We Came, We Saw, We Compoconed
By Krystina Ortiz and Antonio Salinas
Attending Compocon opened our eyes to the intricate processes that occur at each step of the writing process. We hope to give you a taste of what we experienced and we hope that this will help students in their writing endeavors of First Year Composition. Compocon is a series of sessions that sets out to teach first year composition students their different options they can use in helping with their writing and aims to give students a better understanding of tasks asked of them during their writing. The sessions we attended formed a sort of outline of the writing process of a research paper. So to start with, students writing a research paper must first develop a research question or topic and this is where the first Compocon session we attended factors in.
Developing A Question
To begin with, the session “Developing a Question” led by Bonnie Garcia informed that a question is not just a “question” but it is actually more complex. Your question must have meaning and a clear insight to what you are going to discuss in your writing. For example, if your question is “How do students in college deal with stress?” is broad and you should start developing a question that would speak to a specific group of students. Find what group of students and at what college/university you would like to discuss and where is the stress coming from. After developing the specific details you want to discuss and specifying the spectrum of your question it should look or sound something like “How do college seniors at The University of Texas Pan-American deal with stress from graduation?” This can be considered a more developed research question because it hones in on a more specific type of topic that can be better thoroughly researched.
Building A Research Journal led by Carl Nelson
Once you have a solid idea of what your research question or topic is, you should begin composing a research journal. The session “Building A Research Journal” informs students on what a research journal is exactly. Carl Nelson, who was the leader of this session, is a UTPA reference/instruction librarian that helps students with their research. He begun the session by providing us with ideas and information on how to build and keep a research journal.
A research journal is a log of information that can and will be useful for the student in the research process. Student are recommended to keep notes and titles of books they have read, websites they have visited, and any type of information they have come across while researching; It is recommended for students to keep this log so that they do not lose any vital information that can be used for their research paper. mentioned that the importance of a research journal was so that all of the students ideas, notes, and resources can be placed in one easily accessible location.
We also learned that other important things that can be kept in a research journal include the chosen research question, topic, or thesis. Research journals are also helpful in refining a research question, so that the question can be made as specific as possible. A research journal can greatly help students by giving them a variety of sources to incorporate into their papers. When students do not make an attempt to keep a log of past research they are at risk of losing important information that can greatly increase the effectiveness of their paper. I felt that this session provided incredibly handy information about an often overlooked step--the research journal-- in the research process. I believe that this information can be advantageous for students like me, because we tend to not keep very good track of notes and sources that we have come across while researching. I’ve mistakenly lost out on good sources on multiple occasions because I never bothered to write them down.
I have never really made a wholehearted attempt to keep a log of my sources because my mindset has been, “Well, if I found it once, I can find it again”, which was really wrong. I remember when I was writing my research paper for 1301 Composition and Rhetoric, I was constantly losing good sources to use in my paper because I never wrote down what I had searched, where I had found it, or the name of the resource. I’ve lost out on good and beneficial information that could have really improved my paper, and I don’t want others to experience the same thing. So, log everything that can be useful in your paper and you’ll end up with more resources than you know what to do with.
Researching Family History at UTPA
After you have started composing a research journal, you can ease into the research process by researching your family history. The session “Researching your family history at UTPA” led by (#####), was focused on guiding students on conducting research on their own family through databases that can be found at the UTPA library and their website. We were given steps on navigating to the Genealogical Research subject guide on the UTPA library website.
On the site, students can begin by reading how-to guides such as “The complete idiot's guide to genealogy” and “Finding your Hispanic roots” or “Hispanic American genealogical sourcebook.” Students can find information regarding their family history through the USA Census Information, Social Security Death Index, and even Texas County Records Available on Microfilm; All available through the UTPA library website and the library itself. Session leader recommended that before beginning family research, that students try and obtain as much information as they can about their families, such as: when and where family members were born, when and where they got married, known surnames, family papers, certificates, photographs, and the like. It is also recommended that students write down everything that they learn to ensure that they don’t mistakenly leave gaps in their family history.
UTPA provides excellent resources for those interested in studying their personal family history, giving students the ability to discover unknown and undiscovered parts of their roots and origins. During my time there, I was able to find a census that my grandfather and his family was counted in from the 1940’s (picture below). It was quite an interesting experience because I thought it would be much more difficult to find any type of information on my ancestors; I also believed that finding anything on my family would require me to pay some amount of money. Fortunately, all of these researching services are free to UTPA students and I highly recommend students to try and research their families. I think the process of researching one’s family history can be a great way for developing first year composition researchers to practice on their exploration of sources and information. Whether it be for academic or personal use, I think students can have a lot of fun while also learning more about their families and I think it is a great resource provided by UTPA.
(An excerpt from Cameron County Census in 1940)
Do The Right Thing led by Kelly Leu
Once students have gathered enough information to begin writing their papers, they must always remember that they must do all they can to avoid plagiarism in the work. This is where the session “Do the right thing” led by Kelly Leu comes into play. Kelly Leu is a Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian at UTPA. The point of this session was involved in teaching students to “do the right thing” by avoiding plagiarism in their writings. “Doing the right thing” as put by Kelly Leu is to avoid plagiarizing another person’s work by learning to correctly cite resources you plan on using in your writing.
I believe this session to be important because after you’ve finished writing your paper, it will literally mean nothing if it has found to have been plagiarized. Ms. Leu told us that by avoiding plagiarism/taking credit for someone else’s work you are showing respect to the original author and creator who spent time and hard work composing their thoughts, words, and research. We were given tips on avoiding plagiarism such as: “Cite your sources - anything that is not your original idea”, “take careful notes”, and “use your own words and phrasing.” As well as, what should be cited (author’s idea and opinions, quotes, less well known facts, and obviously, anything that is not your own original idea) and what does not need to be cited (common knowledge and commonly known facts). The question, “How will I know?” regarding what to cite was answered - anything that is subjective (based on experience), by performing “the test” (find it in three sources), and “when in doubt cite it!” Examples of how and how not to paraphrase another author’s works and ideas were given and explained.
From the picture below, the first example is an original quote from the original author’s work. The second example is a bad example of paraphrasing of the first example because it references the original author, but it’s still the author’s work put into different words and this can still be considered plagiarism. The third example is the best example of paraphrasing, it gives the original author credit with a citation and the original quote is framed instead of rewritten in the second author’s work. This information should be used by first year composition students because we run a higher risk of mistakenly plagiarizing someone else’s work because we are still in the introductory phase of learning composition and rhetoric.
(Kelly Leu’s example of good and bad paraphrasing.)
We have to stop plaigerism before it even starts and therefore, we have to learn how to properly cite and give credit to the original authors. Plagiarism is one of the worst things we can commit during our writing because it is disrespectful to the original writer(s) and it comes with very serious consequences. Plagiarists can face consequences such as expulsion from school, stripped of important titles, and future trust in the plagiarist will be put in jeopardy. I can’t stress the advice of avoiding plagiarism. As I mentioned earlier, we are constantly running into the risk of accidentally plagiarising someone else’s work but if we follow the tips of Kelly Leu we can avoid that risk altogether.
We ended this week of Compocon with tons of useful information that we surely intend on using in our own development of our research paper. We want to make sure students remember some of the many key points that we learned from these sessions and those include:
During the development of the research question, students should keep in mind that they should refine their questions to be as specific as possible, but to also choose something they find interest in.
Students can lose out on useful resources for their research papers if they don’t organize their notes and sources in a research journal.
A good way for students to practice researching specific topics is to start off with researching their own family history with free resources provided by UTPA.
Students should learn how to properly paraphrase, cite their sources, and give credit to original author’s so that they avoid plagiarism at all cost. Plagiarism can lead to very serious consequences.
These are all things students should keep in mind when they are writing so that they can create effective papers and conduct appropriate research. We would also like to mention, that this information only touches base with the writing process and we recommend that students seek additional education and assistance if they ever need any help clearing up any concerns they may have with their writing. There are a variety of helpful resources and individuals provided by UTPA that revolve around helping students write efffective research papers and students should take full advantage of these resources.
