As you work on your
literature reviews it is a good time to discuss how you can and should share
the information you will learn from your sources. We have already talked about
how to find information and how to evaluate it, but that is the easy part of using
sources.
Some common mistakes to
avoid include throwing everything into the kitchen sink. This means including
everything you find related to your topic. While this approach might seem like
a good idea if you look at the kitchen sink pictured you will see that this
approach is too overwhelming for the reader. There is no room to maneuver in
here – throwing that much information at the reader feels like a bombardment of
information with no chance to think or process. Plus, who knows what
interesting or useful items might be buried under the clutter. As a reader I
don’t have the time, energy, or interest in excavating – your job as the writer
is to sift and sort through the information you find and share only the best
and most important information so I’m not buried. However, there is more
involved than that – good writing also means that your words and ideas should
play a primary role here. This is your work and we should be able to see you in
it.
This means sandwiching
your nuggets of valuable information (and they should be nuggets – think bite
sized tidbits rather than chunks that require a knife and fork) between full,
thick layers of your own words. You need to make your argument clear first.
What is the point? What do you want people to consider or ask? Why do you care?
Why should they care? Only after you have drawn the reader into your topic do
you bring in your source information to support your argument.
It is important,
especially the first time you use a source in a particular project, to
introduce your source. Who is this person and why should we care what they have
to say? Have they conducted extensive research? What is their expertise? And
don’t forget that every source also requires proper documentation including
both in-text citation and a works cited page entry.
Now you are ready to use
your source material but you still need to exercise caution. You have a choice
about how to use that information. You could quote, paraphrase or summarize
(learn more about the difference in Ch. 20 (specifically using source p. 555 as
well as on the Purdue OWL) but essentially it is the difference between using
their exact words, selected ideas, or the main ideas. It is very important to
remember that the use of direct quotes, and especially block quotes, should be
extremely limited. Only use the exact words when that exact wording is just as
important as the ideas they present. In most cases, you will share the ideas rather
than the words. Good writers are more than parrots.
One final important point
is that the impulse of many writers is to now immediately jump to the next
source or the next tidbit of information but remember you are not making a
chain here – you are making a sandwich and that requires two pieces of bread
for each filling. This requires that you return back to your own words and
ideas. You need to explain the connections to your argument and then move your
argument forward in your own words before beginning the process all over again
with your next source.
For your weekly
reflections I want you to consider where you have gone wrong in the past or
your potential for straying from the path of good writing in the future. For example,
all these mistakes (the kitchen sink, bombardier, parrot, and chain) are ones I
have made in the past. Admitting the problem/mistake is the first step toward
healing yourself! Let’s see if we can identify any mistakes that I’ve
overlooked here.
Are you ready to make your own sandwiches?
