You Live, You Learn, You Write.
My Inquiry Research Paper
How I got started
During class we read a piece by Henry Rollins. This piece was like an inquiry paper about rape and how men view women. I had to try to figure out what his inquiry question was. Reading his piece influenced me to develop my own inquiry question about the music industry.
Response to Henry Rollins Piece
This blog post was created when I had to try to choose a topic that I wanted to research. I started off wanting to research women in the music industry and I explain why I wante to research that specific topic.
Blog post five was actually one of the most challenging times in this process. You would think that finding sources would be simple, but it was kind of difficult for me. I found so much information about the music industry, popular music artist, and current situations related to my topic, but I had trouble determining the sources that would be credible.
This is a slideshow of pages from my daybook that lead up to my inquiry research paper. Page 1-2 Are notes that I took on advice about creating a good inquiry question. This information was very useful because I really didn't know where to begin with my inquiry question even though the Henry Rollins piece helped too. Page 3 is when I began brainstorming about inquiry questions for women in the music industry. Page 4 is actually when my topic began to change and I was able to develop better inquiry questions for my research. It also shows a little love from my friend Jacqui! (Click on the photos in the slideshow to view larger photos)
Inquiry Research Rough Draft
Welcome to the My Process page of my e-portfolio. During the spring semester of my freshman year, I had to complete a lot of writing pieces for my English 1102 class. I have decided to show you the process I had to go through to complete my inquiry research paper. I wanted to include my inquiry research paper, Talent and Image in the Music Industry, in this section because I came to college without any previous knowledge about what inquiry was. Throughout this project I have learned a lot and I have developed a working knowledge about inquiry.
In class we were all assigned an inquiry research project and my first thought was, “Oh, great! More research.” The thought of another research paper only reminded me about the senior project that I had to complete in high school. Even though I did a great job, I still had no other positive connections between me and research papers. The next thing I thought about was all of the sources I would have to find.
To start the inquiry project I had to think of a topic that I wanted to know more about. I ended up choosing the music industry as my main topic because I have a deep passion for music. To be more specific, I decided to focus my attention on the women in the music industry. After choosing my topic, I had to work on developing my inquiry question. What was it that I actually wanted to know about women in the music industry? Asking myself this question actually led me to change my topic to something more general like talent and image in the music industry. During class we read a piece by Henry Rollins that gave me a good idea about how to develop my own inquiry question which soon became, “What does the music industry value more, talent or image?”
Finding sources for this inquiry project was the most challenging thing for me to do. A lot of the sources that I found were very opinionated, but I was able to find a few sources, such as the Mili Vanilli incident, that had more credible information to use in my research paper. Beginning my rough draft was an easier process, but I had no idea how to cite some of my sources. I wasn’t really confident in my rough draft, but I felt better about it after receiving feedback from my peers. I was able to make a few changes to my paper and I eventually figured out how to cite some of my sources correctly for my final draft. I think that I had a well written research paper overall. There are a few things that I would change to make the flow of the paper better as well as my conclusion. Even though I didn’t enjoy doing the research for this paper, I discovered a lot of new information about the music industry and how long this topic has been relevant in our society.
Developing my Inquiry Question
A Bit of Brainstorming
Beginning My Research on My Topic
What sources work?
Peers Always Give Advice
This is another slide show. It also displays pages from my daybook, but this is a day that we had topic presentations. I had to present my topic and inquiry question and I had the opportunity to get some feedback from my peers. One thing referred to me during this topic presentation was the group Milli Vanilli. I did more research on this group and I included some information about them in my research paper, so my peers advice was helpful.
This is the first rough draft of my inquiry research paper. It is titled Talent and Image in the Music Industry. This is the draft that I left comments. On page on I left two comments: 1) "How do I cite a Youtube video, or a quote from a video?"
2) "Is the intro good enough?" I had never used a quote in a paper from a video before, so I had no idea how to cite the source. I also lacked confidence in this rough draft so I wanted to ask my peers if my into needed to be stronger. Page two also contains a comment about a source that I didn't know how to cite. On page five I left a comment saying that I "still have to add info from primary research(survey). The last page is my incomplete works cited page.
Putting everything all together
Click each picture to enlarge image
What My Peers Had to Say
I really appreciated getting some feedback from a couple of my peers. One of my classmates said "I think you need to find your voice in the argument," which encouraged me to try to inlcude more of my personal opinion within my research paper.
Click on images to enlarge.
I Live. I Learn. I Write.
Inquiry Research Paper: Final Draft
This slide show displays screenshots of differents places where I revised my inquiry research paper. i didn't have to make a lot of changes, but pictures 4 and 5 show what I decided to add to the research paper. Page 4 displays where I added information from my primary resource survey. Page 5 displays a section that I added to include more of my personal opinion on my research topic and inquiry question. This slide show doesn't display the full research paper. To view the orginal copy of my inquiry essay, click and download the document below on the left. To view the full research paper with added comments click and download the word document below on the right.
ORIGINAL WITH COMMENTS
ORIGINAL
