J. McKenzie Hansen
Research and Documentation
For this section, I decided to choose two pieces I wrote for Introduction to Research Methods and one piece I wrote for Nonfiction Writing. I chose my Literature Review and Mock Research Proposal from Introduction to Research Methods because it demonstrates my secondary research skills and knowledge of documenting sources. I chose my Meals and Memories family cookbook project from Nonfiction Writing because it demonstrates my primary research skills.
I took Introduction to Research Methods my first semester of the program and the course taught me a lot about using credible sources and how to find those sources. For my Literature Review and Mock Research Proposal, I collected my research using the databases through the Ottenheimer Library as well as finding information through the search engine, Google Scholar. Using these two approaches provided me with credible, scholarly articles that researchers in the technology and education fields had researched and developed.
My Literature Review was very extensive because it required at least 20 sources related to my research topic: Screen time and the effects it has on child development. Up to that point in my college career, I had never had to do that much research for an assignment. Knowing about Google Scholar and the resources provided by the library were very helpful in conducting my research. I gathered all my sources, printed them out, and began reading and annotating each article.
To properly site my sources for my projects in Introduction to Nonfiction, I used APA style because that is what was suggested by my professor. I am very confident in my citations because I use Purdue OWL as a resource when citing sources. I am also very confident in using other documentation styles, such as Chicago and MLA. Because I have taken a variety of classes in numerous departments on campus, I have become well versed in these three documentation styles. I still use Purdue OWL as a resource when I am unsure how to correctly style my paper.
For Meals and Memories I conducted primary research by looking through family cookbooks for notes made by the family chefs and interviewing family members about a memory associated with each dish. I had each family member that contributed to the cookbook sign a consent form stating that I could use the information gathered in the interview for my project. I did not use a formal citation method for this project; however, to give credit for the recipe and the memory provided, I included the name of who the recipe came from and the name of who the memory came from.
Introduction to Research Methods made me comfortable with finding credible sources online and conducting secondary research, and Nonfiction Writing made me comfortable with conducting interviews and primary research. Both classes and the assignments I completed in them have made me more aware of conducting proper research and correctly citing my sources in a variety of documentation styles.