#4

I totally just have to go for it when I write! I find that if I just go for it I am able to get my idea out on the page. I fins that once I just get everything out on the page I am then able to go back and correct and critique my ideas.

It was interesting to read about Murray's thoughts about the need to stray off the path. If we consistently stay on the straight path we will just be writing things that your teacher already knows. In once sense I agree. I think that id we are so particular about every little thing we write, we offer no flavor to our writing. This then gets boring and can be unbenificial. I think that flavorful writing comes form those who take chances to go off the "straight path" and offer a different flavor to a certain paper.

In chapter 15 Murray shares some ideas that enable you to get your writing process going. He suggest that you focus on Conflict, Tension, Mystery, surprise, information, worry, joy, connection, personal territories, point of view, voice, new, and significance. 

He states that a focus line is a response to life.

I think that if you have a focus in writing, it helps you get your odes and thoughts focused on a certain idea. He gives some tips so that you can find a focus. Murray suggests that you begin by ending, or controlling an image, or anticipating the reader's need.

Overall I found that these chapters have been helpful in getting outside the box, creating the right outline and finding a focus.

EYE

Murray here again talks about how our ideas would come as we write. “When I start writing, the pictures I did not know my brain had taken in come to mind” (Murray 133). I think in some degrees what he says is true. For me the best way to brainstorm is to write. Writing any random thoughts about the topic and a lot of time it takes pages to get ideas that would later put on my paper. Although it takes a lot of time on brainstorm stage, this step gets me a fuller engagement on my writing and a sometimes I do find ideas I would probably never thought of if I didn’t have my free writing.

His idea about the writer’s eye is interestingly similar to what I learned from my theater class. The actor’s eye. As actors we try to find relationships, scenes before and scene after in order to have fully engagement with the scene and the character. And the same concept for writers, being aware of specifics, patterns, and past and future will make its writing alive. Following that I think not only readers will enjoy the writing, writer will as well enjoy the process of exploration.

Relevant Research

Murray says in chapter thirteen that the researcher must have the courage take his eye off the ball when writing a paper. Murray then tries to reconcile the fact that a researcher must have the courage to take his eye off the ball with the fact that in order to be an effective researcher you need to be organized and focused. Murray makes the point that if we always keep our eye on the ball our research becomes boring and irrelevant. We do not want to write papers that are unoriginal with nothing to add to the subject we are writing on. However, I would argue that we do not need to take our eye off the ball in order to make good research. Rather I would argue we need to look at the ball from different perspectives. We need to use our curiosity to look at all angles of the issue thereby making our research relevant.

I really liked the point that Murray and Dr. Schut’s point made about using counter voices in research. This makes writing a lot more interesting and easy to do. I like the idea of a research paper being a conversation with the reader and the other experts in the field. This in my opinion will lead to a much more engaging and thought provoking papers.

Sources.............

I have a source. What now? This is the question that I have long struggled with. One of the main reasons my papers tend to be low on sources is because who has time to read so much? Badke addresses this issue in chapter 8 of Research Strategies. He begins by saying to deal with all resources as quickly as possible. This seemed rather counter intuitive at first. Should I not contemplate and search for deep meanings in my sources? Yet, I believe Badke is suggesting that you do not take time to contemplate the information that is not relevant to your topic. “Be efficient and discerning” he urges.

Badke then continues to baffle me completely. He suggests I read the “title page, preface, forward, and introduction.” In other words, he recommends reading all the parts of the book that I normally view as extraneous. I have always been told the introduction is the most important part of the book, but my argument has been that the introduction is also the most boring part of the book. However, what I believe Badke is doing here is trying to give me tips on how to research well, not to be entertained. The introductions, I am told, contain a basic overview of what the book is about. This is helpful when you are trying to gain only what you want from the book and you are trying to do so in a timely manner. That is very useful when you have only a week to write numerous research papers and you are not very good at writing in to the early hours of the morning.

Putting the pieces together!

Reading through Murray this week was short, to the point, and enjoyable. I found chapter 9 very useful because, he gave 11 examples of different ways to outline. As I read through them I found two that I particularly liked. The first one was outline #4, making lists of Beginning, Middle, End, and Brain Storming List. I think I like this structure, because I am a list person. The second one I thought useful was outline #10. In English, my Professor is teaching this kind of technique. So far all I know is that you write on 3 by 5 cards all your ideas in an orderly fashion and then you can physically move your ideas around by moving the cards. I think that making a habit of incorporating either one of these structures or putting a bit of both of them together will really help me understand the structuring process of a paper. Right now I just put random ideas on a page, which are (really) good, but they don't have any where to go once I have written them. My ideas seem to get lost in a big picture that I haven't defined yet, and can't, because there is no definite focus. 

This brings me to the next piece of advice that I thought very well communicated from Murray: The Focusing Line. "... It is the product of all the observation and thinking that comes before the writing: listening, brainstorming, mapping, freewriting" (143). I now understand necessary details that have to be figured out before you start writing. So far I see that you need creativity and structure. After you have enjoyed your creative train of thought you then come to the focusing line. I like this idea very much. It is not your thesis statement, but it is a way of organizing all your creative ideas before you delve into tackling the thesis statement. Basically the focusing line focuses you. Now that is sweet and simple!

POST #4

Three things I would like to talk about after reading Badke's chapter 5 & 6. They are keywords searching, hidden Internet and information evaluating. 

First of all, I was highly impressed by Badke's words in class. He sated that search engine was not able to know your mind. They just show you the texts that include the words you typed in the search box. His words waked me up. I used to have weakness on determining search words. I used to chose very obvious terms, like the subject or object of my topic or thesis. And I know this is not an efficient way. So, in order to avoid the wide and vague search results. I prefer to use advanced search. However, through reading 5.1.1 Making the Catalog Work for You, I learned I should critically think about my research question, then use some terms that are very related to my topic, instead of the topic itself.  Also, I should think about some terms that can reflect my topic as well. I am practicing the new idea of keywords searching in my assignments now. It is not easy, but I think I will get it with Professor's help.

Secondly, I found a new thing in chapter 6, hidden Internet. I am very interested in this section. I've never noticed those "hidden Internet". In other words, I might once searched them, but I gave up because they require username and password, or some sort of payment. It might be not necessarily to look at those hidden Internet, but I think it's good to know them.

Lastly, I think I have a controversy with the standard of evaluating information. I mainly agree that it is very important to evaluate the authors' credibility, education background, the organization's credibility and so on. When I was taking ENGL 101, I've learned this from Professor Melinda. Now the same idea got addressed by Professor William. I can see this is really a serious part in research. However, I personally think not only scholars or high educated people have great and correct perspectives. Sometimes, an fantastic idea or a new practical theory comes from a normal person. And I am very enjoyed to see other people's perspective on some particular issue or topic. They always inspire me a lot and make my thoughts rich. 

How to Use Search Engines

I had always thought about that using search engines is the easiest thing in the world. You just put the key words in the Google, choose your favorite information and then click the mouse. However, I have learned lots of searching skill from these two chapters. Such as use library catalog. The skill helps me find books in the library. As you know we cannot read books on the internet, libraries still an important source of our researches. Therefore, a good library catalog user will find more information than a guy who doesn’t know how to use it.

In Badke's book, he shows lots of interesting web pages, like http://books.google.com. I think that web site is really awesome!! We can read books online and it is free!! Although we cannot read the whole book, it still helps us to get the theme of the book easily. When we use this web site, searching information will become lots of easier. We should not go to library find books but maybe the books are useless for our writing. However, we can search the main point about the book and then go to library or book story to get our books.