Shannon Costello

I might summarize research as taught to me in high school by saying that it is an organizational tool, a series of steps resulting in a completed paper: find sources dealing with the selected topic, gather information (painstakingly documenting all the while), and spit the information back out in the form of a carefully cited paper. The focus is on process. I graduated high school understanding little else of research save that documentation is very necessary.

Documentation is an essential step in the process but is hardly the most important step. The point of research should be to forge one’s intellectual gleanings into something new and interesting. Why are you writing this? What do you want to show?

In my current rudimentary attempt at research, pressed upon me by a demanding graduate class, I have read extensively, as opposed to skimming an encyclopedia article for basic facts. I have thought and written about what I have read…my first annotated bibliography. The final written product will be an attempt to synthesize what I have learned from my readings as detailed in the bibliography.

Research is a great deal more challenging than I ever realized in high school, but definitely more rewarding. I may even retain more from this than I ever did about, say, Cameroon when I “researched” it in high school. At least…I think it was Cameroon…