The Thrill of the Chase

It is time to start the research essay. I fear that students may approach this unit with dread. It is a long essay and, here at the beginning, it looks like a long road. But I envy students just getting started on research. It's a world full of possibilities and interesting new ideas and arguments. I'm always most excited by the the research phase--it is only second in excitement and satisfaction to finally being finished!

Research is exciting because every avenue is open. You should approach your research with an open mind--the interesting possibilities will be missed if you simply go into your research hoping to find support for a pre-existing idea or argument. In fact, this approach--using research to back up an argument--is exactly the opposite of academic inquiry. In academic inquiry, in general--and academic essays, in particular--arguments and theories should develop from a close examination of the evidence. If you don't approach your research with an open mind, willing to see ALL of the different existing perspectives on a topic, you'll be shortchanging yourself, and--more importantly--misleading your reader. While misleading your reader may not seem like as big an issue as actual plagiarism, the end result is similar. Plagiarism makes it seem that someone else's ideas are yours. Ignoring important lines of thought in your sources makes it seem someone else's (or many people's) ideas don't exist. In both cases, the end result is a distorted picture of the actually existing evidence. As a writer, your job is to try to provide the clearest picture you can of your topic.

This doesn't mean, of course, that you have to agree with every source your use. In fact, some of the best arguments--and thus the best productions of new knowledge--come from strong disagreements. But such a disagreement MUST start from a strong understanding of the source as well. To dismiss a source, or a line of argument several sources take up, is to indicate a failure of understanding on the writer's part.

But I've gotten ahead of myself and into the more difficult territory of evaluating arguments and figuring out your own position amongst them. Here, at the beginning, dig in and try to enjoy the ride for a while.