At the beginning of this semester, one of our very first assignments was the Stylus Inquiry Brainstorming (Artifact #1) task. This assignment aimed for students to read through already-produced works of previous research papers and spark up our own lines of inquiry regarding the formatting, content, and production of each research paper. We are instructed to see if we recognize any patterns; after reading those articles, we see any research goals we’d also like to use in our writing. With this, we also had to identify what topics regarding rhetoric, language, and discourse community we'd like to explore similarly within our own research production.
Generating Inquiry
As well as the Stylus Inquiry Brainstorming Activity, there is the very first major writing assignment that set forth our research process, the Initial Research Proposal (Artifact #2). This assignment was aimed towards students to propose their interest topic proposal for their entire research project that would make up the rest of the semester. More specifically, this was the beginning of where I'd start to question my previous writing skills regarding being able to contextualize properly and give enough depth about my research proposal and, thus, support the entire reason why I decided to choose the discourse community that I had chosen. At this point, and after receiving my first instructor feedback draft back, my brain looked like the image to the left... spiraling out of control at the bottom of the mountainside.
"Students will be able to generate and explore genuine lines of inquiry related to writing, language, literacy, and/or rhetoric"
| Initial Research Proposal |
Stylus Inquiry Brainstorming (Artifact #1) Explanation:
"Students will be able to generate and explore genuine lines of inquiry related to writing, language, literacy, and/or rhetoric," says the posted Generating Inquiry outcome. For this assignment, I began by exploring previous lines of inquiry, for example. Within the series of questions, like "What were their research questions?" and "What kind of writing/communication are they researching?" The green highlighted portions of this assignment are me exploring the published Stylus article about the Vaccine Skepticism Discourse and the vital role rhetoric plays within its participants and the creation of their platform. Thus, as I read, I identify their research questions regarding the rhetorical Techniques that the participants use to diminish credibility and establish their own. I believe I successfully completed this outcome because, here specifically, I not only explored already published lines of inquiry made by others, but a vital portion of the assignment was to correlate our own research ideas and our own inquiry that we possibly might want in our own research. Highlighted in the grey, towards the bottom, I explain that inspired form this paper, I established my organization goals and sufficient background information and started to question my inquiry that related to True Crime Creators using story-like rhetorical features to attract their mass population of listeners.
Research Proposal (Artifact #2 Explanation)
After utilizing prior inquiry assignments like the Stylus Inquiry Assignment, I learned that to adequately justify and, in a sense, successfully present my proposal in my area of interest, I needed to devise a series of questions and subcategories that would connect my prior knowledge about my community with already existing lines of inquiry that would prove its relevance within the realm of language and communication. I could not simply state my community and question, I needed to provide enough context of the proper questions to support my reasoning, so I devised a new game plan to guide myself step by step. For example, In order to really justify my proposal I needed to ask myself what was I even researching? What are the vital factors of this topic that I cannot leave out? I divided my proposal into three subcategories: The actual True crime aspect, the podcasting aspect, and the discourse/research aspect. As I explored the podcasting section, I guided myself through the path of it becoming a revolutionized present-day communicative aspect. Small questions like these, or as I generated inquiries, helped me unlock better scopes for me to defend my position and reasoning.