"InQuiry"

“Think of it as a conversation”

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I walk into the room expecting to see an auditorium full of people listening to a speaker present on the mistakes college students are making when they are doing a research paper, and to top it off going through a PowerPoint on how our writing is not up for the professional world.  I walked into the room, expecting to see and auditorium full of people present for the speaker. The presentation is about the errors that college students make when doing written assignments. 

However, I entered a normal looking classroom, where I could see myself taking a class, barely full of students, but at times there were some students sitting on the floor, and the most shocking realization is that the speaker was not there to say what we are doing wrong on our research papers. 

In the contrary, he helped us face our fears when writing our research papers. For example, a 1302 English student shared that his fear when writing a research paper is the way he writes papers because he tends to write like a conversation that he would have with a person. The problem with this is his vocabulary because when he talks to a person he doesn’t boost out a fancy big word so his professors don’t think that his writing is formal enough for an assignment.

 

Strengths rather than equality

 

The first session of Compocon was “Strategies for choosing a research topic,” presented by Colin Charlton. Mr. Charlton gave a simple, yet efficient way to start a research paper. The steps were easy to remember since I was able to understand them. First, we have to gather the information about the topic that our professor wants us to do research for. Second, we need to find out what type of research we want to do or that is interesting. Then, we need to come up with questions we care about and want to find out. Lastly, we need to find out the resources we have available. His presentation was simple, and straight to the point. He used most of his time answering question students had. The most helpful advice I obtained from him was, that when you work with a group in a research paper, you must first find the strengths and weakness of everybody in order to complement has a group, and not about distributing the work “equally”.

 

 

Spontaneous Markers 

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 One session I attended felt spontaneous because after waiting for 30 minutes for a session to start, a presenter not on the schedule gave a presentation about “How we are all theory makers” and how The “theories are nothing more than ideas of how the world works”. He explained we have theories in every aspect of our lives that explain how to do something, for example integrating in math, writing an essay, or how to find true love. Regarding developing an interesting research paper, he advised finding middle ground between the individuals who are conducting the research and the class interest. Once you have established this, you consider a proper balance of “reporting” and “inventing” within your research. His advice was 80 % originality and 20 % of quotes from your sources. For a spontaneous presentation, I sure plan to incorporate his teachings when writing a research paper.

 

Look for what is not there

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My favorite session was “Using sources” with Katherine Hoerth. Her idea of research was that “Research is searching for knowledge, looking for answers that haven’t been found”. Her idea of research is that you must center it on your point of view while creating a point. The writing has to be in the manner of a discourse conversation. Once you find out your main point, you have to use credible sources to support your ideas. To select credible sources, you must try getting them from an academic journal, such as “.edu or .org” websites, a library’s database, or by an expert in that area.

 

The limits

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I recently attended a session on “Library Database Search” led by Carlton Nelson. His presentation was very informative, and his main goal was to teach us how to use Boolean search phrases. Initially, I was unfamiliar with this concept, but by the end of the presentation, I felt confident in my ability to quickly find relevant sources for a research paper. 

To conduct Boolean research, you first identify the key terms related to your research. Then, you combine these terms using operators like “and” (which limits the search), “or” (which expands the search) or “not” (which excludes specific terms from the results). This technique enables you to find precise articles related to your research topic.

 

Fears and Suspicions

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          The session called, “Haters Club” made a major impact on how I saw research papers are supposed to be written. Many present students shared their fears when it came to writing a research paper; One of the most common fears being how their ideas could be transmitted through their writing. 

   Students were afraid that their research paper wasn’t formal enough for their professors, since they were going to be the ones reading it, grading it, and pulling it apart. However, the presenter gave us a different way to address the way we start a research paper without any additional anxiety..

    “Identify who your audience is, and then focus on how you are going to be able to talk to your audience when you have a conversation with them,” was the presenters' main advice for students. In other words, write the paper based on how you would talk if you were having a face to face conversation with your audience.  

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Compo Con.

    

• CompoCon is designed to engage students by offering different perspectives on improving their research papers rather than pointing out mistakes.

• Some presenters gave brief presentations and used the rest of the time to answer questions, which was helpful for everyone, including those hesitant to ask.

• Initially, I expected CompoCon to be like typical lectures, but I was pleasantly surprised by its interactive nature.

• The event helped me develop my research question and get on the right track.

• My advice: don't be afraid to ask questions.

• If you're working on research, attend sessions on data collection methods like interviews and surveys—they are incredibly useful.

• I highly recommend all students attend future CompoCons; the insights are invaluable.

• Encourage to engage with others to receive different perspectives.

• Discuss feedback given during CompoCon to help improve other considerations. 

• Include stories from other individuals that attended CompoCon and see their improvements in their research.