetheless, the time will come where technology is sufficiently usable, reliable, and affordable enough to lead this wholesale market to effectively “go digital.” For a glimpse into how such data could potentially benefit buyers sellers, and customers alike, refer to this paper (http://mmd4d. files.wordpress.com/2009/04/jensen-indian-fisheries.pdf) by Professor Robert Jensen. Up next: Although I am in China to research how people use and modify their vehicles, equally important for understanding vehicles’ roles is studying how people behave when they do not have access to vehicles. As Oudshoorn and Pinch emphasize in “How Users Matter,” one should study how users operate without using a given technology to more deeply understand its role and importance. For example, what would Zhang have done in the above instance had he not met Liu in the market? What pain points would he have had to navigate as he transported his produce from various purchase points to his vehicle parked outside? How does a vehicle driver’s interaction with the market differ when the primary challenge he faces is not finding parking or negotiating traffic, but quickly and affordably transporting produce from multiple sales points to their vehicle? Source: Day in the Life: 3-wheeled Vehicle-based Fruit Vendor, from Ethnography Matters, January 31, 2013, by Zach Hyman. squareinchanthro.com

Ethnographic Research Methods Ethnographic research allows you to enter into local communities as observers and record your observations. We provide an overview of research components of ethnography—observation, thick description, field notes, and storytelling—and provide you with opportunities to try your hand at collecting data using these primary research methods. Primary researchers make new meaning by creating and collecting data themselves in real time and from current places rather than relying solely on secondary research and the

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findings and opinions of others. They then correlate their findings with existing secondary scholarship and published accounts. This kind of research has application at school, in the workplace, and in your personal life—and is warranted when you are investigating a topic about which little has been written, when you want to know more about a particular local community or group of people, or if you want to locate a local situation or practice within national trends or practices.

Observation and Thick Description Thick description, the act of sitting quietly in one place and noting everything you see, lies at the heart of ethnographic research. Try to be objective and descriptive, noting details of setting, people, interactions, and atmosphere of your observation site. Try to leave your assumptions at home and instead immerse yourself in the setting, bringing fresh eyes to the process. You may find that it is more difficult to be objective and note details if you are observing a site with which you are already familiar. In this case, you may need to visit the site more than once to gain perspective. In thick description, you are amassing enough details to recreate the experience for your readers, to fully understand the site under investigation, and to gain, perhaps, an original and intellectual understanding of the place, events, and people you observe. Through thick description, you develop your own ethos by becoming the expert through intense observation and analysis of your observational experience and your notes. Noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz suggests in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) that “doing ethnography is establishing rapport, selecting informants, transcribing texts, taking genealogies, mapping fields, keeping a diary, and so on” (6). However, just taking notes is not the primary objective of conducting ethnography. You must then analyze your amassed details to gain perspective and make claims about what you witness. Observing a local community can help you garner information and draw conclusions about a larger population, as you will see in student papers in this chapter.

Communities in Context MiniForum.com The MiniForum.com, a social network designed specifically for Mini owners and lovers from around the world, provides a space for members to connect. Discussion forums are organized by topic and facilitate a wide range of community discourse: from the “Introduce Yourself” forum where “Noobies,” or new members, can meet the community for the first time, to “Mini Multimedia” forum where members can post pictures and videos of their Minis in action. The site also provides resources for Mini owners to find advice on maintenance and restoration, information on local “meet ups” with fellow owners, and classifieds for members interested in buying or selling a Mini.

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Questions for Analysis

Q

1.

What are the shared goals of this community?

2.

Does this community use specific language that is unique to the group?

3.

Who are the members of this community; that is, who is the intended audience of this feedback?

4.

If you were to perform an ethnographic study on this online community of Mini enthusiasts, what kind of qualitative and quantitative data could you collect?

5.

Select one of the discussion forums, such as the “Introduce Yourself” forum, and take a moment to peruse the most recent posts and comments. What kind of story does this written forum tell? What shared values and experiences seem to recur within this community?

6.

Now take some time to look through the “Mini Multimedia” forum. How do the images and videos convey the community’s shared values and experiences? Do they tell a similar or different story about Mini enthusiasts as the written forums? In what way? How does the format of written versus multimedia discourse affect the way that members of this online community interact?

Field Notes Observational field notes are an integral part of primary research and need to be kept meticulously. As you observe, write down everything you see in great detail. As you gain practice observing, you may come to fresh realizations and begin to appreciate details that you initially took for granted. Thick description is the critical first step in taking field notes; analyzing what you see is the second. While thick descriptions aim at objectivity, analysis includes consideration of your research questions, and developing your ethos or reliability as an expert on the subject and your targeted audience. What points do you want to make using your observations as proof of research to support your claims? In what ways can you tailor your claims for your particular audience? In other words, what information from your observation will hold the most weight for your chosen audience? Experiment with note taking to determine a strategy that seems most effective for you. Do you want to keep your notes by hand or on an electronic device? Do you want to record your findings in pencil so that you can make changes as you go along or in pen so that all your comments (regardless of their significance) are sure to be recorded? What time of day best suits your writing and researching process and is most conducive for observing your particular site? There is no right way to take notes, just as there is no one writing process; however, all field notes should include:

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• • • • • • •

a header that includes the date, time, and location of the observation; numbered pages; a detailed description of the location and environment; sensory details (tastes, sights, sounds, smells and tactile details) that recreate the space for the researcher and reader; summaries of your impressions and reactions to what you see; quoted snatches of conversation or transcriptions of signs and billboards; questions to answer later (perhaps by conducting secondary research or additional primary investigation, such as interviews or surveys).

Field notes from an onsite observation are often compiled in a two-column form. On the left side, record what you see, as descriptively and objectively as possible. You can pretend that you are seeing the place and the people under investigation for the very first time. On the right side of the page, record impressions and interpretations of what you observe. Quickly jotting down your interpretations of your observations while you are still at the site serves as a kind of freewriting exercise and helps you make sense of what you view. Note any questions you might have or areas for additional research. Make sure your notes are legible and organized.

Analyzing Field Notes In analyzing data, try to find trends and patterns within your findings based on your research questions. Locating trends is easier to do if you observe the same site more than once. Then you can determine if different days, times, or even weather conditions influence what you observe. After you have compiled your field notes, think about ways to systematically analyze the collected information. Ethnographers call this analysis that leads to drawing conclusions coding. After reading through your notes looking for patterns, determine categories of data that you want to track by using a coding system. A relatively easy way to code is by assigning a color to each category. Then using colored pens or highlighters, go through your data color coding information that falls in the different categories. After the initial code is determined, you can continue to analyze and “code” the data according to the system you develop. Coding information allows you to draw conclusions about your observations based on a systematic analysis.

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Reading Observation of Piedmont Park Thursday 3/16/10 “Factual”

“Descriptive”

– Landscaped grass, footpaths that have

10:00 am–12:30 Saturday: Families with their

variations of colored grey concrete

children walking them with stroller, cell phone,

– multiple species of trees – white spring flowers – the pond of piedmont park, murky, filled with layers of green film – trees seemed to be flourishing for spring – a homeless man with tattered clothes sitting on the stone wall minding his own business – variety of ages, races (mostly) white and African American.

and dog. – There’s a group of mid 20s guys playing a hacky sac game, they seem to be intermediate. – met a lady in her late 50s, interviewed and asked her about her frequency to the park, apparently she comes every Saturday to walk and feed the animals (not that there are many wild animals) but ducks. She had salt and pepper hair and seems lonely (she talked with me and I told her about why the interview; she was ok with it)

“Reflection” – Park seems to be taken care of – makes you feel comfy and lets you relax – would like to write more about society and its influence on the park, history/location

In the exercise below, use what you have learned about observing using thick description and taking field notes to visit a site and conduct your own ethnographic observation.

Invention Exercise Site Observation 1.

Select a familiar local community or site to observe. Before visiting your site, think about what questions you want to answer. Take along a notebook, get comfortable, and observe in great detail what you see.

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2.

Record your observations using field notes. Engage in thick description as described above, mapping the space, taking down details of who is present, what they are doing, noting relationships among various elements at your setting.

3.

As soon as possible after observing your site, read over your notes, looking for patterns, reflecting upon what you saw, jotting down things you might want to research further, determining what to look for next time you visit this site. You may want to type up your findings and attach to the initial handwritten notes. Describing in detail what you see by taking field notes should make the familiar seem unfamiliar. In providing distance between yourself and the space you observe, use your impressions and interpretations to detect patterns or interesting occurrences that surface repeatedly. Through analyzing your field notes, you can begin to draw conclusions about the nature of your site or event.

4.

If possible collect artifacts, which may include maps, diagrams, photos, brochures, or flyers that you find onsite. Describe in detail specific language you hear or images found in the setting. What do your observations reveal about the site? Consider taking pictures to jog your memory and test your assertions later.

5.

Now that you have your notes, write a description of the community and its practices for someone unfamiliar with this space, event, or group of people.

Storytelling Consider how storytelling and narrative are at the heart of most literature and creative works. Writers use storytelling to build an image, portray a point of view, or perhaps share information about an event, place or community that is unfamiliar to the reader. Reporting details in narrative or story format allows your audience to experience a place or community from your perspective. Storytelling provides a context or narrative for what you see and shows how details are relevant to the culture and people you are observing and your audience. Storytelling gives you a way to show your audience why your observations are important and why they should care.

Reading Descriptive details can’t stand on their own without accompanying interpretive stories. Consider the significance of the observed details in the following excerpt from “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston. What point does Maxine Hong Kingston’s narrator in “No Name Woman” make in describing how her aunt pulls her hair into a bun?

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Excerpt from “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston At the mirror my aunt combed individuality into her bob. A bun could have been contrived to escape into black streamers blowing in the wind or in quiet wisps about her face, but only the older women in our picture album wear buns. She brushed her hair back from her forehead, tucking the flaps behind her ears. She looped a piece of thread, knotted into a circle between her index fingers and thumbs, and ran the double strand across her forehead. When she closed her fingers as if she were making a pair of shadow geese bite, the string twisted together catching the little hairs. Then she pulled the thread away from her skin, ripping the hairs out neatly, her eyes watering from the needles of pain. Opening her fingers, she cleaned the thread, then rolled it along her hairline and the tops of her eyebrows. My mother did the same to me and my sisters and herself. I used to believe that the expression “caught by the short hairs” meant a captive held with a depilatory string. It especially hurt at the temples, but my mother said we were lucky we didn’t have to have our feet bound when we were seven. Sisters used to sit on their beds and cry together, she said, as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins. I hope that the man my aunt loved appreciated a smooth brow, that he wasn’t just a tits-and-ass man.

Storytelling allows you to offer a point of view and illustrate the point you wish to make, with a specific audience in mind. Primary researchers adopt a point of view and weave their field notes and researched details into a documented narrative designed to deliver a message or develop an argument. Benjamin, our student, describes below his local emergency room and provides evidence and illustrations to support his claims about current U.S. political debates and policies concerning medical insurance. His opinions are made clear through not only his use of detail but also in the tone of his paper. Although Benjamin is engaged in observation, his tone, diction, and organization are not objective; they work together to support his claims about health insurance. As you read, try to determine Benjamin’s point of view and targeted audience. He incorporates elements of observation, description, analysis, and storytelling to make an argument about medical care in the United States, an argument intended to make his readers aware of the awful conditions in emergency rooms—the only source of healthcare available to those without insurance.

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Student Writing “The ER Can’t (and Probably Won’t Without Insurance) Put Humpty Dumpty Together Again” by Benjamin Harris In the United States people depend on three things: food, oil, and of course the emergency room. When the small bottle of Neosporin runs out and the box of Band-Aids from Wal-Mart has been emptied, anyone with anything short of total decapitation can always attempt to find “help” at the emergency room. I consider myself fairly healthy and since I care about my only body, I never do anything to get it mutilated. So, I’ve had very little experience when it comes to emergency rooms. My natural curiosity set in and I just had to find out what goes on in this place of last resort. What exactly attracts people to a place where infinite lines and indescribable pain awaits? It is a Saturday afternoon, fairly warm for January, when I drive into the parking lot of Coastal Medical Center. I slowly walk about fifty yards from my car to the automatic cold gray doors. I look up and I notice that the words EMERGENCY ROOM are written in huge red letters above the door. The letters on the mammoth sign are written in the same blood-red color that typical exit signs are. I find this to be ironic because emergency rooms are quite often the exit from this world for many a man, woman, and child. I walk in and immediately notice that the room is extremely cold. I feel as if I’m on a remote arctic world filled with endless supplies of gossip, National Geographic magazines and filled with the never-ending sound of torturous “feel-good” elevator music. Chairs are everywhere in the expansive room. They are all cold and metallic with blood red cushions that are hopelessly futile in the attempt to provide any sort of comfort. A little over half of the chairs in the room are occupied by a variety of people with a smorgasbord of afflictions. Some have nothing more than what seems to be minor ear infections, while others have much more serious injuries such as broken bones and nearly severed limbs. The only warmth I noticed in the room came from tiny slivers of light barely pushing their way through two grimy windows next to the door. The windows have a green film spreading over the corners, like a gangrenous infection spreading over a civil war patient’s body. I look straight ahead and I see a long line of people impatiently waiting to receive care but are hampered in their quest because of a mysterious and unforgiving figure known only as “the receptionist.” I find a seat in the front corner of the room in a lone chair in-between two magazine racks. I’m tempted to read a National Geographic about the ways of the Inuit just so I can turn my attention away from the ghastly moaning and horrible sights of the room, but I’m devoted to acquiring the answers I desperately want. The line leading to “the receptionist” never gets shorter and periodically gets even longer. A Hispanic woman with her child sits nearest to me. The woman is desperately trying to comfort the child as he screams and holds what is evidently a severely cut up arm. To my right a young man apparently in his late 20s sits with no apparent injury. He is still dressed in navy blue mechanic’s overalls. On the overalls the name Daniel is printed in red letters on a white patch. The grease spots are still wet, signifying that he hasn’t long been away from work. He has a look of anxiety on his smudged and scruffy face. He looks to be fairly approachable so I lean over and ask

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why he is here. He looks over at me slowly with a look of confusion as if he wasn’t really quite sure he heard someone speak to him. Upon seeing my face he realizes what has just been asked and answers, “My son broke his arm today riding a four-wheeler.” I ask if his son is going to be alright and he answers, in a calm and friendly voice, “He should be. The break wasn’t too bad. It didn’t penetrate the skin.” I look up again at “the receptionist.” She seems to be the most important person in the room. Her character fascinates me the same way a super villain in a cartoon fascinates a child who is in love with the show. She acts as the gatekeeper to the healers behind the gray double doors about 200 feet in the back of the emergency room. When the afflicted person finally makes their way to “the receptionist,” their only hope of medical care depends on if they have that all important card of life, otherwise known as: the insurance card. Without the insurance card, “the receptionist” can make the process of getting help so long and tiresome it could lead some people to wish that they have stayed at home and just simply died. After about five people confront “the receptionist,” a man walks up to her holding his left arm, which is heavily bandaged in a stained and tight white bandage. He too is still dressed in what appears to be blue mechanic’s overalls. His overalls look as if they had been dipped in used motor oil and the sleeves run through some sort of gargantuan shredder. He looks to be in obvious pain and in no mood to wait around any longer. The injured man and “the receptionist” exchange the customary banter when suddenly the man and “the receptionist” burst into a loud and furious shouting match that attracted the interests of nearly everyone in the room, with the exception of those who have been heavily sedated to keep them from ripping the head off of someone because of the infinite wait and the unbearable pain they are in. From what I could hear he didn’t have his insurance card. They argue constantly back and forth until the injured man finally realizes he is no match for the seasoned arguing skills of the mysterious receptionist. He sulks back to a seat where he very unwillingly begins to fill out the mountainous amount of paperwork needed in order to be seen. I decide I must meet the forbidding receptionist once and for all. I get up from my cold metallic chair and make my way across the hard gray tiled floor towards her. I feel as if I’m a Roman gladiator walking into the coliseum to face the lion. I was partly relived when I realized that I couldn’t talk to her at the moment because she was of course very busy. I walk over to another woman sitting behind the counter who is steadily filling out form after form and answering a black phone where a mysterious entity tells her who is entitled to be healed next. I manage to get her attention and I notice on her badge that her name is Mildred. Mildred is an African-American woman, who wears a friendly smile covered by cherry red lipstick and a freakishly dark and bushy moustache. She asks me how she can help me and I tell her that I’m a student doing a site study of the emergency room and that I would like to speak with “the receptionist.” She tells me, in a surprisingly deep and gritty voice, to go over to a seat and wait patiently and “the receptionist” will be with me very shortly. I slowly trudge back to my seat and immediately come to the conclusion that the phrase “wait patiently and someone will see you soon” must be hardwired into every hospital worker’s brain. I knew it would be a while before “the receptionist” ever got a chance to talk to me, so I decided to observe the people around me more. Next to the wall opposite me sat a woman with a bandaged wrapped tightly around her shoulder. The top of the bandage was soaked in either tomato juice or blood. Since the event of a can of tomato juice somehow spilling

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on an unlucky someone in the emergency room is highly unlikely, I’m inclined to go with the notion that the stain on her bandage is indeed blood. Two butt-busting chairs to her right sat a young mother with her screaming infant in her arms. The baby’s wails sounded much more like a dying banshee than an actual human. Obviously the child had an ear infection, something I was prone to in the early stages of my life also. I felt sorry for the fish in the shamefully small aquarium, which also not surprisingly had green grime on its corners. The vibrations made from the baby’s wailing must have driven the small ornate fish close to suicide. I’m startled when I hear a tremendous amount of commotion outside the automatic entrance doors. All of a sudden two paramedics burst into the emergency room rolling a tall steel gurney as fast as they can go towards the back. On the gurney an overweight white male lays under a white blanket with an IV in his grotesquely large arm. Blood soaks the blanket over him as if someone had taken a paint can full of the substance and poured it directly on the blanket. I look towards the end of the gurney and I notice that his entire right leg is missing. I don’t know the man’s story but I can’t help but feel a deep sorrow for him because I know that the rest of his life is going to be miserable because of the single instant where he was separated from his indescribably important appendage forever. As the man is rushed through the gray double doors to a painful and terrifying future, I began to get lost in my thoughts. It just baffles me how people can come to this place of horrors just to, in most cases, receive even more pain than they have already gone through. I’m suddenly brought out of my little daze by none other than “the receptionist.” She is a middle-aged white woman with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a freakishly tall and slender figure. She asks, in a high squeaky voice, if I was the person who wanted to talk to her to which I nervously replied yes. She hastily flopped down beside me and asked what she could do for me. The first idea that immediately popped into my mind was to simply ask what her name was. She tells me her name is Judy. She rudely says she only has time for two questions so I have to make it quick. I first ask her what was the worst thing she has ever seen within the forbidding walls of the emergency room, to which she replied that she saw a man with his entire face blown off due to a botched suicide attempt. She then went on to explain that he later died due to a heart attack from realizing what had happened to him in his futile attempt to prematurely end God’s greatest gift. I was shocked by what she described and instead of thinking of something interesting to ask all I could think of was to ask how long she had been working there. She told me that she had been working there “five long, miserable years.” She needed to return to her important work of keeping the injured in pain so I let her. She got up and literally jogged back to her desk. I was still shocked by the thought of a man with no face. This horrified me to the point where I was unsure of getting any sleep that night. By this time the jet black hands on the white and black clock above my head read 5:00 p.m. It was time for me to return to my home. I walked out of the automatic door with mixed emotions about emergency rooms. Yes, they are as close to pure hell and chaos as we can get on Earth. But at the same time they represent one of the few places where a person can get help in some way or another, only after waiting hours in a dank and uncomfortable room of course. No matter how much people hate Emergency Rooms, no matter how much receptionists hate Emergency Rooms, and no matter how much insurance companies hate emergency rooms, they will always be there.

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Works Cited Daniel. Personal Interview. 28 Jan. 2006. Mildred. Personal Interview. 28 Jan. 2006. Judy. Personal Interview. 28 Jan. 2006.

Questions for Analysis 1.

Q

What physical details of the space does the author of this essay provide? What is the effect of this description?

2.

Map the emergency room and its occupants per the author’s descriptions.

3.

How would you characterize the author’s point of view? What is his main point in this analysis of his observations?

4.

Who do you think is the author’s target audience for this analysis?

5.

The author made his own interpretations about what he saw in the ER. After reading this essay, what interpretations do you form based on the details he provides?

6.

What other conclusions can be drawn based on your reading of this piece?

7.

How else could the story of the ER be told based on these observations, perhaps for a different audience?

Researcher’s Point of View All research, whether qualitative or quantitative, forms the researcher’s perspective (or in some cases argument). Details and data are not context-free, as much as some people might like you to believe. A list of data, stated observations, even facts is not usually objective. Consider travel brochures, advertisements, or Chambers of Commerce profiles of cities, which are often written as objective reports. What is the context or persuasive element inherent in this writing? Perhaps to entice you to visit a locale (and spend money), locate your business in a new geographical location, or move to the advertised city? In ethnographic writing choose a certain fact to highlight, determine which observable traits get your notice rather than others. Determine why you selected a specific community to observe. Remember that your purposes for writing (including experiences, beliefs, demographics and often employers’ agendas) always come into play. Primary researchers wish to tell a story—albeit one backed by careful research, reliable investigation, and quantifiable data, and sometimes the story shifts or the perspective changes given the observable data or what you discover through your investigation. Storytelling captures the essence of primary research methods, as Kate Adams, noted primary researcher in writing studies, explains: Archival research is all about storytelling because through all the documents that you study, you are figuring out the nature of a life, whether it be public or private, for a summer

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or for fifty years. Documents must grow into storytelling or they are not really worth writing about. But the path of document to story, of course, is a treacherous one, with inferences made by the writer, often based on her own prejudices, and thus her own story. (message to the author) Reflecting upon your field notes will help you draw conclusions about what you observe and allow you to tell a story based on your opinions and investigation.

Writing Exercise Examining Point of View Use the following exercise to consider the point of view of the website Australia.com.

Website of Tourism Australia, an Australian Government Agency. Source: www.australia.com

The “Explore” menu from the Tourism Australia website. Source: www.australia.com

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Questions for Analysis

Q

1.

What do you think is the context or inherent message of this website?

2.

Who is the intended audience? Is the included information composed only of objective observations?

3.

Is the information solely designed to inform readers about the country—or is the compiled information collected for some other persuasive purposes?

Writing Exercise Becoming a Community Researcher Identify a community or place, take field notes, reflect upon your role as a researcher, and formulate a set of questions or topics that could be answered using primary research materials. The questions on page 46 will help you explore a community, organization, or profession from a research perspective and should be adapted depending on the relationship you have with the community you select to analyze. In addition, note photographs, documents, design elements, or particular artifacts related to your chosen community or organization. Spend time, either before or after visiting the site, reading and learning about this group and the role artifacts play in their organization. After you have completed your observation(s), you should reflect on your role as the researcher. What did you learn about the community and what did you learn about yourself in making these observations? Did you learn something that surprised you or did you determine ways in which you need to adjust your research questions?

In the following student example, Brandon uses his observations, field notes, and his role as a researcher at Gold’s Gym to investigate possible research topics. His preliminary research raises several topics related to gender stereotypes and contemporary health and lifestyle choices. As you read through the piece, notice where the author factually describes information and where he engages in interpretation. Also, notice how his observations and field notes figure into his narrative analysis. This example brings together all the elements we’ve discussed in this chapter: observation, field notes, artifacts, point of view of the researcher, storytelling, and reflection.

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Student Writing “Gold’s Gym: Observation of a Fitness Community” by Brandon Bragg Descriptive, Quantitative Data

Interpretative, Qualitative Data

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Gold’s Gym has two weight rooms, one designed for everyone and another, specifically for women. Very few women workout in the coed space with the men, although most of the equipment is the same. The gym has a cardio theater where members can run on the treadmill while watching a movie on a big screen. I have been working out at this facility for over a year and know almost everyone, either by name, face, or reputation.

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In the morning, there are significantly fewer people training than in the evening. Approximately 50 people work out in the coed space in the morning. Of those, approximately 40 are male. Approximately 20 people work out in the women’s area, all of which are women. Approximately 30 people participate in group fitness classes at a time, all of which are women. Most of the cars in the parking lot belong to women who participate in group fitness classes. The men tend to carpool more than the women. Most of the revenue from Gold’s gym is from personal training and group fitness classes.

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Most of the conservatively dressed women use the women’s area. Men are allowed, but it is frowned upon. Most of the women who work out in the coed space are not conservatively dressed and flirt a lot. I have yet to figure out how those people successfully run in the dark.

Brandon organizes his field notes into two columns. On the left side he describes what he observes—provides a thick description. In the right hand column he interprets what he sees. This method yields two “sets” of data.

One professional bodybuilder described everyone at Gold’s Gym as having their own “schtick,” or personal trait that distinguishes them from others. This is funny and entertaining to observe. Most people workout when they get off of work between 5pm and 7pm. This time of day is too crowded for my preference.

Very few men ever even enter the group fitness studio. I believe there is a stigma associated with group fitness. These women have to enter the fitness center through the coed area. They seem uncomfortable passing all of the sweaty, muscular guys. I believe there are also stigmas associated with the coed area as it pertains to the members of group fitness classes.

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There is an ex-marine who trains at Gold’s Gym every day. He only works out his chest. He drives a gold Jaguar.

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There is a woman who runs on the elliptical in the coed space for hours. She wears very baggy clothes. She doesn’t swallow her water. Instead, she swishes it around in her mouth and then spits it out. She keeps a wardrobe worth of clothes neatly hanging in the back of her SUV, which she makes selections from before entering the gym. There are several older gentlemen who socialize for hours, but never actually workout. They complain to me about how much weight they used to be able to lift. There are several women who put lots of makeup on, wear heavy perfume, and need help all the time. There are several men who spend all day at the gym because they would rather be there than anywhere else. There are two young men who train together and refer to themselves as “swoldiers.” (swollen soldiers) There is a special ops military man who trains with his son when he is not overseas. When he is spotting, he always screams “Get your money!” Through interview, I discovered that most of the men work out in order to get bigger. Conversely, most of the women work out to get smaller.

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My gym buddies and I refer to the exmarine as “The Chestinator” because he can bench press several hundred pounds, but refuses to work any other muscle groups. I believe her to be anorexic. She is emaciated and her bones protrude through her skin. Her hair is brittle. Her face looks like a bare skull. I wish someone would talk to her about her eating disorder.

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They are annoying. Some people use the gym more as a social club than a fitness studio, but it serves both objectives just as well.

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I feel sorry for them because it would appear they can only afford children’s clothing. These are called gym rats.

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The “swoldiers” make fun of him.

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It is my preconceived notion that this is done, in general, in order to be attractive for the opposite sex.

My Role as the Researcher Brandon carefully explores his relationship to the physical place that he is observing and the practices (personal fitness and nutrition) that he is critiquing.

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I have been training for over 10 years. Personal fitness and proper nutrition is more than just habitual for me. It’s a lifestyle. One of my preconceived notions about exercise is that people, in general, work out in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. This is true, in part, for me. However, through my own personal experience and experience as a personal trainer for others, I have discovered that more lofty goals are required if someone truly wants to change their lifestyle. Let me give you an example. A young man came to me for

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consultation about how he could achieve a summer six-pack to impress a girl. As he was a friend, I gladly offered him my own personal tools for success in this area as well as exhaustive resources for a total body transformation. After following a strict regimen for approximately three months, he had achieved the most defined set of abdominal muscles of anyone I knew. Shortly after, his interest in the female friend waned and so did his vigor for maintaining his newly discovered wash-board. I asked myself, “What went wrong? Why did he so easily abandon his goal?” The answer, I discovered was because he had only set one short-term goal. Moreover, this goal was completely dependent upon the satisfaction of someone else. As I have been unwavering in my fitness pursuits from the start, I again posed a question. “What is the difference between us?” Simply stated, I had given him all of the physical tools needed for success, but had neglected to offer him the right motivation. I learned from this experience about the things that truly motivated me. I have always desired to live a long, healthy life. My grandmother instilled that ideal in me. As a child, I greatly admired her physical achievements, especially for being so old. When we would visit, I was always terribly interested in the vitamins and supplements she would take in the morning and how great they would make her feel. Often, we would take road trips, just the two of us, and she would teach me lessons in horticulture, animal life, history, structural design, the importance of physical fitness, and so much more. I owe much of my initial motivation to her insights. Another motivation for me is to provide for and be admired by my future wife and children. I always looked up to my dad because of his incredible strength. Through my observations, I have learned that a household that possesses strength and integrity is not easily moved. Lastly, rigorous training requires me to have discipline. Out of discipline, respect is birthed. When others see that I respect myself, it commands their respect. In my studies, both academic and non-academic, I have learned that the greatest need of women is love. Interestingly, the greatest need of men is respect. The gym is a place where respect can be earned. Although I only spend an hour there each day, the gym is one of my favorite places. When I am working out, everything else disappears. I am completely focused. It is therapeutic for the body and mind. It releases serotonin and endorphins into the brain. It gets you naturally high. These were my initial motivating factors for choosing this topic for my ethnographic research. It felt good. However, as I continue my observations, my focus changes. As of Christmas Eve, 2009, I became engaged to a wonderful young woman who is a master’s student, studying English. It has been a goal of mine for several years to obtain certification as a personal trainer for Gold’s Gym. Recently, I told her and her father of my intentions. To my surprise, they both had major reservations about me working in a gym environment as a career. Although trainers in my position make around sixty dollars an hour, they were not persuaded. At first, I felt as though a dream of mine had been crushed. But then I began considering the situation from their point of view. Both of our parents are divorced as a result of infidelity. This reality has been on the forefront of our relationship since day one. We are determined to use the pain, betrayal, life-long, family-wide, and ever reaching repercussions of their actions to motivate us to live lives of integrity. After considering this and observing all of the carnal indecencies a personal trainer encounters on a daily basis, I conceded and learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes making personal sacrifices is worth keeping the peace of the household. Also, I know God has much bigger plans for me. In part, it is for these reasons I have chosen to research possible methods and methodologies pertaining to dynamics of “gym life.” Also, I feel that this course is

By sharing personal experiences, Brandon establishes his role as authority on the subject at hand.

Brandon’s background experiences and heritage help establish his current interests in fitness and nutrition.

Brandon’s notions of manhood and gender roles influence his position as researcher-observer.

The author outlines his personal reasons for selecting this research topic.

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stretching me to become a more expressive, personal writer, something I have struggled with. As this is a very personal subject to me, I hope to overcome some of the anxieties of being transparent for an audience.

In this section, Brandon transcribes his two column set of field notes into a narrative.

Exploring his preconceived notions and honestly telling readers about his biases helps to establish Brandon as an ethical researcher.

Brandon discusses here how he is willing to go out on a social limb to put his beliefs into practice.

In the preceding two paragraphs, Brandon explores gender biases at the gym.

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Discussion of Field Notes Observing an environment that I was so familiar with required me to step out of my usual role as a participant in order to view the activities around me through a different lens. One of my preconceived notions about this gym in particular pertained to the additional workout room specifically designated for women. When I first joined the gym over a year ago, I was disappointed by the women’s area because it took up so much space—space that could be used for additional equipment for all to use. I was under the initial impression that the only reason this separate area existed was because women feel like they will be approached by men. I believe this preconceived notion, in general, to be true. Evidence for this point is the fact that most of the women in the women’s area dress very modestly, usually with full sweat suits on. In contrast, I noted that in general, most of the women who wore tight spandex, or less, worked out in the coed area and welcomed, if not initiated dialogue with strangers of the opposite sex. At every gym where I have ever trained, I have found that few to no men ever take advantage of group fitness classes. It is still my preconceived notion that there is a stigma associated with these classes. Perhaps this is because, men tend to try to get bigger and women tend to try to get smaller. When asked about their willingness to participate in a class, all of my male interviewees chuckled and responded with, “That’s for women.” I believe there is a systemic stigma among males in general that group fitness was designed for women. As my curiosity got the best of me, I participated in several of these group fitness classes including Power and Kickboxing. I had sorely underestimated the value of these classes, as they were beneficial in developing muscle mass, strength, and stamina. Who wouldn’t want all of that? However, I couldn’t help but feel ostracized, even by my close friends, for being so daring. It is because of these preconceived notions, social norms, and unmerited stigmas that debilitate people from experiencing new and fun things. Similarly, I believe many women have preconceived notions about weight training. When passing the coed weight room to enter the group fitness studio, most of the women quickly shuffle past, averting their eyes. After interviewing several women about their willingness to participate in weight training as opposed or in addition to group fitness and cardio, the general consensus was, “I don’t want to get all big and bulky.” They were terrified that if they even walked into the weight room, much less picked up a dumbbell, they would unwittingly catch “the bulk,” as if it were contagious. Unknown to most of the women I interviewed, weight training has many benefits for women, particularly as a way to avoid osteoporosis in women of all ages. As my field notes indicate, there are some people who exploit the gym simply in order to meet people of the opposite sex. Before conducting my research, I was under the strict assumption that all women who wore booty shorts, hoop ear rings, and heavy makeup were not primarily at the gym to workout. Perhaps this is still true, but I am willing to hear both sides. After interviewing a young lady who met these criteria, I was shocked at her transparency with me. She dressed in such a manner because she genuinely believed that it’s what

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men wanted. She only wanted to be loved. Unfortunately, she was attracting attention from men of whom love was not a primary agenda. This new discovery only solidifies my belief that men’s greatest need is respect and women’s greatest need is love.

Future Research Methodologies and Studies In review of my field notes and reflections, it is clear that there are unlimited implicated topics for further study. I have selected only a few of my favorites in relation to the phenomena I observed. First, why is there such a strong stigma associated with group fitness classes as it pertains to men? I believe Gold’s Gym and other reputable fitness facilities have done well in “masculinizing” group fitness with names like “Boot Camp” and “Total Power.” However, these classes remain testosterone free. Another observation I made worth noting is the fact that, at least at the facility I reported on, men tended to carpool more frequently than women. It makes me wonder if this is a common trend throughout gyms nationwide, and if so, why? Considering this question, I am led to hypothesize that because men tend to lift heavier amounts of weight, they also tend to work in pairs or small groups in order to facilitate the weight in controlled and safe environments. However, something tells me that this answer is too easy and there may be more psychologically or even emotionally motivated answers. It would seem that a common theme throughout my observations was the fact that some people treat the gym more like a social club rather than a workout facility. I am still torn whether or not this is a good thing. I suppose it all depends on the motivations of the people involved. I wonder if reform is possible. I wonder if reform is necessary. I wonder if it’s any of my business at all. A question that I have had even before conducting these interviews and observations involves men’s avoidance of leg workouts. I have been training for a very long time and have noticed an overwhelmingly consistent pattern with men. Men do not like to train their legs. But why? Is it because they can’t show them off? Or won’t? Is it because, if trained properly, they hurt more than any other muscle group the next day? Is it all of the above? Maybe the Chestinator knows. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this unique experience. It has served its purpose in challenging me to explore people, places, and artifacts through ethnographic observations. Being aware of my personal lens, it has helped me to discover part of my ethos as a researcher and participant. It has given me ideas for future, possibly even publishable research methodologies. And most important, to me, it has stretched me to use “I” and be more transparent in my writings, making it personal.

Brandon’s interview with men and women at the gym validates his assumptions and beliefs. He uses two methods of primary research (interview and observation) to test his assumptions and to garner new information.

In this section, Brandon explores areas of future research that surfaced from his observations. Brandon examines in what ways his observations at one local gym might be universal. Can his findings be generalized to other gyms and fitness centers? Brandon challenges his earlier research questions, wondering if they are still pertinent given what he has discovered through his primary research. Here are additional questions to investigate (perhaps through interviews) if Brandon wants to pursue this research project. This final paragraph serves as a mini reflection. Brandon comments on the experience of working on this project.

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Questions for Analysis

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Brandon observes a familiar space and offers readers a unique perspective on the site. Through becoming a participant-researcher, you gain perspective on group dynamics and culture, develop an authorial voice (after all you are an expert on the subject at hand), and offer readers an insider’s glimpse into a community. 1.

How does Brandon establish his authority and credibility as an observer/researcher? Do you trust his account? Why or why not.

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What kinds of primary research does Brandon conduct to write this piece? Could he have arrived at similar conclusions without engaging in primary research?

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What elements of storytelling does Brandon incorporate in this piece? Do his preconceived notions get challenged by his research?

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What role does reflection play in this observational report?

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In what ways does Brandon’s description of a local gym have universal appeal to readers?

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter presents and defines elements of ethnographic research, including: • • • • • • •

observation and participant-observation thick description note taking field notes storytelling the role of the researcher reflection on findings.

The student examples in this chapter illustrate ways to conduct observations and present findings to an audience. These models incorporate the elements listed above and show how to incorporate research into a cohesive report. As you begin honing your skills of observation as a tool for conducting primary research, refer back to the research tools and student examples in this chapter. In the next chapter, we introduce another common primary research tool, interviewing. We provide instructions for gaining novel information about your subject by querying people familiar with your research topic.

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References Bartis, Peter. Folklife and Fieldwork: An Introduction to Field Techniques. Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 2010. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, Basic Books, 1973. Levi-Strauss, Claudé. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Neuwirth, Esther B., Jim Bellows, Ana H. Jackson, and Patricia M. Price. “How Kaiser Permanente Uses Video Ethnography Of Patients For Quality Improvement, Such As In Shaping Better Care Transitions,” Health Aff (Millwood). Health Aff June 2012 vol. 31 no. 6 1244–1250. Copyrighted and published by Project HOPE/Health Affairs. The published article is archived and available online at www.healthaffairs.org. Stone Sunstein, Bonnie and Elizabeth Chiseri-Straters. Fieldworking. 4th edition. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012.

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Interviews: Researching People

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Interviews depend upon an interaction between two people—the interviewer asks a series of questions and listens, while the interviewee provides answers, comments, and opinions. Interviews are quite commonplace. We are accustomed to watching, listening to, or reading interviews with presidents, CEOs, accident survivors, celebrities, and authors. At some point in your life, you probably have been interviewed—perhaps for admission into college or for a job. In this chapter, we introduce interviewing as a primary research tool and present information about conducting interviews and incorporating findings into your papers. Researchers across the disciplines conduct interviews. Engineers, quality assurance professionals, executive directors, nurses, marketing assistants, and business managers regularly question others to gain information and better understand specific groups of people. In a wide variety of professional communities, completing your job responsibilities might depend upon interviews to discover primary information for reports, investigations, newsletters, organizational histories, or proposals. For example, a state department of transportation employee often interviews community members to determine the community impact of proposed changes, such as a new bridge or road. Information from these interviews is then incorporated into community impact reports. Interviews are practical research tools for incorporating first-hand perspectives on a topic or gaining primary information from knowledgeable sources. In some cases, the interviewee’s responses provide data that can help you expand your research questions. Other times, interviews provide alternative perspectives or insights into a topic. Consider conducting interviews in coordination with observation and surveys to generate a breadth of information on your topic.

Why Interview Determining what kinds of information you need to gather is the first step in deciding who you should talk to and why. You can begin to narrow down potential interviewees once you finalize your research questions. Researchers conduct interviews both to collect a participant’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives regarding a specific situation, issue, or context and to learn from experts. While this chapter focuses on conducting interviews to support your research agenda, interviews are also useful in other contexts. For example, you might find yourself in a new job where you are expected to perform specific tasks that may be unclear to you. You can find out more about your assigned tasks and gain insight

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into the nature of the new position by interviewing either the person who did the job before you or someone else familiar with the job position. In the health sciences and other highly technical fields like engineering or information systems, writers who are responsible for communicating technical language to outside audiences regularly interview teams of subject matter experts to understand better their topics.

Who to Interview Before deciding who to interview, it is helpful to make a list of topics about which you want to know more and then do some background research. Once you determine the purpose of the interview, then it is time to make a list of potential interviewees, which should consist of people who are best qualified to provide the specific information you are seeking. Ask yourself: What do I want to learn in an interview? Do I want to interview an expert about an issue or am I interested in someone else’s experiences and their comments about a situation.

Invention Exercise Planning an Interview Choose a topic or research question from the writing exercises “Describing a Community” in Chapter 2 or “Curiosity and Inquiry” from Chapter 3. How would an interview add to what you already know about this topic or question? What questions would you like to ask? Who might be able to answer these questions?

When to Interview With unlimited access to the person you plan to interview, you can consult your interviewee at a variety of stages in the research process, but if you only have one opportunity to conduct the interview, then you will need to carefully consider the timing of your interview within your research process. Keep in mind that interviews conducted in the preliminary stages of your investigation help focus your research question or narrow your topic. In other cases, individual interviews with several people serve as the primary method for researching your topic. For example, if you are researching a particular community or university organization, you may decide to interview the leader of the group along with several members in order to gather a set of perspectives rather than one point of view. In other cases, an initial interview with the executive director may lead to further contacts within the organization. After conducting several interviews within a community, you may find that you need a follow-up interview with the executive director to verify what you have learned.

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Asking for an Interview Make a list of potential participants to interview. Access to the person is important but you don’t want to choose an interviewee based solely on the sake of convenience. For example, your first choice might be the mayor of the town; however, his or her schedule may not allow for a convenient meeting time with you. Alternatively, the mayor’s chief of staff may be readily available and be just as helpful. Be flexible but also purposeful in selecting interviewees, so that you get the kind of information you seek. Before the interview, prepare questions. Some interviewees like to see the questions you plan to ask beforehand, especially if an interview will be audio or video recorded or if the interviewee needs to do some preliminary research to answer your questions. Provide potential interviewees a succinct statement outlining the purposes of your research and the nature of the questions you plan to ask. For example, if you are scheduling an interview with a member of a student organization at your school, let your fellow student know why you are requesting the interview by providing a research statement like this one: I am working on a research project looking at why students join student organizations. May I interview you and ask questions related to your experiences with the [fill in the name of the student organization or club]? Be specific about why you wish to interview this person. If you are emailing an interview request, attach the interview questions to the email and clearly indicate whether you want to conduct the interview by phone, via email or video conference, or face to face. Let your interviewee know both the purposes of the interview and what you plan to do with the information that you receive.

Structuring the Interview Most interviewers ask questions based on the interviewee’s expertise or experience related to a research topic. For example, if you want to know how farmers in a rural community feel about living in a world dominated by new technologies, then interview farmers and other members of farming communities while also providing background information about the culture under scrutiny. If you want to know how green space is allocated in an urban downtown area, then talk with a city parks and recreation department. In either case, interviews may be structured, semi-structured, or more informal/unstructured. Structured interviews are useful when you are interviewing more than one person and want all interviewees to address the same set of questions. In a structured interview, you follow the prepared list of questions without diverging or adding new prompts along the way. Structured interviews allow you to compare and contrast responses. Alternatively, a semi-structured interview begins with a list of questions, but then follow-up questions may be added and asked as needed. A semi-structured interview allows you to collect an abundance of information on your topic and adjust the direction of the interview depending upon the interviewee’s responses. The key to the semi-structured interview involves flexibility in asking follow-up questions, ones not on the original list. An unstructured interview includes a list of topics that the interviewer wants to ask, but questions are

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scripted as in a structured interview. This type of interview is much less formal and may resemble a dialogue. Your research question/topic and purpose usually dictate the structure of your interview. A research project that focuses on participants’ buying preferences at a local grocery store would likely include specific yes/no questions or factual information: Where do you shop? At what time of the day do you normally shop? Do you use coupons? Research that focuses on user feedback or audience concerns will often use semi-structured interviews so the interviewer can ask follow-up questions based on the participants’ responses. This research begins with a list of scripted questions but allows for additional questions as the interview proceeds. Unstructured interviews are primarily used when researchers want the participants to have their voices heard. This tool is particularly useful when you want to include quotes and excerpts from the interviews in your final report. For example, research that investigates reasons that women in abusive relationships don’t leave might employ an unstructured interview so the participants have an opportunity to express their experiences and feelings.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Wade Mahon Editor of Issues in Writing The following profile highlights the work of Wade Mahon, journal editor of Issues in Writing. Each issue of the journal opens with the editor’s extensive interview with a leading scholar working in composition research. Over the years, Professor Mahon has honed his interviewing techniques to help his subjects feel comfortable sharing professional information along with pertinent personal background information, as he explains below. Our journal mainly publishes academic articles for writing teachers, scholars, professional writers, and others interested in written composition. These articles might recommend effective ways to teach writing in college classrooms, or they might present arguments that examine writing in the light of composition theory or historical practices. In addition to publishing the results of other people’s research, we also conduct phone interviews with successful writers and scholars whose ideas we think our readers will be interested in, and we publish written transcripts of these interviews in each issue of the journal. Usually, readers wouldn’t need to rely on our interviews to gain access to what these people have to say, since their published work is already widely available elsewhere, but the interviews allow us to gain perspectives that aren’t always available in what they’ve written. In an interview we can ask questions about someone’s published work to dig deeper into an issue with them or to clarify potentially confusing or controversial statements or to see how their ideas relate to those of others in the field. Mostly, though, what I find valuable about the interview is the opportunity to explore the personal stories that shed light on how

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they do their work and why they do it. What motivated an officer in the US Army to transition from a military career to a career as an English professor? How did a leading figure in the composition field become successful despite dropping out of graduate school because he felt he couldn’t write? How does a well-known teacher of writing instruction actually deal with day-to-day classroom issues that all teachers wrestle with? These personal insights help to humanize the often abstract and impersonal nature of academic research. After someone agrees to the interview, we schedule a one-hour time slot when we can call and conduct the conversation. Then we read through things they have written, formulate a list of questions we would like to ask, and send them this list ahead of time so they will know what we plan to talk about. For the interview itself, which takes place by speaker phone, we set up two tape recorders as insurance, in case one machine fails to work, and to make sure we don’t miss anything while changing tapes. Although we use our list of questions as a starting point for the conversation, we try to allow the conversation to develop as naturally as possible, coming back to the written questions as needed, modifying them, and asking follow-up questions along the way. Some of the most valuable insights we gain come from topics that we, and the interviewee as well, didn’t anticipate getting into. Each person we interview is different—some like to respond directly to the questions one by one, some need more prodding than others, and some need little prodding at all—all part of discovering the personalities behind the writers. Once the interview is completed, we transcribe the tapes into a written form and edit the transcript as needed. Since we are publishing the interview in the journal, and not using it for strict ethnographic research, we try to strike a balance in the editing process between readability (taking out “ums” and streamlining the syntax) and staying true to the actual conversation, which shouldn’t read like a typical journal article. We then send a draft to the person we interviewed and ask them to make any corrections or additions as they see fit before we publish the final draft. Some people offer significant revision suggestions, while others make few if any corrections at all. Our main concern is to accurately represent what the person had to say so that our readers can benefit fully from the conversation despite not having been present during the actual taping.

Designing Interviews and Formulating Questions While it may seem easy to sit down with someone, ask a bunch of questions, and record their answers, in fact, interviews require preparation and research. A successful interview depends upon the time you take beforehand to prepare. Questions that focus on getting your participants talking often lead to fuller responses. Two common interview questions include closed questions, referring to questions that garner a yes/no or a specific answer, and open-ended questions that allow interviewees to expand upon the prompt. Additional questions will surface through answers to open-ended questions.

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Closed Questions Closed questions are appropriate for gathering demographic and factual information, such as: What is your job title? How long have you worked for the organization? When was this community founded or chartered? All of these questions lead to factual responses, and once answered, the question is closed. Closed questions are commonly found in surveys, which we will discuss in the next chapter. Closed questions should be asked sparingly in interviews and as a way to ease into the interview, establish rapport, or as the final questions leading to a wrap up of the interview.

Open-Ended Questions Open-ended questions should make up the bulk of an interview. These questions usually warrant fuller responses, and they can’t be answered with yes/no or a simple response. They may also focus on hypothetical or action-orientated questions. Examples of openended questions include: “Tell me about a time that. . .,” “What do you think about. . .,” and “Talk about your experiences with. . . .” Questions should be clear and meaningful, allowing the participant to discuss personal experiences. As you listen to the interviewee, take notes or record the interview so that you may ask pertinent follow-up questions. Be an active listener and keep your interview participant talking and engaged. Here are a list of things to remember when preparing for your interview and writing your questions. • • • • • • • •

Let your preliminary research guide and inform your list of questions. Begin with a list of general questions followed by possible follow-up questions. Ask questions that generate discussion and conversation. Use yes and no questions minimally. Ask who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Make sure each of your prompts asks just one question. Ask for the type of response you want the participant to give. Be explicit and ask about your interviewee’s beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and attitudes. Ask specific questions about your topic. Use neutral language and do not make assumptions.

The following questions are designed to be used to interview a representative from the Student Construction Association on a college campus. The first set of questions focuses on factual information about the organization. These are examples of closed questions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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How would a member define the Construction Association (CA)? Who can be members of the CA? What are the officer positions and who holds them in the CA? What is the mission and purpose of the CA? What are the bylaws of the CA? When and where does the CA meet? What does it take to become a member of the CA?

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The second set of questions focuses on the interviewee’s experience as a member of the organization. These are sample open-ended questions. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Does being a member of the Construction Association provide you with opportunities to network with future employers? If so, what sorts of opportunities have you had? What kinds of activities and events does the CA sponsor for its members? What is your favorite part of being a member of the CA? What would you tell someone who was thinking of joining the CA?

This list of open and closed questions doesn’t necessarily account for everything you may want to know about the Student Construction Association on campus, but the answers to these questions could be used to describe the student organization and report on the members’ experiences and network opportunities. After interviewing a number of members, you may create a survey that allows you to gain even more perspectives on the benefits of joining this specific association and opportunities and experiences it provides.

Writing Exercise Creating Interview Questions As you design interview questions, remember to ask open-ended questions that invite your interviewees to give fleshed out responses in which they explore their memories and experiences. Here are some prompts to get you started writing interview questions: •

What do you think about. . .

•

Talk about your experiences with. . .

•

What are your experiences with. . .

•

How would you describe. . .

•

Why do you. . .

•

How do you feel about. . .

These prompts are appropriate for follow-up questions: •

When you referred to ______________, what did you mean?

•

What do you mean when you say ____________________?

•

Can you give me an example of___________________?

•

Can you tell me more about _____________________?

After completing a draft of your questions, ask a peer to review them to see if they are focused, concise, and understandable. Revise appropriately.

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Conducting Interviews Given relatively inexpensive and accessible technologies, interviewing is easier than ever. Possible venues for interviews include: face to face, phone, email, instant messaging, or video conferencing (e.g., Skype, GoogleHangout, or Facetime). Select a method of interviewing that best suits you and your interviewee’s geographical and technological needs. If you plan to conduct an interview via email, decide how you will ask follow-up questions after receiving answers to your original set of questions. Will you schedule a follow-up interview or send a second set of questions (via snail mail or email)? Once you have decided upon a method of interviewing (email, face to face, audio, or video), schedule the interview for a mutually agreed upon time. (Later, you will want to confirm this date and time with the interviewee.) If you are sharing the questions ahead of time, then confirm that the interviewee has received a copy of the questions in plenty of time to review them. If you plan to audio or video record the interview, decide how you will take notes—in longhand, on a computer, or perhaps using a handheld device. Always make sure your equipment works and has enough storage space. Check the batteries or charge level and bring cords. Take notes if you do not plan to audio or video record the interview; it is virtually impossible to remember everything said in an interview. You may not need to take notes if you are recording the interview to listen to or watch at another time. Afterwards, you will need to transcribe, or put into written form, the interview by listening to or watching the recording. You should always let your interviewee know ahead of time your plans for taking notes or recording interviews.

Listening One of the most important considerations in conducting an interview is your ability to engage and then listen carefully to your participant. Do not assume you already know the answers to your questions, and as you listen to your interviewee, formulate and jot down follow-up questions, if needed. You will want to remember the following points while you conduct your interview: • • • • • •

Don’t be afraid of silence. Give your participants time to answer, especially if they are hearing the questions for the first time. Listen closely to the participants’ responses and take notice of their body language. If they seem excited, then ask a follow-up question. Be willing to ask additional questions and depart from your planned list of questions. Take notes that will help you remember what was said. Don’t worry about getting every word down verbatim. Ask one question at a time. Take your time in asking the questions. Don’t rush through them.

In this chapter, we introduce two types of interviews: oral histories and informational or expert interviews. The interview format you decide to use depends upon your research questions or topic, but in both instances, be prepared to listen for key information that addresses your research questions.

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Types of Interviews There are two main types of interviews: oral histories and informational or expert interviews. The interview format you decide to use depends upon your research questions or topic.

Oral History Oral histories focus on past experiences and memories of the interviewee (see “Communities in Context” example on page 189). Much first-hand knowledge of what we know about historical periods and contexts often comes from oral history interviews. According to the Oral History Association (OHA), oral history refers to both the method of collecting specific information and the end product of that process (www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/ principles-and-practices/). Oral history interviewers ask open-ended questions that allow the interviewee time and space to reflect on past experiences, offer in-depth contemplative answers, and explore connections between the past and present. The interviewers keep a record of conversation (either through a video or audio recording), carefully preserving the interviewee’s opinions, stories, reflections, and memories. If you ever asked your parents about the day you were born or your first day of school, then you conducted an oral history interview. Likewise, asking a group of people about experiences such as working in manufacturing plants or living in occupational communities during a particular time period, say the 1960s, also constitutes oral history. All oral history projects hinge upon dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee as well as the permanent record created by the event, whether that record is a transcription or audio or video recording (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/what.html). While you will likely begin an oral history interview with a specific slate of questions, keep in mind that you may not get all your questions answered and may find yourself thinking of new questions to ask along the way. Oral histories resemble conversations, often focusing on the interviewee’s memories, past experiences, and reflections upon past events. Oral history interviews document information in a permanent record and can be used to corroborate, contradict, or elaborate upon traditional accounts of an event. Your specific research question or topic determines whether an oral history interview is appropriate for your project. For example, one student interested in her family’s past found an old bonnet in her grandmother’s things and generated a list of questions to ask her mother regarding the artifact. The interview began with a list of factual questions (when did her mother receive the bonnet from her grandmother, why she wore it, and who gave it to her) but quickly moved to a series of follow-up questions regarding the farming community where her mother lived as a small child.

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Reading Transcriptions of oral history interviews are by definition lengthy. You want to allow your interviewee time and space to ponder your questions and their experiences. In the process, interviewees sometimes move back and forth among questions, which makes it difficult to end up with a coherent transcript. In the following excerpt from a very lengthy oral history in which interviewees discuss the origins and outcomes of the production of Good Will Hunting, interviewer Janelle Nanos allows the cast and crew to talk freely about the movie experience, and then she groups their responses under appropriate headings. This interview was published in Boston Magazine, which is particularly fitting since the movie is set in Boston and reflects upon relationships between Southies (a working-class community) and Harvard students (to see the complete interview, with subheadings and photos, visit www.bostonmagazine.com/2013/01/good-will-hunting-oral-history/3/).

“Good Will Hunting: An Oral History” by Janelle Nanos Fifteen years after the release of the movie that made them stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck— along with the rest of the cast and crew—reflect in their own words on how a long-shot film by two unknowns became one of Hollywood’s biggest success stories. It’s hard to remember life without Matt and Ben. But there was a time—before Jason Bourne, before Bennifer, and, yes, before Gigli—when they were just two struggling actors from Cambridge. Then came their script about a bunch of kids from Southie scraping their way through life. The hook: One of them, Will Hunting, is a genius, a guy who wows MIT, humiliates Harvard grad students, and turns down job offers from the National Security Agency. Upon its wide release in January 1998, Good Will Hunting became a sleeper hit, eventually grossing $226 million worldwide and garnering nine Academy Award nominations. Robin Williams won the Oscar for best supporting actor, and Matt and Ben—who took their moms as dates to the ceremony—walked away with the award for best screenplay. Today, the movie is beloved from coast to coast, but nowhere more than right here in Boston. With its authentic, affectionate portrayal of the city and some of its rough-around-the-edges characters, the film—and its stars—won our hearts. A decade and a half later, Matt and Ben are bona fide stars, with more Oscars in their sights. This month, Damon and Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant will release their third movie together, Promised Land, which was cowritten by Damon. Affleck, meanwhile, recently directed and starred in Argo, his movie about the Iranian hostage crisis. Next up, the pair is planning to reunite and return to Boston to film a movie based on the life of Whitey Bulger—Damon will play the gangster, and Affleck will direct.

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Still: How did we get here? To find out, we spoke with Damon, Affleck, Williams, Van Sant, and many of the movie’s cast and crew members. How do you like them apples? Matt Damon: I was in my fifth year at Harvard, and I had a few electives left. There was this playwriting class and the culmination of it was to write a one-act play, and I just started writing a movie. So I handed the professor at the end of the semester a 40-some-odd-page document, and said, “Look, I might have failed your class, but it is the first act of something longer.” Anthony Kubiak (Damon’s professor at Harvard): The thing that they always say when you submit a script to an agent is that they read the first page and they read the middle, and they can tell if they want to continue. They can see whether you can capture the human voice and dialogue. And that was all over this work. It was very authentic and real. Damon: I was gonna be getting out of school in two or three months when I got a part in the movie Geronimo: An American Legend. I went out to Los Angeles and stayed with Ben. I slept on his floor. I brought my Act I of the Good Will Hunting script and gave it to him. Ben Affleck: Matt said, “Look, will you help me write this? I’m not sure what it is or where to go.” So we started writing it sort of back and forth. Damon: The only scene that survived from that document—it survived verbatim, actually—is the first time that I meet Robin [Williams]. Chris Moore (producer): We had been working on Glory Daze—that’s how I met Ben. And I always liked Matt, because we’d met in Cambridge. They said they had this script they’d been working on. So I said, “Sure, I’ll read the script.” Damon: It was the first thing we woke up thinking about and the last thing we thought about before going to bed. Affleck: We came up with this idea of the brilliant kid and his townie friends, where he was special and the government wanted to get their mitts on him. And it had a very Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run sensibility, where the kids from Boston were giving the NSA the slip all the time. We would improvise and drink like six or twelve beers or whatever and record it with a tape recorder. At the time we imagined the professor and the shrink would be Morgan Freeman and De Niro, so we’d do our imitations of Freeman and De Niro. It was kind of hopelessly naive and probably really embarrassing in that respect. Moore: They wrote a great script, and I read it and was like, “This is one of the best scripts I have ever read, and I would love to produce it.” The three of us agreed we would try to get it made. The script was completed in 1994, at which point Damon and Affleck approached their agent, who started shopping it around. Patrick Whitesell (agent): Matt had talked about the script he was writing with Ben. Usually when you get a script from actors you don’t have high expectations. Damon: I didn’t realize the stereotype at the time was that every actor has a screenplay.

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Whitesell: I read it over the weekend and I was blown away. It’s almost an impossible thing to get a movie made that is written by two actors who want to star in it, when no one knows who they are. The only time it happened that I know of was when Sylvester Stallone did it in Rocky. Damon: Nobody knew us. They knew we’d worked. We had résumés with movies on them. I think Ben had done Dazed and Confused and we’d both done School Ties, so we had these résumés that had some professional work on them. Whitesell: I went out with it on the weekend to every studio in town and we said, “Here are these guys, and they have to star in it.” Damon: We never cared about money—we wanted to be in the movie. That was our only thing. That was our big ask. Source: “Good Will Hunting: An Oral History” by Janelle Nanos. First Published in Boston magazine, January 2013.Copyright © 2013 Metro Corp. Reproduced with permission.

After Reading

Q

Practicing Your Interviewing Skills 1.

Practice your interviewing skills by talking with someone from your hometown or a group to which you belong. Ask open-ended, retrospective questions about life in that community in order to gain an insider’s perspective on that community.

2.

In what ways does the information you learn from the interviewee match or differ from your own experiences?

3.

As you write up the interview, how might you restructure the questions into headings to help the reader get a focused picture of the interviewee’s responses?

The American Folklife Center website (www.loc.gov/folklife/familyfolklife/AFCexamples. html), sponsored by the Library of Congress, lists a number of interesting oral history projects specific to local communities, including: •

•

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StoryCorps, an ongoing nationwide oral history project devoted to recording interviews between family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues. The 40-minute interviews usually are recorded in state-of-the-art recording booths. Some are in permanent locations, and others in modified Airstream trailer facilities that travel around the United States. American Folklife Center’s Veterans History Project (VHP), mandated by the United States Congress in 2000, an effort dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making accessible the recorded reminiscences of American war veterans. VHP relies on volunteer interviewers to record veterans, compile associated information on them, and submit it to VHP according to its guidelines.

INTERVIEWS

•

•

•

Mary Sheppard Burton Collection, acquired by the American Folklife Center in March 2006. The centerpiece of the collection is a set of twelve beautiful hooked rugs made by Maryland artist Mary Sheppard Burton. The rugs comprise a series entitled Tell Me ’Bout, and each rug relates a personal narrative about the Burton family. Omaha Indian Music, a collection of photographs and sound recordings featuring the traditional Omaha music from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, the 1985 Hethu’shka Society concert at the Library of Congress, and the wax cylinder recordings of Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher made 1895–97. In addition to the repatriation of the Omaha music recordings, there was a separate gift of Omaha genealogies from Paul Brill, a non-Omaha who had some knowledge of Omaha language and had formerly worked with historical documentation at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He used his understanding of Omaha language and culture to compile the genealogies and made gifts of his research to the participating families at the Powwow. Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945–82, documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community with a focus on the family-run Ninety-Six Ranch. Although the focus of the collection is on the occupational lore of ranching, images of family life are included. The material was collected as part of the Paradise Valley Folklife Project conducted by American Folklife Center from 1978 to 1982.

Communities in Context StoryCorps—Every Voice Matters This unconventional online community provides a wealth of information for professional and novice researchers alike. Information from the website describes this community thusly: StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 40,000 interviews from nearly 80,000 participants. Each conversation

Website for StoryCorps.

is recorded on a free CD to share, and is pre-

Source: http://storycorps.org/

served at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition. We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening, and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters. At the same time, we will create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations.

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Questions for Analysis

Q

Visit the site to address the questions below: 1.

You can read above the stated goals of the non-profit organizers of StoryCorps, but what do think might be the shared goals of the community members who contribute stories to this site?

2.

The website states that “the interview session is at the heart of StoryCorps. We treat participants with the utmost respect, care, and dignity.” How does this focus on interviewing further both the stated and the implied missions of this group?

3.

Visitors to the site are asked to make an appointment to record their stories and invited to take a look ahead of time at the interview questions. How does this bank of questions serve to unify the interviews? (http://storycorps.org/record-your-story/ question-generator/)

4.

StoryCorps serves local professional and familial communities by providing a service: “Our on-site recording services are customizable to suit your goals. Hosting StoryCorps—for a special event or as part of a long-term project—is an opportunity to share and preserve the stories of your organization and the community you serve.” How does this service expand the online StoryCorps community presence? (http://storycorps.org/bring-storycorps-to-your-organization/)

Informational or Expert Interviews In informational/expert interviews, you gain primary information by asking questions of someone “in the know” about your topic. These interviews yield a wealth of information addressing specific research questions. Consider interviewing a politician, a leader from a local community, or a representative from an organization to get first-hand information and insights about your subject. For example, informational interviews can help students and professionals alike learn more about specific professions and job responsibilities. Throughout the chapters of this text, we have included profiles of professionals working in a variety of careers, in which we conducted mini-interviews with people who both conduct primary research and write up their findings as part of their job descriptions. Perhaps you are interested in the field of nursing, or accounting, or biomedical engineering, or graphic design. One way to learn about occupations in these fields is through reading or conducting informational interviews with people who currently hold those positions.

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Invention Exercise Contexts for Interviews Can you think of specific communities, situations, positions, careers, and jobs where interviewing is an important way to gain information? Take some time to jot down scenarios where interviewing serves as a viable research tool. Specify in these cases which type of interview is more appropriate, conducting an oral history interview or speaking with an expert to gain answers to specific questions.

Reading In the following excerpt from an informational interview with an expert, published in Ability Magazine, interviewer Chet Cooper incorporates several quotes from Panasonic employees and introduces the CEO of Panasonic before providing a transcription of his interview with the CEO. As you read, make note of the different types of questions the editor asks. What do you think is the overall goal of this published piece?

“Business is People” by Chet Cooper Now carrying the torch set ablaze by Matsushita is Panasonic’s current CEO, Don Iwatani. Chet Cooper, ABILITY Magazine’s editor-in-chief, recently interviewed Iwatani to discuss the future of Panasonic.

Business is People Although he is no longer with us in body, the spirit of Panasonic’s founder Konosuke Matsushita lives on in his principles, which are widely respected within the company and around the world. Born November 27, 1894, in a small village near Osaka, Japan, Matsushita was the youngest of eight children and enjoyed a comfortable early childhood. His fortunes changed when his father lost property, and at the age of nine and he was forced to venture alone to take a job in the big city. A few years later when Matsushita was considering leaving an apprenticeship at a bicycle shop to pursue an education, his father gave him the advice that would shape the course of his future: “The skills you are learning will ensure your future. Succeed as an entrepreneur, and you can hire people who have an education.”

The author engages in epideictic rhetoric in introducing Mr. Matsushita. As discussed in Chapter 9, occasions for epideictic communication include eulogies and praise for accomplishments.

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In the belief that electricity would become the wave of the future, Matsushita followed his The author blends an account of Mr. Matsushita’s biographical information with his technological accomplishments, demonstrating how cultural context and local circumstances sometimes give rise to invention.

instincts and applied for a job at the Osaka Electric Light Company. Remembering his father’s advice about the advantages of being an entrepreneur, he left the security of his well-paid job in 1917 to set up his own small manufacturing company. Producing an improved electrical socket he had designed and built in his spare time, he quickly earned the company a reputation for high quality at low prices. During a visit to a popular Shinto shrine, Matsushita was struck by the complementary roles religion and business can play in life. Shortly after his return he made an announcement that was to guide the company for decades to come, “Our mission as a manufacturer is to create material abundance by providing goods as plentifully and inexpensively as tap water. This

Including a quote from Mr. Matsushita reinforces claims about his character and ethos.

is how we can banish poverty, bring happiness to people’s lives, and make this world a better place.” “Business is people,” was one of his favorite sayings. Matsushita’s work embodied this ideology and he quickly won the support of his employees by making it clear that he placed a high priority on their interests. Today Panasonic still embraces the principles from Matsushita and is turning their focus toward bettering life for people with disabilities by addressing accessibility issues in many of their product lines. “One of the unique aspects of our copiers is that Panasonic was the first and remains one of the few companies to offer copiers that are accessible to wheelchair users,” notes

Here, a quote from an interview with an employee illustrates contemporary and global uses of Mr. Matsushita’s inventive technologies.

Paul Wharton, National Marketing Manager for Panasonic Document Imaging Company. Eugene Seagriff, Product Accessibility Manager, Panasonic Technologies, Inc. adds, “This year we have two phones featuring our new Voice Enhancer technology. The phone line only transmits frequencies from about 300 to 3000 Hz. Actual speech has a much wider frequency range. Voice Enhancer artificially recreates the full speech frequency range from the incoming signal, making the incoming caller’s speech easier to understand. Next year Voice Enhancer will be on a wide variety of Panasonic phones.”

The excerpt from an interview with a company administrator denotes Panasonic’s collaboration with outside corporations and suggests a broader sphere of Panasonic’s influence.

With a multitude of resources available, Panasonic turns to outside organizations to consult on accessibility issues. “The relationships that our corporate outreach program has established with WGBH’s National Center for Accessible Media at Gallaudet University have provided the added benefit of informed input on product features and direction,” comments Bill Rooney, Director, External Affairs of Panasonic Consumer Electronics. In discussing the product of one such relationship, Debra Sachs, Director of Marketing Operations, Panasonic Digital Communications and Security Company, Wireless Communications Group, outlines the features of the Allure cell phone, “This cell phone is an excellent example

Rather than listing the features of the phone, the author chooses to share that information through a quote. Is this an effective strategy? Why or why not?

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of the results of our Universal Design philosophy. For example, it was the first TTY compatible cellular phone on the market. It has a variety of visual and audible ringers, Voice Activated Dialing and commands; it allows user control of backlight color and contrast, has illuminated buttons with high-contrast labels, nibs on the 5 and Send keys, a built-in speakerphone and many other features which will benefit people with a variety of abilities and in various situations.”

INTERVIEWS

“Adopting a Universal Design approach fits well within our founder’s philosophy of providing service to the public and contributing to society. We don’t intend to become an assistive technology company, but we do want our mainstream products to be inherently usable by as many people as possible. Internally, we have codified a number of design elements and are incorporating them in many products. This helps us to continuously improve our accessibility—continuous improvement being another principle of our founder,” said Seagriff.

The author provides no conclusion or transition to the interview transcription. Why?

Interview with Panasonic’s CEO Don Iwatani Chet Cooper: How long have you been with Panasonic? Don Iwatani: I’ve been with Panasonic nearly 35 years and in the United States for about 25 years. CC: Where did you start in the company?

The author opens with background questions of fact.

DI: I began at the corporate headquarters in Osaka, Japan, and then I was sent to the states for a unique overseas training program. I worked my way through various assignments including positions in the warehouse, accounting, credit, the order department and eventually became the executive director’s assistant. After one year of office work I was transferred to the field and worked with the field representative for the sales portion of my training. I helped to both increase the sales volume at existing accounts and establish new accounts. That program lasted two years and then I returned to Japan. I traveled between Japan and the U.S. until about 14 years ago when I was assigned to the Baltimore Sales Office. When I went to Los Angeles, I became president of West Coast operations and then transferred to New Jersey as the COO, head of the consumer group. Three years ago I became CEO and Chairman of Panasonic in the USA and South America. That’s a very brief overview of my career. CC: Where did you attend college? DI: I went to a private college in Tokyo, named Medde Guokin, for a business degree in economics. CC: What has been your biggest challenge as CEO? DI: I became CEO at a challenging time. As you know, the Japanese economy had been stressed for almost five years. Then as I became CEO, the U.S. economy had also come upon trying times. The electronics and communication industries of Japan and the U.S. are interdependent. As a new CEO, my challenges were very broad and difficult because I was not only concerned

The questions move quickly from background information to questions about Mr. Iwatani’s career.

with selling the products, but improving the organization and efficiency of all levels of jobs in every department throughout the divisions under my direction. These are my challenges. CC: How is Panasonic approaching the concept of Universal Design? DI: The first order of our company philosophy is to design products for comfortable, intuitive use by everybody. This means tall, short, sitting, standing, in the dark or light, for the traveling road

The interviewer does not explain what this term means. Why?

warrior, for everyone at work or at play. We are determined to find a way to accommodate the physical challenges that humans face, such as those who use wheel chairs, have visual impairments or other disabilities. We are including consistent ease of use in our new designs as well as updating our existing product lines.

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CC: Is it then Panasonic’s brand strategy to incorporate the Universal Design concept into all products being developed? DI: Yes, it’s an integral part of our brand strategy; we are developing products for everyone. Our company philosophy comes from Konosuke Matsushita, our founder, who had the equivalent of only a third grade education. He started to work at a very young age and had many physical problems. I can say very simply his philosophy was, “Love the people.” He cared for all people, not only customers. Perhaps his poor health made him more aware of those with disabilities. He was physically very weak and his health created limitations within his own personal activities. The Panasonic tradition that he created was to always consider the ability of every person. This philosophy permeates our corporate culture like an unwritten tradition. He gave no specific verbal or written directive regarding this, but he cared for everyone. He was the example that still affects the tradition and culture of our company. Do you think the interviewer knows the answer to some of the questions he poses?

CC: Has Panasonic designed any technologies that accommodate a specific disability? DI: There are several. One of them is a cordless telephone we call Voice in Concert Technology. It is designed to enhance audio frequencies and deliver a clearer voice transmission than a regular telephone. Every customer benefits from this enhancement, especially people who are hard of hearing. We also have a cell phone with very unique features including a range of six color display selections. This feature is for people who have difficulty seeing the black and white display. Color can be selected to identify incoming calls. For instance, you can program all your family in the bright orange. This allows a person to quickly identify if they wish to interrupt their activity to take the incoming call. We are also developing a new copier machine. Recently we introduced a very nice, office-use copier and multifunction printer. It is designed to accommodate people who are shorter and those in wheelchairs by offering both top and front command panels. Everyone appreciates features that increase usability because these kinds of enhancements also make people more productive. We intend to improve every item

This question serves as a companion to the previous question.

for universal use, which naturally includes people with disabilities. CC: As voice technology is becoming more widely available in various products, what is the status for incorporating that technology into a copier? DI: We are exploring that direction for the future.

This last question becomes a sort of advertisement for the company.

CC: How many products does Panasonic manufacture? DI: There are about 10,000 different models which include things like the variety of battery sizes from D through AAA, clocks, radios, personal care items, and computer peripherals. The actual number of products is about half of that, including products like: telephones, DVDs, televisions and a wide array of accessories. Source: “Business is People” by Chet Cooper, published in ABILITY Magazine, http://abilitymagazine.com/panasonic_interview.html

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After Reading 1.

Q

Who do you think is the target audience for this profile? Take into consideration the journal in which this piece is published.

2.

What is the result of the string of quotations that appear prior to the transcribed interview? How do you respond to this list as a reader?

3.

Do you find yourself needing more analyses and transitions among the quoted excerpts or do the stand-alone quotes accomplish the goal of the author? Is there a need for a conclusion before the transcribed interview? Why or why not?

4.

Do you think Mr. Iwatani received this list of questions in writing or was asked in an oral interview? Explain your answer.

5.

Did you find yourself wanting follow-up questions to the ones posed to Mr. Iwatani? What additional information did you want to know about? Suggest some follow-up questions that the interviewer might have posed.

Writing Exercise Oral History or Interview Analysis Use the resources at the end of the chapter to find a written or digital interview or oral history to analyze. 1.

Read, listen to, or watch the piece.

2.

Using the following prompts, analyze the interview/oral history you chose. Observe—Was this interview/oral history a video or audio recording or a written transcript? How does the medium of the interview influence the types of questions asked and the nature of the responses? Question—For what purpose was this interview or oral history conducted? What information does the researcher learn from the interviewee? What organization or group of individuals will find this interview to be significant? Reflect—What did you learn from the interview/oral history? What additional questions do you have for either the person conducting the interview or the person being interviewed? Are there areas about which you want to know more?

3.

Draw conclusions about the interview/oral history based on your close reading/viewing.

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Research Ethics Anytime you consider asking people to participate in your research, you need to consider three important tenets of research ethics: 1) respect others by obtaining consent or permission, 2) minimize any potential risks, and 3) maximize the potential benefit to the person or society participating in your research. Research ethics helps to make sure that any potential risks to research participants are minimized, but if there is some risk, then the benefit to the person or society should be higher. For example, medical research involving people with cancer can be quite risky, but the potential benefit to society and the individual often balances the risk. Minimizing the risk to the participant is expected in medical research. For the research and writing you will be doing in this class, make sure that if you are asking someone sensitive questions (pertaining to illegal activities, for example), then you have a process for making sure their answers are kept anonymous and their research records are confidential. One potential risk in interviews involves breach of confidentiality, which could harm the participant’s reputation or jeopardize their job standing, especially if illegal behavior is reported on an audio tape or video. Maximizing the benefit to the participant and local communities involves contributing information to a given situation or adding knowledge to existing bodies of research. In an ideal research situation, a benefit for individuals is also a benefit to society. You should always let your interviewees know why you would like to conduct an interview with them and specifically how you plan to use the information they give you. If you are audio or video recording the interview, obtain the interviewee’s permission to do so. You may elect to share the transcription or your notes with your participant after the interview to be sure you accurately represented information. You also need to let your participants know how you plan to store or possibly disseminate the audio or video recording and when (or if) it will be destroyed. Oral histories are usually cataloged and stored indefinitely to provide a historical record of interviews. Other recorded interview data is often destroyed or deleted after it is transcribed; the written document serves in its stead. At some universities, depending on the exact purpose of the interviews—whether to gather information for a school project or to conduct a systematic research study—you may have to submit your research to an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval. Institutional Review Boards, committees at your university that review all research that is conducted by students and faculty, closely examine and critique research proposals that involve recruiting human participants. IRBs were created in response to historical cases where participants were involved in research studies without their consent. In extreme cases, patients were part of experimental research (even injected with viruses or toxins) when they thought they were receiving treatment. In making sure these unethical research practices don’t happen, IRBs help protect those who participate in research. Your instructor will be able to guide and advise you about seeking IRB approval depending on the research projects you are conducting for your class.

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Writing Exercise Writing a Profile The following exercise, from a composition classroom, involves interviewing someone in the food or health related fields, but can be adapted for interviews in another industry or setting. 1.

Choose someone who works in the food- or health-related fields to interview. The person you choose is up to you, but it is a good idea to select someone who intrigues you: a chef, a baker, a restaurant manager, a doctor, a yoga instructor, a personal trainer, your local bike shop owner, a farmer—the choice of potential participants is endless, but you are not allowed to interview friends or family members.

2.

“Shadow” and observe your participant in addition to conducting a sit-down interview. For example, watching a baker knead dough or design a wedding cake would allow you to better understand and characterize your participant. This observation may also generate a number of questions you want to ask. Also consider interviewing your participant’s friends, family, or coworkers, which will provide you and your readers with a greater perspective about the background or work of your participant.

3.

Formulate a set of questions that address the person’s training, experiences, and what you know and don’t know about the person’s field.

4.

Conduct the interview.

5.

After you have interviewed your participant, look for what makes the person unique. What, overall, do you want to say about this person? What is his or her story? This will become your “hook” and the focus for this writing exercise.

6.

Choose and arrange details from the person’s background, from your interview(s) with the person, using direct quotations, and from your observations of him or her in order to develop a written profile for this person that presents a focused view.

The following student sample models this task for you. This student essay includes details from interviews that the student conducted. Like incorporating other research into your writing, which we discussed in Chapter 4, you can summarize, paraphrase, or directly quote from interviews.

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Student Writing “Profile Assignment” by Samuel Martin Samuel opens this profile with a direct quote from the interview.

The opening quote precedes introduction of the subject of the profile.

Samuel contrasts traditional farming practices with contemporary ones. Samuel implies that Dwight might be part of a dying breed. Samuel gives us a contrast between Dwight’s way of life and our own.

The quote supports Samuel’s prior characterization of Dwight. This paraphrase from Dwight’s interview responses establishes Dwight’s character.

Again, a quote from Dwight supports the author’s claim.

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“It starts at five am every day, that’s when I’ve woken up for the past forty years,” he said (Interview). Sun up to sundown is the life of a rancher; there is never a break and there is always work to be done. The work is hard; the days are long and monotonous, but every once in a while there’s some excitement. However, the gist of the job remains the same: herd the cows to a new feeding ground, and make sure to recover any cows that have wandered off. This is the life of Dwight Eckert, born in 1953 to a family in southwest Texas. He now owns the family ranch and lives day to day making his living on the land. Currently he runs just over 1000 cattle on his 2500 acres of land just outside Mason, Texas. As early as 1690, ranchers settled in Texas and lived off the land, raising livestock of all types, including goats, cows, horse, etc. The old practice of ranching involved herding cattle to different grazing grounds to feed and sending off the mature slaughter-ready cattle to New Orleans to be sold around the country and Europe. Today, many ranchers buy farm-raised crops to feed their cattle to moderate the animals’ diets and inject hormones to make the cows bigger and improve profits. Today most of the cattle in Texas come from large ranches that run longhorn cows. The cattle that Dwight runs are not longhorn, and he is one of the few remaining non-company owned cattle ranchers. In Texas, there are more than 185,000 farms spanning 130 million acres. In mountain country Texas, the land is dry, and there is very little water. The fauna survive off small grasses and shrubs. There are no large pastures of grass and no abundance of food and water. Life out in this part of the country is tough, but families like the Eckerts have lived here for hundreds of years scraping an existence from the land so that people like us can happily have our food in the cities. A day in the life of a rancher begins with a hearty breakfast full of calories and carbohydrates to provide energy for a long day ahead. After the bountiful meal, Dwight heads out onto the ranch to begin what he has done every day since he was old enough to work, ranch: “I start by jumping in my truck and heading out around the ranch to survey the fences. If I see a place where the fence has been tampered with or broken down, then I know I have a cow on the loose and need to go retrieve it” (Interview). Cows don’t normally travel very far, but they can make it upwards of a mile in one night. They need to be retrieved so that they are not killed by feral animals or stolen by neighbors. Cattle are marked with a brand that identifies who they belong to. This is how Dwight knows he has his own rather than someone else’s; however, Dwight tells me that he knows almost every cow he owns and could identify them at an auction if need be. Ranchers are funny people, they have very little contact with the world we know; they don’t use commodities such as television and air-conditioning (to this day, Dwight still has no air conditioner in his house), but when it comes to their property, they know what’s theirs and are willing to protect it with their lives. Dwight told of one cow that every other day broke through the fence and traveled way far away: “Turns out one day, I found that steer in my neighbors land and that cow had found one of the nicest little utopia’s in the barren ground of west Texas. The area was green with grass and had a large pond” (Interview). Water reservoirs are few and far between.

INTERVIEWS

After all cows are accounted for, the next task is to fix the fence. Down in southwest Texas, that means going and finding a tree branch that feels sturdy enough to stick in the ground and wrap the barbwire back around. If times are good financially, then Dwight might go to the market and purchase some steel rods to make the fence. In recent years with technological advances, many people have been purchasing deer fences to keep them in for hunting season. By mid day, Dwight’s been at work for seven hours and is ready to head back and have lunch: “Normally when I come home for lunch, my wife has cooked me up a feast, but in the latter days I’ve had to settle down for a sandwich” (Interview). Occasionally, he would take a nap in the afternoon if the day was exceptionally hot, but for the most part he would head back out to work on the general dilapidation of the ranch. He works on the barn or his house fixing things that have deteriorated over the years. He heads to the store to pick up cattle feed and supplies for hunting season. There are twenty feeders on the ranch that feed the deer to keep them around for hunting season. That is one of the ways he supplements his income, by providing a place for hunters to come down and shoot deer every year. Depending on what he has done for the day and what kind of excitement has come his way, Dwight will head down to the market to find some buyers for his cattle. “Depending on the year and several environmental factors, my cows can sell for between 700 and 3500 dollars” (Interview). Weight, age, and quality of livestock are all factors that contribute to the price of a cow and they are graded on these factors in order to find a price. In one particular year, Dwight might sell upwards of 300 cattle to be shipped off and slaughtered for consumption in restaurants and homes around the country. After a long day’s work, Dwight will make his way back home, eat a small supper, and work on fixing his truck or tractor or other similar tasks before winding down for the day. “Every night before dinner, I write down what I’ve done that day and what needs to be attended to the next so that when I wake up I have a direction to go and so nothing slips through the cracks on the ranch.” This is the life of a rancher. Long days, hard work, low pay, but the satisfaction comes from knowing at the end of the day, what work you have done has been to protect your cattle so that people all around the country have a good supply of beef year-round.

Questions for Analysis 1.

A summary of a day in the life of Dwight serves to illustrate typical life in a local ranching community.

A claim is again illustrated by a quote.

Samuel, the author, implies that traditional ranching no longer provides an adequate income.

Samuel alters quotes from the interview with summary and paraphrase to keep readers engaged in this narrative profile.

The final sentence offers a big picture of the life of a traditional rancher working in a small Texas community. This sentence summarizes the knowledge gained in the interview.

Q

How does the interview with Dwight Eckhert animate the job description of a rancher? Do you think this piece needs a title and introduction or does the opening quote from Dwight set the tone sufficiently?

2.

In what ways does the interview with Mr. Eckhert reveal as much about a local community and cultural landscape as it does about a profession?

3.

What questions do you want answered or additional information would you like to know about the life of a rancher?

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CHAPTER SUMMARY In this chapter, we discussed interviewing participants as part of your research and writing and defined the following interview types: • •

oral histories structured or semi-structured interviews with experts.

You read, listened, or watched oral histories and interviews in order to become familiar with questioning strategies from a variety of disciplines. You analyzed and reflected on an interview/oral history, created a set of interview questions, considered ethical issues, and learned how to take notes, and record and transcribe an interview. In the next chapter, we introduce another primary research tool: surveying. By polling interested parties and gathering opinions of a representative sample of people involved with your topic, you can better ascertain opinions and then make stronger claims.

Interview/Oral History Digital Resources • • • • •

• • •

American Folklife Center Story Corps American Life Histories, Manuscripts from the Federal Writer’s Project, 1936–1940 Oral Histories at the Niels Bohr Library & Archives IEEE History Center Oral Histories, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. May 4 Collection, Kent State University Baylor’s Living Stories Archive of American Television (Interviews)

www.loc.gov/folklife/index.html http://storycorps.org/listen/ http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/ wpahome.html www.aip.org/history/nbl/oralhistory.html www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_ center/oral_history/oral_history.html www.library.kent.edu/page/11247 www.baylor.edu/livingstories/index. php?id=82401 www.emmytvlegends.org/

Further Reading “Making Sense of Oral History” by Linda Shopes, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/ “Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History” by Judith Moyer, http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html “Oral History Association Principles and Best Practices,” www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/ principles-and-practices/ “The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide” by Marjorie Hunt, www.folklife. si.edu/education_exhibits/resources/guide/introduction.aspx Place, Writing, and Voice in Oral History by Shelley Trower. Palgrave, 2011. Oral History and Photography edited by Alexander Freund and Alistair Thomson. Palgrave, 2011.

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8

Researching Beliefs, Opinions, and Attitudes

Researchers from across the disciplines use surveys to collect information first hand from respondents. If you have given your opinion to market researchers or filled out a questionnaire about products or services in a shopping mall or online, then you have participated in a survey. Researchers conduct surveys through multiple venues—online, in print, or on the telephone. In this chapter, we provide examples from a variety of fields to illustrate how survey research works across the disciplines. We offer opportunities first to read, complete, and analyze surveys and then to design and administer a survey that helps you answer one of your research questions or generate information about a particular artifact, community, or problem that you are investigating. As you work through this chapter, recall past topics and research questions you have investigated and consider how surveys might help you generate additional useful information related to those topics.

Generating Research Through Surveys Surveys are one of the only research tools that allow researchers to collect information from a large, representative group of people, although interviews and focus groups can target specific groups in unique situations. For example, a student researching user-friendly and sustainable technologies for delivering courses in online environments needs to survey a large number of distance education students in order to draw comprehensive conclusions. Surveys are also useful when researchers want to gain local, current, and specific information. For example, city governments may want to distribute surveys to discover why people choose to live in a specific neighborhood or what improvements citizens would like to see in the area. Researchers in public health often survey people who visit city health departments for medical care to ascertain demographic information about patients, discover ways to improve care, or how to improve the facility. In general, surveys are a useful tool when the information you are seeking cannot be obtained from archival research or when the researcher needs information from a larger sample than interviews or focus groups provide.

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Reading Depending on the questions, survey results allow researchers to report data in quantifiable terms and percentages. For example, the following brief article from Computer World discusses findings from a survey administered to Company Information Officers (CIOs).

“Survey: Instant Messaging will Surpass Email” by Mitch Betts Many CIOs predict that real-time communication technologies, such as instant messaging, SharePoint, Chatter and Yammer, will overtake classic email in the workplace in the next five years. That’s the conclusion of a Robert Half Technology survey of more than 1,400 CIOs at U.S. companies with more than 100 employees. The survey was released last month. More than half (54%) of the CIOs polled said real-time workplace communication tools will surpass traditional email in popularity within five years. The prediction was a bit lukewarm, however: 13% of the respondents said real-time messages will be “much more popular” than email, The results of the survey help make the point that CIOs need to pay attention to “real-time tools” in the workplace.

while 41% said they’ll be “somewhat more popular.” Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm, said a transition to real-time tools could yield workplace benefits, potentially making it easier to work as a team, solve problems, share ideas and manage documents. “Employers are looking for the right people to deploy these tools in new ways to increase efficiency,” said John Reed, executive director of Robert Half Technology, in a statement. “IT professionals should consider the importance of keeping current with real-time technologies in order to stay competitive in the job market.”

Types of Surveys Certainly not all research questions require surveying interested parties, but if your investigation focuses on community members’ beliefs, opinions, attitudes, practices, or behaviors, then a survey can serve as an important primary research tool. Below, we discuss several types of surveys used in a wide variety of fields. As you read about various survey types and purposes, think about ways in which you can incorporate a survey into your research project. What questions do you have about an artifact, community, or issue that can be answered by surveying a group of participants?

Evaluation/Assessment Surveys Evaluation and assessment surveys collect user opinions about products, services, programs, or events. Typically found in education, music, arts, business, and community service research, evaluation and assessment surveys include a series of questions asking participants

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to note their satisfaction level; survey responses then help companies determine ways to improve their products and services.

Attitude/Belief/Behavior Surveys Political science, psychology, sociology, and other social science fields design attitude/ belief/behavior surveys to collect respondents’ perceptions, opinions, and attitudes on a wide variety of topics. The sample questions in Figure 8.1 are from a personality test and ask respondents to rate how they feel according to a five-point scale that ranges from 1, quite often, to 5, almost never. Quite Often

Often

Sometimes

Rarely

1

2

3

4

Almost Never 5

1. I am late for class. 2. I work out at least 3 times a week. 3. I speak up if someone makes a sexist or racist comment. 4. I spend time worrying. 5. I wait until the last minute to do things. 6. I tell my close friends how I feel if I have a bad day.

Figure 8.1 Sample questions asking about specific behaviors and how often they are conducted.

3) The following questions are about activities you might do during a typical day. Does your health now limit you in these activities? If so, how much? Yes, limited a lot

Yes, limited a little

No, not limited at all

a. Vigorous Activities, such as running, lifting heavy objects, participating in strenuous sports b. Moderate Activities, such as moving a table, pushing a vacuum cleaner, bowling, or playing golf c. Lifting or carrying groceries d. Climbing several flights of stairs e. Climbing one flight of stairs f. Bending, kneeling, or stooping g. Walking more than a mile h. Walking several hundred yards i. Walking one hundred yards j. Bathing or dressing yourself

Figure 8.2 An example of a quality of life survey designed to uncover how much physical activity a person gets. Source: qualitymetric.com

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Quality of Life Surveys Clinical research, public health, nursing, and other health fields design quality of life surveys to collect data related to the respondents’ physical, mental, and emotional health. Figure 8.2 is an example from a common health quality of life survey that asks how a person’s health limits their everyday activities. Notice that responses are limited to only three choices.

The following is a quick survey about [Product X]. Please answer clearly and honestly. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! 1. In the past week, how many [Product X] advertisements have you seen? 0 1 2 3 4 or more 2. Where have you seen advertisements for [Product X]? Newspaper Magazine TV Internet Other (Please Specify)

3. What stuck out to you the most about the ads for [Product X]? What did you like or dislike about them?

4. Please choose how much you agree or disagree with the following statements about [Product X]: Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Undecided

Agree

Strongly Agree

Advertisements are interesting Claims in advertisements are believe-able Advertisements clearly show what is being offered I plan to buy [Product X] in the future

Exit

Next

Figure 8.3 An example of a marketing research survey designed to evaluate how a product is used by consumers. Source: www.surveyexpression.com

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Marketing Research Surveys Marketing research surveys, common in the fields of business, advertising, and social media, gather information associated with selling a product. Figure 8.3 shows sample questions from an advertising marketing survey. Notice how the questions and answers are designed to elicit specific feedback about the products and how they are used.

Usability/User-testing Surveys Industries interested in technical writing, computer science, software development, and webpage design create usability surveys to collect information about how people use websites, software, and other technologies. Figure 8.4 shows an example of a usability survey that was designed to test the effectiveness of a website. Notice how the left-hand column contains statements about the website. Respondents evaluate, using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) each of the statements.

Strongly Disagree 1

2

3

4

Strongly Agree 1

This website is easy to use. It is easy to navigate within the website. I enjoy using the website. I feel comfortable purchasing from this website. I am able to find what I need quickly on this website. I can count on the information I get on this website. I found the website to be attractive. I feel confident conducting business with this website. The website has a clean and simple presentation. The information on this website is valuable. This website keeps the promises it makes to me. I will likely return to this website in the future. Figure 8.4 An example of a usability survey designed to test the effectiveness of a website. Source: www.measuringusability.com/Jeff Sauro

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Writing Exercise Analyzing a Survey The following exercise asks you to choose and analyze a questionnaire or survey in order to learn more about the components of this research tool. 1.

2.

Using one of the websites below, select a survey to analyze. •

National Opinion Research Center (www.norc.org/)

•

The Gallup Poll (www.gallup.com/)

•

Pew Research Center (http://pewresearch.org/about/projects/)

What is the purpose of the survey you chose? What do you think the questionnaire writer hopes to learn from the data collected?

3.

Who is the target population for this survey? How many people participated or potentially will participate in this survey? Is the survey intended for online, print, or phone distribution?

4.

What kind of information is the survey designed to collect? Is the survey interested in assessing opinions, behaviors, practices, attitudes, or beliefs? Evaluate and assess the effectiveness of the questions.

5.

Describe the questions and prompts. Determine if they are closed ended or open ended (as discussed in Chapter 7), and speculate why the instrument creator chooses these specific questions. Make note of any rating scales and/or modifiers (e.g., agree, somewhat agree, no opinion, somewhat disagree, and disagree). Is the scale comprehensive, effective for gaining useful information? What changes would you make to the scale?

Communities in Context Research Access The Research Access website provides resources for business, marketing, and research professionals. This community includes how-to articles, presentation recaps, book reviews, and interviews by contributing authors who all share an interest in research practices. This online space brings together people with shared interests

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for research practices as well as people interested in technologies that provide tools for researchers. Visit the website http://researchaccess.com to answer the questions below.

The ResearchAccess.com website. Source: Researchscape International, http://researchaccess.com

Questions for Analysis 1.

Q

What community-building purpose do you think the “popular posts” that appears at the bottom-right of the Research Access home page serves?

2.

How do you think the Research Access website determined the needs of interested parties (listed at tabs at the top of each screen page) and keeps the information updated for site visitors?

3.

Compare and contrast the different articles written by members of the Research Access virtual community given what you learned about the various writers who contribute to the website.

Writing and Designing Surveys Writing and designing questions for surveys echoes the process for creating interview questions, except in survey design, the researcher does not have an opportunity to ask for any clarification of respondents’ answers. As a result, survey questions are short and concise so respondents can easily interpret and understand the prompt. Although most surveys include both open- and closed-ended questions, the majority of questions are closed-ended, asking for demographic information or providing a series of questions asking respondents to use a rating scale. Researchers who survey very large

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groups of people may use only one or two open-ended questions since the results from closed-questions are often easier to analyze, categorize, and tabulate. Typically, surveys begin with a series of closed-ended questions and end with open-ended ones. Surveys that primarily use closed-ended questions are quantitative because the results can be tallied and reported numerically. Those surveys that include mostly open-ended questions are qualitative because the information collected will need to be coded and organized in some ways, and the results are not as easily reported. Closed-ended questions typically use yes/no, true/false, multiple-choice, or rating scales as the answer options. The rating scale questions present a series of statements and ask respondents to rate their responses on a scale from one to five, where each scale rating includes a modifier. For example, family and social service organizations use rating scales when asking children about their quality of life, and hospitals often ask children to rate their experiences in pediatric wards. In these instances, the five-point rating scale is usually accompanied by a series of smiley faces that range from smiling to frowning. The visual rating scale in Figure 8.5 provides survey respondents an easily accessible scale that allows respondents to answer questions easily and accurately without having to think too much about differentiations among the answers.

Very Satisfied

Satisfied

Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied

Dissatisfied

Very Dissatisfied

Figure 8.5 Smiley rating scale.

Rating scales often have an odd number of choices (5 or 7) so respondents can stay neutral or have no opinion if they choose. Examples of modifiers include the following: Strongly approve

Somewhat approve

Neutral/ no opinion

Somewhat disapprove

Strongly disapprove

Strongly agree

Somewhat agree

Neutral/ no opinion

Somewhat disagree

Strongly disagree

Strongly Like

Like

Neither Like or Dislike

Dislike

Strongly Dislike

Writing effective survey questions also requires great attention to word choice and content. The Survey Research Guide from Colorado State offers four important concepts to consider while writing effective survey questions: directness, simplicity, specificity, and discreteness (http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/research/survey/). As you draft questions, you should address your audience directly (but with sensitivity) and be as specific as possible about what you are asking of them. Respondents should not have any trouble in forming answers,

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so use simple and straightforward language to avoid confusion. You should provide answer options that make sense to the target group. Specific, simple statements and questions will allow for less interpretation, which will help respondents answer more accurately. The survey questions below, designed by anthropology student Wendy Goff, investigate college students’ reactions to an artifact—a rough-cut tape of interviews with Hurricane Katrina survivors. Through survey and observation, she wanted to assess the students’ perceptions of the natural disaster and responses and their attitudes toward New Orleans victims of Katrina. After screening the twenty-minute video in which survivors recounted their personal experiences of the catastrophic storm and shared their opinions about the actions of government officials during the crisis, college viewers completed this survey. In addition to administering the survey, Wendy observed the students’ facial expressions and body language as they viewed the tape. The survey responses and her observations will help Wendy answer research questions and offer direction as she edits her taped interviews. Because Wendy is seeking individual responses to the event and administering her research tool to a small number of participants, she can easily include a greater number of open-ended questions.

Student Writing “Hurricane Katrina Survivor Movie: Response Survey” by Wendy Goff

Demographic Information Gender: Age:

❑ Female ❑ 18–24

❑ Male ❑ 25–33

❑ 34-over

Classification

❑ Freshman

❑ Sophomore

❑ Junior

❑ Senior

❑ Graduate Student

Race

❑ African-American ❑ Hispanic ❑ White, non-Hispanic

❑ Asian-Pacific Islander ❑ Native American ❑ White

Pre-questions What is your perception of the events and victims of Hurricane Katrina? How were victims of Hurricane Katrina most affected? What is most significant about Hurricane Katrina?

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Watch Movie Post-questions Did your perception of the events or victims of Katrina change? What primary feelings were evoked as you watched the film? What surprised you? Why? What disturbed you? Why? What was interesting about the film? Why? What do you question about the film? Why? What do you like about the film? Why? What do you dislike about the film? Why? What did you learn from watching the film? What questions do you have about the film?

If you wanted to use this set of questions to poll a greater number of people, you would change the open-ended questions to closed-ended questions. In changing the questions to closed-ended, some information will be lost. At the same time, to get in-depth, expansive answers to all of these open-ended questions is not realistic. As the following example illustrates, Wendy will have to make hard decisions about limiting responses in revised closed questions. Instead of asking open-ended questions, she can offer a choice of possible answers or ask respondents to rank how surprised or disturbed they were rather than relating why they experienced these emotions. The first question can easily be revised by providing the yes/no choice. 1.

Did your perception of the events or victims of Katrina change?

❑ Yes

❑ No

Rather than leaving the following question open to the wide range of feelings that respondents might discuss, Wendy could list specific feelings alphabetically from which respondents could choose. 2.

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What primary feelings were evoked as you watched the film? (Check all that apply)

❑ Angry

❑ Bored

❑ Confused

❑ Happy

❑ Helpless

❑ Indifferent

❑ Interested

❑ Sad

❑ Other ____________

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The following two questions assume participants were surprised and disturbed when watching the movie. If it is important to find out exactly what they found surprising and disturbing, then Wendy would want to leave this question open ended. If she knew what parts of the movies were likely to surprise and/or disturb respondents, then she could list these as options and have participants choose the one they felt was most surprising or disturbing. Or if Wendy wanted to know to what degree respondents were surprised or disturbed, then she could offer a ranking scale. What surprised you? Why? What disturbed you? Why? While an infinite number of responses could arise while watching the film and answering open-ended questions, there are probably three to five likely answers to each of these questions. Participants might be more prone to respond if given some options. Yes, options limit the range of information respondents can share, but also encourage participants to contribute and make it easier for the researcher to collate findings. What did you learn from watching the film?

❑ The plight of Katrina survivors ❑ The role of local government in the aftermath of the hurricane ❑ First-hand experiences of the event ❑ Health issues ❑ Other The following questions make the most sense as open-ended prompts since the answers may vary depending on the participants. However, it is sensible to combine them so the researcher only asks two open-ended questions in this particular survey. What was interesting about the film? Why? What do you question about the film? Why? What do you like about the film? Why? What do you dislike about the film? Why?

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Invention Exercise Creating Surveys 1.

Using the example above and your own analysis of surveys, generate a number of research questions pertaining to a specific artifact, community, or issue. Alternatively, devise a survey related to one of the research questions or issues you developed from a previous chapter exercise.

2.

What group of people could you survey to learn more about your question or issue? Who makes up the group or community most closely connected to your research question?

3.

What types of information or perspectives could you learn about by polling this group?

4.

Write a list of general questions for respondents.

5.

Take a look at your list of questions and note which are open and which are closed. To increase the ease of gathering and collating information, consider how you can turn open questions into closed ones.

Writing Survey Questions A good way to begin writing survey prompts is by analyzing other survey questions and then modeling your questions after appropriate examples. Imagine yourself answering these questions in order to make them clear and easy to interpret. Writing questions and designing surveys often involves coming up with answer options as well. It is important that in doing so, you don’t favor particular answers or outcomes that lead the participants to the answers you desire or expect. Leading participants is referred to as bias and can limit and skew results; writing value-free, questions that do not lead the participants to your anticipated answer takes practice. The following exercise asks you to write a set of survey questions, pre-test them with your classmates or friends, and assess them using the criteria below. Begin with the questions you developed in the earlier invention exercise, and use those questions, along with any needed additional information, to design a questionnaire for distribution. Your survey should include a title, an introduction that provides the context and purpose of the survey, and a brief thankyou statement. As with interviews, you’ll want to check with your instructor about institutional review board (IRB) protocol at your university. Refer back to Chapter 7 and the discussion of research ethics as you consider your participant population and the questions you will ask. Remember that responding to surveys takes time (no matter how brief the research instrument), and you will want to make the best use of your participants’ time. You can facilitate participation by accurately titling the survey and providing a brief introduction in which you explain how you plan to use the results.

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Writing Exercise Designing a Survey/Questionnaire 1.

Using the list of questions drafted in the earlier invention exercise (p. 214), organize the prompts in an order from general questions to more specific ones. Closed-questions should come first with open-questions at the end.

2.

Organize the questions so similar questions are near each other. For example, group all demographic questions together, or if your survey addresses a set of topics, organize the questions according to these subtopics.

3.

Write an introduction to the survey. Tell respondents why you are asking these questions and what you plan to do with the answers. It is also a good idea to tell respondents how many surveys you plan to distribute.

4.

Title the survey so participants know the nature of the questions they will be answering.

5.

Revise the questions using the techniques and guidelines discussed above.

6.

Once you have a draft of your survey, throw out problematic or unclear questions and revise accordingly before pre-testing the instrument with potential users.

Assessing Questions After you have a complete list of questions, assess whether participants can provide answers with relative ease. Think about potential answers that participants may report and whether they are willing to disclose associated attitudes and opinions. Participants may have trouble reporting or suggesting feedback based on your questions, and finally, participants may or may not be motivated to take your survey seriously if the questions are difficult to answer (Dillman 2000: 34–40). In addition, the Survey Research Guide (http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/ research/survey/) lists kinds of questions researchers should avoid when creating surveys: •

Double-barreled questions that ask two questions in one. The following example includes two funding possibilities: the funding of the dog park and the greenway. What about the person who wants to fund the greenway but not the dog park? Rate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement: The city and the community should partner to fund the dog park and the greenway.

•

Double negative questions that include statements with a negative word like not or never. The use of not twice in the following statement is confusing. What if a person agrees with one part but not the other? Rate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement: Citizens should not be required to contribute to a community fund that does not benefit them necessarily.

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•

Hypothetical questions that are usually not specific enough for respondents to answer without additional knowledge. For example, the following statement doesn’t describe the generic “life-saving” device or stipulate which animals will test it. For many respondents, their answer depends upon knowing this information. Would you support a company that made a life-saving device and used animals to test it? ❑ Yes ❑ No

•

Ambiguous questions that often confuse participants by being unclear or using confusing vocabulary. Defining the procedures in the following question would make the question clearer. Were the operation and discharge procedures explained to you before leaving the hospital? ❑ Yes ❑ No

•

Biased questions that point to the obvious or more preferred answer. This question makes positive assumptions about having gastric bypass surgery by referring to “the second lease on life.” Should all overweight people be given the second lease on life by having gastric bypass surgery? ❑ Yes ❑ No

•

Questions with long lists that can lead to mistakes or frustrate participants as in the question and potential answers below. Mark all of the things a university should provide for its students:

❑ Library ❑ Counseling ❑ Fitness Center ❑ Dining Options ❑ Tutoring ❑ Extra-curricular activities ❑ Guest Lectures ❑ Music Events ❑ Bookstore ❑ Sporting Events ❑ Medical Services ❑ Massages ❑ Study Skills workshops ❑ Career Fairs

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Survey Delivery and Sampling When deciding how to deliver your survey and to whom, choose the medium that allows you to survey the largest number of people necessary for your research. The size of this representative group is referred to as the population sample. The resulting data can then be collated, categorized, and/or analyzed to determine areas of potential research, findings, and conclusions. For example, if you are researching the origins of a school tradition or ritual and plan to survey other students at the college, you won’t need to survey every student at the institution; instead you will need a delivery method that provides information from a large sample of students. A well-defined population sample helps researchers generalize or estimate about a whole group of people based on a representative sample. You can still learn from a small sample, but you may not be able to generalize to a larger group. Surveys are usually distributed singly or in a combination of at least three ways. Written questionnaires include print surveys read aloud to respondents over the phone or through electronic or online means. Written questionnaires are most often printed documents upon which respondents can record their answers. These forms can be mailed to participants, distributed in a group or public setting, or otherwise circulated to the group. Phone surveys involve researchers asking respondents a series of yes/no or short answer questions from a printed questionnaire; respondents answer the questions over the phone. Electronic (Online) Surveys can be distributed in a number of ways through networked computers and can be created using online survey software like Google Docs or Survey Monkey. Figure 8.6 shows the questions students answered as part of a Google Docs survey administered in a digital writing courses. The survey asks students about their use and comfort level with specific technologies and includes a number of commonly used survey questions. Toward the end of this chapter, you will see some of the tabulated results from this survey. In online surveys, questions can be revised, added, deleted, and customized based on the researcher’s needs. Respondents fill out the survey and then return it to the researcher electronically by submitting it online. With the rise of smart phones, potential respondents can easily access surveys from anywhere. Sites like Google Docs and Survey Monkey make the creation and administration of surveys easy, and these sites automatically create summaries of the surveys that make analyzing the results simple. Links to these surveys can be distributed through email, Facebook, Twitter, and other online spaces. Keep in mind that some populations may not have access to online surveys or feel comfortable with technology. In these cases, you may want to distribute print surveys at parks, shopping malls, grocery stores, and other public spaces. In some cases, researchers employ all three types of delivery methods using the same questionnaire to reach the greatest number of respondents. Before designing a questionnaire, closely analyze your survey population so you can determine the best distribution method(s).

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(a)

English 4885 Technology Survey This survey asks you about your digital writing/composition experiences. Take a quick moment to fill it out and I’ll report the results at our next class meeting. *Required Name*

Age*

Major*

Major#2

Minor

I am a…* Mac PC Linux Unix Multi-platform

The first few questions are closed questions and ask for demographic information. Figure 8.6 Questions students answered as part of a Google Docs survey administered in a digital writing course.

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(b)

I am confident in my abilities using word processing software* 1

2

3

4

5

I can kinda type stuff…

I can make templates, macros, embed media, etc.

I am confident in my abilities using image editing software* 1

2

3

4

5

What’s Photoshop?…

Invented gradients and made layering possible

I am confident in my abilities using the Internet* 1

2

3

I’m scared to go online…

4

5 Are you Kidding? Al Gore stole the Internet Idea from me!

How comfortable are you with using the following office software products:* Never Used This Product

Somewhat Confident

Confident

Very Confident

Don’t Know This Product

Microsoft Word Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Excel Microsoft Access WordPerfect Open Office

How comfortable are you with using the following audio/video software products*

These set of questions are examples of rating scale questions where participants are asked to rate their experiences and comfort level with certain types of technologies.

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(c)

On an average day, what do you use the web to do?*

I have done the following with “new media”:* Made a PowerPoint presentation with images, audio, and video embedded Made a PowerPoint presentation that ran in “kiosk” mode Made a PowerPoint presentation that used hyperlinked slides Used audio software to mix, cut, splice, or dub audio tracks Made a movie from images Made a movie from video clips Made a movie mixing pictures, videos, and sound clips Published a video on YouTube, Facebook, or MySpace

I have the following experiences with blogs/blogging:* I have created a blog for personal use I have created a blog for school work I read blogs on the internet I read blogs on the internet but have no interest in writing my own I started a blog in the past, but I let it go I think blogging is the dumbest phenomenon ever and wouldn’t go near one

This survey includes an open-ended question as well as two multiple choice questions where more than one option can be selected.

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Managing Survey Results One of the disadvantages of survey research concerns response rate, which refers to the number of people who actually respond to your survey. For example, if you distribute a survey to forty people, you probably will not receive responses from all forty. Distribute the survey to many more people than you hope will complete it. You will want to send reminders (either electronically or in print) to participants as well to increase the response rate. Consider the response rate as you analyze and interpret the research results. Although a small response rate limits estimations or generalizations across a larger group, for your research purposes (including surveying a local community), a small response rate may be fine, as demonstrated in Wendy’s survey above. Paper questionnaires must be tabulated by hand while online survey results can be exported to excel or other spreadsheet software. Of note, most online surveys also collect and store your data. In some applications, the program may calculate response percentages based on the survey answers and even export data into graphs and tables for easy analysis and interpretation of the research findings (see Figure 8.7). Because surveys are limited by the questions asked, they are usually used in combination with other primary research tools such as observations and interviews. The next chapter discusses how to analyze, interpret, and write up research results (including survey results); draw conclusions; and make recommendations based on your findings. (a) I am a… Mac PC Linux Unix Multi-platform Other

Mac PC Linux Unix

9 15 0 0 2 0

38% 63% 0% 0% 8% 0%

Multi-platform Other 0

3

6

9

12

15

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%

I am confident in my knowledge of computer hardware 15

1 – I can find the power button… 2 3 4 5 – I rock a Linux kernel b/c I prefer a command-line interface

12 9

1 2 14 6 1

4% 8% 58% 25% 4%

6 3 0

1

2

3

4

5

I can find the power button… I rock a Linux kernel b/c I prefer a command-line interface

Figure 8.7 Examples from the Technology Survey. Both examples show how data can be presented in graph format, and displayed in numerical terms.

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(b)

I have done the following with “new media”:

Made a PowerPoint…

Made a PowerPoint presentation with images, audio, and video embedded Made a PowerPoint presentation that ran in “kiosk” mode Made a PowerPoint presentation that used hyperlinked slides Used audio software to mix, cut, splice, or dub audio tracks Made a movie from images Made a movie from video clips Made a movie mixing pictures, videos, and sound clips Published a video on YouTube, Facebook, or MySpace

Made a PowerPoint… Made a PowerPoint… Used audio software… Made a movie from… Made a movie from… Made a movie mixing… Published a video… 0

4

8

12

16

20

24

21 0 12 6 11 9 7 13

88% 0% 50% 25% 46% 38% 29% 54%

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%

I have the following experiences with blogs/blogging: I have created a…

I have created a blog for personal use 8 33% I have created a blog for school work 7 29% I read blogs on the internet 18 75% I read blogs on the internet but have no interest in writing my own 3 13% I started a blog in the past, but I let it go 3 13% I think blogging is the dumbest phenomenon ever and wouldn’t go near one 3 13%

I have created a… I read blogs on… I read blogs on… I started a blog… I think blogging… 0

Figure 8.7 continued

4

8

12

16

20

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%

Profile of a Primary Researcher Mandee Foushee Analyst for a Survey Research Center We asked Mandee Foushee Lancaster, an analyst for a research center, to describe her job gathering information for a wide range of companies and organizations. Each Center for Survey Research (CSR) project is different, so I try to find national best practices in the field to guide each new project. I also use these various best practices to develop innovative research methods and designs individualized for each client’s needs. I also stay up to date on the latest research designs, survey methods, sampling strategies, statistical techniques and presentation styles. Much of the research conducted by the Center for Survey Research is communitybased public opinion research. Depending on the specific needs of the project, phone, mail, and online surveys are administered to samples of the target population. CSR employs both undergraduate and graduate students to assist with various aspects of the process including, but not limited to, data collection, report writing, and presentations of findings.

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The audience for CSR’s research findings varies by project. Much of the research for local government entities influences planning, policymaking, and resource allocation. The research with faculty furthers the specific research agendas of each faculty member for publications and progression within their discipline. The institutional level research in which CSR is involved assists administration in planning as well as program development and improvement. CSR produces written reports of findings to guide policymakers and stakeholders. The reports are also made available to the public to increase awareness. CSR staff also co-author manuscripts for publication and present unique methodologies and projects at national association conferences such as the University Economic Development Association and the American Public Health Association.

Reading The following survey is typical of community research and asks citizens questions about the potential use of vacant city property.

Community Land Use Survey Next month, the City Council will discuss the use of the vacant lot on the corner of North and 1st Street in the downtown area. As someone who works or lives in this area, tell us how you think the space should be used. Please take a couple of minutes to complete the following survey: 1.

What do you think about the following possible uses for the vacant lot? Strongly approve

Somewhat approve

Neutral/no opinion

Somewhat disapprove

Strongly disapprove

Dog park

1

2

3

4

5

Children’s playground

1

2

3

4

5

Community garden

1

2

3

4

5

Sports park

1

2

3

4

5

Community center

1

2

3

4

5

Commercial use

1

2

3

4

5

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Residential use

1

2

3

4

5

Community Theatre

1

2

3

4

5

Community Literacy Center

1

2

3

4

5

No change

1

2

3

4

5

Other use

1

2

3

4

5

2.

How strongly do you agree with the following statements related to the use of the vacant lot? (Circle the number that best matches your level of agreement). Strongly agree

Agree

No opinion

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Neighborhood residents should contribute financially to help develop the vacant lot.

1

2

3

4

5

Neighborhood residents should volunteer their time to help develop the vacant lot.

1

2

3

4

5

The city should raise property taxes to pay to develop the vacant lot.

1

2

3

4

5

The city should apply for grants to pay to develop the vacant lot.

1

2

3

4

5

The city should pay to develop the vacant lot.

1

2

3

4

5

3.

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How concerned are you about the development of the vacant lot?

Concerned

Somewhat concerned

Neutral/ no opinion

Somewhat unconcerned

Unconcerned

1

2

3

4

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4.

How should the City Council keep residents informed of progress on the development of the vacant lot? (check all that apply)

❑ Hold a series of community meetings to receive input ❑ Include progress reports in the daily newspaper and neighborhood newsletter ❑ Involve residents in the decision process ❑ Post progress reports in public and surrounding buildings ❑ Post progress reports on the city’s website 5.

Please add any additional comments regarding the use of the vacant lot:

6.

How long have you been a resident of the neighborhood?

❑ less than one year ❑ 1–5 years ❑ 5–10 years ❑ more than 10 years 7.

Age:

❑ 18–29 ❑ 30–39 ❑ 40–49 ❑ 50–59 ❑ 60 or older 8.

Gender: ❑ Female ❑ Male

Thank you for completing the survey.

After Reading

Q

1.

Why should local residents be polled about the vacant lot?

2.

What important questions, if any, are not asked in the survey? What potential problems do you foresee by omitting these questions?

3.

Are any of the questions superfluous?

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4.

What role might the final demographic information play in the surveyors’ use of information learned from the survey?

5.

Do any of these questions go against the “good advice” for designing survey questions listed above? Which ones?

6.

Can you think of other open-ended questions that would strengthen the survey?

CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter introduces surveys as an important primary research tool. Surveys allow researchers to glean quantifiable data from a large number of participants in a relatively easy manner. However, designing a survey requires thoughtful consideration of the target population, practice in designing questions, and knowledge of distribution methods. Analysis, revision, and pre-testing are the watchwords in designing effective surveys. In this chapter we provided: • • • • • •

definitions of key terms associated with survey design; advice from expert researchers; sample surveys to analyze and model; information about the three most common methods for distributing surveys; guidelines for designing a survey; tips for pre-testing and revising surveys.

In Chapter 9, we discuss rhetorical strategies for presenting your work. While you may already be familiar with these rhetorical terms, we discuss these concepts as they relate to primary investigation.

References Dillman, Don A. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

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Part III Writing and Delivering Your Research

A Rhetorical Approach to Research and Writing

9

Our approach to writing takes its cue from classical rhetoric, a discipline with a long history of training speakers, called orators or rhetors, to understand the distinct purposes and various audiences for oral and, later, written compositions. Elements of this classical framework practiced by rhetoricians like Cicero and Quintilian, among others, still apply to communication that has a specific purpose, targets an identified audience, and exists in a social context. Today’s typical characterizations of rhetoric as “empty language,” “manipulation,” or “political speak” defy centuries of rhetorical education and practice. Aristotle, author of one of the first analyses of rhetoric, defined rhetoric “as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” Many scholars and practitioners have extended this definition to include nearly all types of writing and communication. Historically, classical rhetoric was divided into three categories of speeches, each with its own context and location in time: deliberative, judicial, and ceremonial (sometimes called epideictic, which means “fit for display”). Effective examples of rhetoric most often fell into one of these categories, and rhetoric almost always took the form of a speech delivered to an audience. Later rhetoricians expanded the initial categories of deliberative, judicial, and ceremonial purposes for rhetoric; however, these three historical categories can be useful in thinking about contemporary research-based writing, especially as a way to understand the inherent timeliness and occasions for incorporating primary research into your work and figuring out the best methods for delivering your findings. These categories and occasions for communicating still serve specific purposes, as we will discuss fully.

Deliberative Rhetoric We are constantly bombarded by language and communication that urge us to take some action, from attending an event to buying a product to taking advantage of campus services. Deliberative rhetoric urges us to take an action (or not) and focus on future acts or actions like voting and advocacy. Other examples of deliberative rhetoric include requests to participate in an organization’s run or walk or to donate money for an important cause. As you were deciding which college to attend, maybe you were persuaded by someone you met on a campus visit or through the school’s website or brochures. Perhaps you had a friend who went to the same college or family members pushed you toward a particular

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Figure 9.1 Washington State University website. Source: www.wsu.edu/

choice. Student organizations also have an arsenal of persuasive tactics for recruiting students to join campus organizations. These campus examples focus on future action and are examples of classical deliberative rhetoric. Referring to the Washington State University screenshot in Figure 9.1 or by going to your own university website, what persuasive elements do you find on the institution’s home page? What message do you take away from the images about the university and its mission? Who is the target audience for the webpage, and what is the implied deliberative message?

Judicial Rhetoric Judicial or forensic rhetoric, focuses on past actions, behaviors, or decisions. Think of the type of rhetoric used by lawyers in a courtroom where people are accused and defended based on their past actions. Judicial or forensic contexts usually call for particular communication that defends or accuses someone or some group. This type of rhetoric is often observed in a courtroom. If you have ever watched Judge Judy, The People’s Court, The Good Wife, or Law and Order, you have witnessed examples of forensic rhetoric. A person is accused of some action that occurred in the past, and another party makes an argument in the person’s defense. In these contexts, a jury or judge needs to be persuaded by one of the opposing arguments. Outside a courtroom, judicial rhetoric is displayed by anyone justifying past actions or decisions. In many professions and careers, decisions related to hiring and firing must be justified, and other actions must be documented in case of future disputes.

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Ceremonial Rhetoric Ceremonial or epideictic rhetoric offers praise or blame in the present tense—the kind of speeches you might hear or deliver at funerals, inaugurations, graduations, and in pulpits. You are also quite familiar with ceremonial, or what the ancients called epideictic rhetoric, if you have listened to a funeral eulogy, graduation speech, or a religious message. Epideictic rhetoric also characterizes letters of recommendation, obituaries, and retirement speeches where people are often praised.

Reading In the following speech excerpts, Tom Brokaw, a widely trusted and famous network news broadcaster, delivers an epideictic address to the graduating class of 1999, a group standing on the precipice of the twenty-first century. In looking back on events of the last century, Brokaw both casts blame and engages in praise of the “greatest generation.” This ceremonial speech serves as a good illustration of the possibilities within ceremonial writing and speaking. Set in the present, it is crafted and delivered for a specific occasion and hearers present at the event.

“Commencement Address” by Tom Brokaw Commencement Address to the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, June 11, 1999 One hundred years ago another class of ’99 was anticipating a new century, rich with the possibility of the new technologies—electricity, the automobile, the first tentative steps toward flight. The men who controlled the railroads and steel and oil were amassing great fortunes and making America the new industrial and financial capital of the world. The labor leaders aroused armies of workers to claim their fair share. God, the possibilities for advancing the human condition and expanding the cosmos of intellectual understanding. The 20th century—what a triumph. And what an ugly scar on the face of history. Two world wars with millions of casualties, holocausts in the heart of Western civilization, in Southeast Asia and in Africa, killing millions more. An ideology designed to empower the masses became one of the most ruthless instruments of oppression. Rival nations pointed at each other terrible weapons capable of destroying life on Earth as we know it. In the closing days of this momentous time, in the American culture, maniacal homicide committed by school boys shocked the nation into a dialogue of ill-defined blame—while in Europe the

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most powerful political and military alliance on the globe made a clumsy but successful attempt to neutralize a murderous tyrant and set off a refugee crisis of historic proportions. The short lesson: technology is not enough, not even when it comes with all the bells and whistles, stock options, sabbaticals and a Gulfstream. The long lesson? It is not enough to wire the world if you short-circuit the soul. It is not enough to probe the hostile environments of distant galaxies if we fail to resolve the climate of mindless violence, ethnic and racial hate here in the bosom of Mother Earth. It is not enough to identify the gene that predetermines the prospect of Alzheimer’s disease if we go through the prime of life with a closed mind. I am incapable of helping you advance your knowledge in many of the subjects that define your generation, and brought you to Cal Tech especially the new technology. But I have learned something of the political and social possibilities—and failings—of mankind in my 37 years as a journalist. First, for all of its shocking and brutal stretches of oppression and extermination, the most powerful single idea of the 20th century is personal freedom. But freedom alone is not enough. If we use our freedom only for selfish purposes. If we fail to first recognize then deal with these societal cancers in our system we will have squandered a priceless legacy left to us by what I have come to call the Greatest Generation. They are the men and women who came of age in the Great Depression when economic despair was on the land like a plague. In families youngsters quit school to go to work—not to buy a car for themselves or a new video game. They quit to earn enough to help their family get through another week. Here, the young men and women who had just been tested by the Great Depression were to be tested again—in the battlefields thousands of miles across the Atlantic or thousands of miles across the Pacific. More than 12 million in uniform, millions more at home on the assembly lines, converting the American economy into a war machine overnight. Women went to work where only men had prevailed—in the cabs of trucks, in research labs, in ship building yards. They saved the world. Nothing less. Then, they came rushing home to go to college in record numbers, marry in record numbers, give us new art, breakthroughs in science and industry, expanded political freedoms and, always, a sense of the possible. They weren’t perfect: they were too slow to recognize the equal place of women—and racial minorities, especially Black and Asian Americans. But those women and Black and Asian Americans were part of the tensile strength of this generation for they never gave up. They all recognized that for all of the genius of the American political system and the framework of laws, beginning with the Constitution, the enduring strength of this immigrant nation has been its common ground, wide enough and strong enough to accommodate all races and beliefs. Now great fault lines run through that common ground. We have political leaders too eager to divide for their selfish aims rather than unify for the common good.

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In the business arena we celebrate the astonishing good fortune of those at the top without raising enough questions about the economic opportunity of those at the bottom. I wonder, is this what the Greatest Generation made all those sacrifices for? So now, in this new age of spell-binding possibilities for communication, information retrieval, marketing and proselytizing we are undergoing another major shift in the norms of how society is organized for every day life, work and play. It is wildly exciting to be on the frontier of such an empowering era. But no piece of software, no server or search engine will offer you the irreplaceable rewards of a loving personal relationship, the strengths and comfort of a real community of shared values and common dreams, the moral underpinning of a life lived well, whatever the financial scorecard. These are mere tools in your hands. And your hands are an extension not only of your mind but also of your heart and soul. Taken altogether they’re a powerful combination. Use them well. Take care of your Mother/Mother Earth. Become color blind. Hate hate. Fight violence. And take care of each other. You have a whole new century to shape. I envy you, but I want to stand aside now because you have work to do. Buck is easy to make. Tough to make lots of bucks—easier to make a difference. Source: “Information and communication: a life well lived.” Vital Speeches of the Day 15 July 1999: 607+. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 June 2011.

After Reading 1.

Q

In what ways does Brokaw intend for this speech, delivered at Cal Tech, to inspire the graduates in the audience?

2.

What is the effect of opening the speech by characterizing the 20th century as a “scar on the face of history”?

3.

What is the overall purpose of Brokaw’s praise of the Greatest Generation?

4.

How does mention of weaknesses of the Greatest Generation strengthen Brokaw’s overall argument and praise for this group?

5.

Why do you think Brokaw ends his speech with a list of imperatives for the new graduates?

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Communities in Context American Rhetoric, The Power of Oratory The website American Rhetoric, The Power of Oratory (http://americanrhetoric.com/) gathers in one space a database of audio, video, and transcriptions of public speeches, sermons, lectures, and other communication events. While this site does not involve discussion among users or require membership, it does provide a section for scholars studying rhetoric as well as those interested in the top 100 speeches of the 20th century as well as popular movie speeches.

Website for American Rhetoric. Source: http://americanrhetoric.com

Questions for Analysis 1.

Q

After spending some time surfing the website, identify the organizer’s goals and the specific language characterizing the field of speech communication.

2.

Choose one of the speeches from the list of top 100 speeches from the American Rhetoric Archive, http://americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html.

3.

Listen or watch the speech (if it includes a video or audio version) and/or read the transcription of the speech.

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4.

Write down your answers to the following questions about the speech. •

Why was the speech given and for what occasion?

•

Who gave the speech and how did this person establish a relationship with his or her audience?

•

What incident or context caused the need for the speech?

•

Who was the specific audience for the speech? Were there other secondary audiences for the speech?

•

What do you know about the writer or person who delivered the speech?

•

Which category does your speech fall in—deliberative, judicial, or ceremonial? How do you know?

5.

Considering your answers to the above questions, write a couple of paragraphs about the speech including the audience, purpose, and context of the speech along with information about who delivered the speech you chose for this exercise.

The Elements of Rhetorical Situations Carefully consider an essay or speech’s writing context or situation, particularly in terms of the rhetorical elements of audience, purpose, and context. A majority of school writing involves proving that you have mastered course material or learned a skill like argument, research, and critique. However, real-world or authentic assignments—writing done outside the academy—has specific purposes, apart from learning material or getting a grade. This kind of writing is targeted for a specific audience or community and has a defined purpose based on the needs of the writer and reader. The writer, purpose, audience, context, and genre combine to form a rhetorical situation that dictates your research and writing agenda and provides you with a structure to begin composing. We realize that finding a topic and deciding how to develop it may be initially difficult. Knowing the questions to ask about an occasion for writing as well as developing relevant content can be a bit confusing at first, particularly when a specific purpose and audience is not defined for you. However, using the elements of the rhetorical situation will help you identify the occasion and generate the content needed to deliver your message.

Writer As a writer, you might refer to yourself as speaker, author, creator, or designer, depending on what type of document you are producing. A writer needs to consider all of the elements of a writing situation to decide both what to write and what form or genre the message should take. For example, a writer for a non-profit organization often promotes a fundraising event using a press release, flyer, or postcard. Additionally, organizations routinely

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write letters thanking participants for attending events and donating time and money to the organization. In your writing, use appropriate rhetorical appeals to establish credibility with your audience and adapt the style and tone of your writing for a specific purpose, audience, and context (more on these concepts in the next section). Writers must also reflect on values, beliefs, and biases related to the topic at hand and understand how these opinions might impede or help meet an audience’s expectations. Keep in mind that your personal and professional associations will influence your writing as well. For example, if you are writing for an organization that receives donations from members of a political party different from your own, how might your beliefs affect your ability to write promotional documents on behalf of that organization? Your values and belief systems provide you with a perspective on topics and influence how and about what you write. Recognizing and acknowledging any biases you have in relationship to the target audience helps establish your credibility.

Profile of a Primary Researcher Kristin English Public Relations Professor English works both as a university professor and as a public relations professional in commercial settings. She discusses the range of primary research tools that public relation specialists use to target specific messages to intended audiences. What kind of research do you conduct in order to do your work? Public relations (PR) specialists work in various capacities for clients within organizations, companies, and non-profits. Research functions occur in two main arenas, internal and external. For research within the organization, PR specialists perform secondary research projects such as communications audits and environmental monitoring. These often include content analyses of media coverage, competition communication, and industry information. Additionally, evaluation research is completed before, during, and after any campaign or initiative. Outside of the organization, PR specialists complete research in areas such as message effectiveness, public opinion, and crisis management. Both qualitative and quantitative research is used including surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Information gathered is utilized for monitoring issues, creating appropriate messages, and assessing public opinion. Social media monitoring is also a high-priority type of research. Where and how do you collect your data? Collection methods vary depending on the type of research. For audits and monitoring research, media coverage is collected from various sources including traditional and

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digital forms of communication. Both online and paper surveys are used often to collect responses, especially for evaluation research. Social media monitoring software is utilized to analyze various platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and blogs. Interviews and focus groups are the most commonly used qualitative methods. Collection points may be convenient public areas, such as malls and events, or more direct recruitment, such as customers or employees. Who is the audience for your research findings? The type and objective of research determines which audience might be interested in the findings. Generally, there are three main audiences: internal, media, and publics. Primarily internal audiences, including managers and executives, use evaluation research. However, results may also be of interest to the publics served by the organization or company. During a crisis, research findings can be useful to all audiences. Also, in some cases, PR specifically pitches research findings to the media to gain coverage. What types of documents do you write? Documents written by PR specialists are both internal and external in nature. Examples include internal reports, press releases, social media posts, newsletters, fact sheets, backgrounders, website content, annual reports, and public service announcements.

Purpose You already know about the wide variety of general purposes for writing: to inform, document, influence, argue, entertain, amuse, appeal, please, convince, instruct, explain, or call to action. Most writing has a primary purpose and several possible secondary ones as well. For example, newsletters from non-profit organizations provide good examples of documents with several distinct and different goals. A newsletter’s main purpose is to deliver to current or potential members news about the organization, which might include articles and pictures of past events, announcements of future events, and general information. For example, Figure 9.2 shows a newsletter for the Museum Association of Montana. This newsletter includes a front page that displays the museum logo, a photo of the museum, and a table of contents. Also shown is the president’s message and a list of museum supporters. Published donor lists persuade others to donate and become members while, in general, newsletters promote future events by suggesting ways readers can get involved. Newsletters can be challenging to write and design given all the purposes of such a document. Likewise, corporations publish annual reports in which they declare the previous year’s finances and project the company’s future success for current stockholders and future investors.

Audience As a writer, you should have in mind an audience and readership for your writing. Even creative writers, those who write fiction and poetry, hope their writing is enjoyed and

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Newsletter Volume 45, Number 1 Winter2012

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