"InQuiry"

“Think of it as a conversation”

 

Expectations

I walk into the room expecting to see an auditorium full of people listening to a speaker present on the mistakes college students are making when they are doing a research paper, and to top it off going through a PowerPoint on how our writing is not up for the professional world. However, I entered a normal looking classroom, where I could see myself taking a class, barely full of students, but at times there were some students sitting on the floor, and the most shocking realization is that the speaker was not there to say what we are doing wrong on our research papers. In the contrary, he helped us face our fears when writing our research papers. For example, a 1302 English student shared that his fear when writing a research paper is the way he writes papers because he tends to write like a conversation that he would have with a person. The problem with this is his vocabulary because when he talks to a person he doesn’t boost out a fancy big word so his professors don’t think that his writing is formal enough for an assignment.

 

Strengths rather than equality

 

The first session of Compocon was “Strategies for choosing a research topic”, presented by Colin Charlton. Mr. Charlton gave a simple, yet efficient way to start a research paper. The steps were easy to remember since I was able to understand them: first, we have to  gather the information about the topic that our teacher wants us to do research for, secondly, we need to  find out what type of research we want to do or that interested us, thirdly, we need to come up with question we care about and want to find out, and lastly, we need to find out the resources we have available. His presentation was simple, and straight to the point. He actually used most of his time answering question students had. The most helpful advice I obtain from him was that when you work with a group in a research paper, you must first find the strengths and weakness of everybody in order to complement has a group, and not about distributing the work “equally”.

 

Spontaneous Markers

 

One session I attended felt spontaneous because after waiting for 30 minutes for a session to start, a presenter that was not on the schedule gave a presentation about “How we are all theory makers”. We have theories in every aspect of our lives that explain how to do something, for example integrating in math, writing an essay, or how to find true love.The presenter explained to us that “theories are nothing more than ideas of how the world works”, and I totally agree with him. His advice to students was that if you want to developed an interesting research paper you first have to find middle ground between the individuals who are conducting the research and the class interest. Once you have establish this you have to find the proper balance of “reporting” and “inventing” your research must have. His advice was 80 % inventing; your own original words, and 20% quotes from your sources. For a spontaneous presentation, I sure learn to plan on the proper balance between “reporting and inventing” when it comes to my research paper.

Look for what is not there

 

My favorite session was “Using sources” with Katherine Hoerth. Her idea of research was that “Research is searching for knowledge, looking for answers that haven’t been found”. Her idea of research that you must center it on your point of view while creating a point. The writing has to be in manner of a discourse conversation. Once you found out your main point, you have to use credible sources to support your ideas. To select credible sources you have to try getting them from an academic journal, “.edu or .org” websites, a library’s database, or by a person who wrote an article who was on expert in that area.

 

          The limits     

The last session I went was to “Library database search” with Carlton Nelson. His presentation was very informative. His main goal was for us students to learn how to use a “Boolean search phrase”. I didn’t know what that was, but at the end of his presentation I felt like I could find anything I needed for a research paper in a matter of seconds. First you must find the main key terms in your research and then put them together with “and” which is a limit, “or” it expands the search, or “Not” which will exclude anything that has that key term in your results. This will allow you to find precise articles related to your research.

 

Don’t be a hater

Overall, the session called, “Haters Club” made a major impact on how I saw a research paper is supposed to be written. Many of the present students shared their fears when it came to writing a research paper and one of the most common fear was how their ideas were transmitted through their writing. They were afraid that their research paper was not going to be formal since they thought a research paper was suppose to be completely address to their professors since they were going to be the ones reading it, grading it, and pulling it apart. However, the presenter gave us a different way to address the way we start a research paper. Research is not only reaffirming a claim that authors, writers, researchers, scientists or professors have already formed and attempted to proof, but to make your own opinion and looking for how it presents itself on society. “Identify who your audience is and then focus on how you are going to be able to talk to your audience where you are having a conversation with them,” that was the presenters main advice for students. In other words, write the paper based on how you would talk if you were having a face to face conversation with your audience.  

 

 

CompoCon

At the end, CompoCon is not designed to mimic a classroom, but is designed differently for students to be engaged by providing different views on how improve students’ research paper, not to tell them they are doing everything wrong. Some presenters gave short presentations that would help you with your research paper, and would use the remaining amount of time to answer any session other students had. I thought that was a bright idea since some students were afraid of asking, but those who did asked helped others who were struggling with the problem too . My opinion of compocon change from the moment the first session of compocon started. Initially I thought compocon was going to be about professors teaching powerpoints they have had for years on a flashdrive and just repeating what the slides had written on them, but I was wrong. Now when I think of compocon, I remember how they helped me developed a research question and how to get it started in the right path. The best advice I can give you is that if there's another event like CompoCon, DO NOT be afraid of asking a question;there’s no such thing as a stupid question. For those who know what their research question and know what to do, I strongly recommend to attend the sessions that focus on collecting data for a research such as interviews and surveys, since the professors would help developed the most accurate way to obtain data. I encourage for every student regardless if they are doing a research paper or not, to attend future CompoCons. The information you get is truly amazing and the people who are giving it to you are professionals who are there to help us out.