The Craft of Research. "Chapter Two: Connecting With Your Reader."

2.2 Understanding Your Role

-"In a research report, you must switch the roles of student and
teacher. When you do research, you learn something that others
don’t know. So when you report it, you must think of your reader
as someone who doesn’t know it but needs to and yourself as someone
who will give her reason to want to know it" (18-19).

My Response): This is were I become the teacher and try to prove to my professor
I have created a truly original work with new and informing ideas.

--"you’ll be expected to find (or create) a community of readers who
not only share an interest in your topic (or can be convinced to),
but also have questions about it that you can answer" (19).

-- "Your report on medieval Tibetan weaving,
for example, might help rug designers sell more rugs, but its
basic aim is to help scholars better understand something about
Tibetan art, such as How did medieval Tibetan rugs influence the art
of modern China" (20)?

2.3 IMAGINING YOUR READER’S ROLE

-- "you know they expect you to
be objective, rigorously logical, able to examine every issue from all
sides. You also know that if you don’t nail down your facts, they’ll
hammer you during the question period, and if you don’t have
good answers, slice you up afterward over the wine and cheese, not
just to be contentious or even nasty (though some will be), but to
get as close as they can to the Truth about zeppelins in the 1930s" (23).

My Response) If I'm introducing "new stuff" it has to be relevant to my conversation
more so than just presenting "new stuff" It will help if can answer the question of
how it affects the subject then and how it affects it now.

A Checklist for Understanding Your Readers

answer before I start my project and and when I start compiling my data

1. Who will read my report?
• Professionals who expect me to follow every academic convention
and use a standard format?
• Well- informed general readers?
• General readers who know little about the topic?
2. What do they expect me to do? Should I
• entertain them?
• provide new factual knowledge?
• help them understand something better?
• help them do something to solve a practical problem in the
world?
3. How much can I expect them to know already?
• What do they know about my topic?
• Is the problem one that they already recognize?
• Is it one that they have but haven’t yet recognized?
• Is the problem not theirs, but only mine?
• Will they take the problem seriously, or must I convince
them that it matters?
4. How will readers respond to the solution / answer in my main
claim?
• Will it contradict what they already believe? How?
• Will they make standard arguments against my solution?
• Will they want to see the steps that led me to the solution?

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